Report: College Football Season is on the Brink of Postponement

A postponement of the college football season is reportedly gaining serious traction.

According to a report by Heather Dinich, Adam Rittenberg and Mark Schlabach on ESPN Sunday evening, each of the Power Five conference commissioners held an emergency meeting to discuss the growing concerns of playing football (and other fall sports) this fall.

ESPN says several sources indicated that the Big Ten presidents are ready to call off the fall season after their regularly scheduled meeting on Saturday. Sunday's commissioners' meeting is supposedly to gauge the likelihood that the other major conferences would follow suit if they made that decision.

"In the next 72 hours, college football is going to come to a complete stop."

Leaders around the industry are meeting over the next three days with expectation of a postponement or cancellation to the 2020 fall college football season.

with @ByPatForde https://t.co/ur7MQMD23D
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) August 9, 2020

As was reported yesterday, Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren is reportedly in favor of a spring season, but that the league's university presidents did not vote on that issue yesterday as not every school president was represented at the meeting - notably, Ohio State incoming president Kristina Johnson. A Big Ten official confirmed to ESPN that no vote took place yesterday.

"It doesn't look good," one Power 5 athletic director told ESPN.

Presidents and chancellors of the PAC-12 schools have a meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

Sources: Attempts to salvage the fall 2020 college football season are all but over. “It’s gotten to a critical stage," one told SI. "I think all of us will be meeting with our boards in the coming days. We have work to do that is no fun.”
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) August 9, 2020

"Nobody wanted to be the first to do it," a Power 5 coach told ESPN, "and now nobody will want to be the last."

A Power 5 administrator added: "It feels like no one wants to, but it's reaching the point where someone is going to have to."

Saturday was perhaps the first major domino to drop in a fall sports cancellation after the Mid-American Conference became the first FBS league to postpone football. They are hoping to hold a spring season.

Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger and Pat Forde have each reported over the past several days that a fall football season seems increasingly unlikely.

Prominent industry source: "I think by the end of the week the fall sports will be postponed in all conferences."
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) August 8, 2020

According to the ESPN report, several sources told the network they think the postponement or cancellation of the football season seems inevitable. Many of those sources think it would take a Power Five conference school to make that happen, but that once one league makes the decision, the rest would follow. The Big Ten or PAC-12 would likely be the first to pull the trigger.

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