Reports: Power 5 Conferences Moving to Cancel 2020 Season
What we long feared now looks inevitable.
Per reports from SI's Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger, the Power 5 conferences are on the verge of a historic decision. The Big Ten is allegedly on the verge of cancelling their fall football season, and according to Dellenger, it may only be the first domino to fall.
The Big Ten was the first Power 5 entity to announce a conference-only schedule for the fall of 2020, and school presidents are reportedly holding a meeting tonight to decide the fate of their football season. In his report, Forde referenced the same damning quote.
Forde reported that one source had said, "In the next 72 hours, college football is going to come to a complete stop."
Power 5 commissioners held a meeting meeting Sunday, and though it had been scheduled in advance, it offers little hope that any good news is on the horizon. The Pac-12 and Big 12 both have presidents' meetings scheduled for Tuesday, but that timetable may be accelerated depending on what else transpires tonight.
Only one school (Florida International) still has its full 12-game schedule intact after a tumultuous week at the administrative level in college football. Multiple conferences decided to cancel their schools' nonconference schedules, then several FCS conferences cancelled their fall seasons, then UConn became the first FBS program to opt out of the season, and then the MAC became the first FBS conference to issue a cancellation of their season.
It's unclear what the next step would be, although football fans certainly hope that the NCAA and its member institutions would move expediently to shift the season to the spring of 2021. But that in itself is a logistical Gordian knot, and may in the end be too much trouble to reasonably accomplish.
College football survived World War II unscathed. But it's not going to survive COVID-19 in similar fashion.
The dominoes have begun to fall, and a grim fate appears inescapable.
Stay up to date with SI for breaking updates from around the college football landscape as this story continues to develop.
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