With Athletic Directors Meeting This Week and Presidents Next Week, Big 12 Decision Will Wait
STILLWATER -- With two down and three to go as far as Power Five conferences making critical, landscape decisions concerning college football, the Big 12 and it's commissioner Bob Bowlsby are still waiting. All of this rhetoric throughout the spring about the Power Five conference commissioners meeting daily and being in lockstep with each other turned out to be malarkey. The least experienced commissioner on the job, Kevin Warren of the Big Ten jumped out of line last week and declared a conference games only schedule for his league.
New Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren fired first on shrinking football season to conference games only.
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“This is not a fait accompli that we’re going to have sports in the fall,” Warren said on the Big Ten Network. “We may not have sports in the fall. We may not have a college football season in the Big Ten. We just wanted to make sure this was the next logical step to try and rely on our medical experts to keep our student athletes at the center of all of our decisions and make sure they are as as they can possibly be from a mental, physical and emotional wellness standpoint.”
Larry Scott of the Pac-12 not only shrunk the season to conference games only, but also revealed he had COVID-19.
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Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott followed up on Friday afternoon with the declaration that his conference would follow the Big Ten lead and also play conference games only in the fall, if there are any games period. Then Scott proceeded to alert the media that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
This move impacted Oklahoma State with the scheduled opener on Thursday, Sept. 3 against Oregon State. The contract, according to Oklahoma State administration has a clause for postponement, so Oregon State will come to Stillwater to play in another season.
As for the Big 12, Bob Bowlsby has always been targeting the tail end of July as a time where decisions have to be made. He has not changed. Bowlsby revealed that the Big 12 athletic directors are meeting by Zoom on Tuesday. There will be plenty to discuss at that time. The Presidents of the Big 12 will meet on Monday, July 20. Oddly enough, that is the same day that the Big 12 will begin a two-day virtual Football Media Days.
Bob Bowlsby has said the Big 12 decisions on football will wait for 10-14 days.
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“We’ve been advised to go and constantly re-evaluate what we’re doing and move ahead as long as scientists and medical personnel are telling us it’s safe to do,” Bowlsby told The Dallas Morning News on Thursday.
The scary aspect of this is what the virus is doing currently in the State of Oklahoma and other states across the south and southwest, including Texas. COVID-19 has been spiking and while the deaths have not risen, cases have. The original hope as these states opened up again for business and for the economy was the summer heat and the spring precautions would cause the virus to minimize. That has not happened.
“We’re certainly paying attention to that and watching carefully, but so are our scientists and doctors,” Bowlsby said. “They are the ones that really help us make the evaluations.”
The Big Ten and Pac-12 announcements were surprises, but I honestly feel that Bowlsby and the Big 12 will hold off on a decision. That also leaves the ACC where outgoing commissioner John Swofford has said they would wait. The SEC makes the loudest sound of the Power Five and they were meeting on Monday. The belief is that while there is serious doubt about the season, even in the eyes of their commissioner Greg Sankey, they will wait until it is a no choice situation to modify the football schedule or to postpone the football season.
The SEC commissioner has been very down recently about football possibilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic raging in the south.
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Oregon State as we said, the opener for Oklahoma State is out on Thursday, Sept. 3.
In fact, on Monday the athletic department sent out a letter to season ticket holders that included this in the letter.
"Due to the PAC 12 Conference's decision to not play non-conference games, the Oregon State home-opener has been impacted," read the letter. "Currently, the Oklahoma State Athletics department is exploring its choices and will share information as soon as it is available.
"As a season ticket holder, you will not be expected to pay for games that are not played," continued the letter. "Once OSU Athletics determines that playing a scheduled home game - including rescheduling or replacing it - is not possible, we will contact you with many prorated refund options. Thank you for your patience as we explore options for replacing the Oregon State game."
Just for housekeeping reasons, here are the schools that now have openings on the first weekend of college football: Alabama, Bowling Green, Bucknell, BYU, Colorado State, Florida Atlantic, Hawaii, Illinois State, Kent State, Monmouth, North Dakota State, Northern Arizona, Northern Iowa, Portland State, TCU, Towson, Utah State, and William and Mary. Another option is move the opening game up a week as Oklahoma is trying to do and then many more opponent options exist.
Dantrell Savage rushing the football against Alabama in the only meeting ever between the schools in the 2006 Independence Bowl. New Alabama head coach Nick Saban watched from the press box.
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My personal favorite is call Alabama and offer to play the game in Arlington. If I were Alabama and had the option I would play TCU before playing Oklahoma State, but you never know.
