Texas Football: Report: Big 12 Still Discussing a Return to Spring Football Practice

According to recent remarks from Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte, spring practice hasn't been completely removed from the table.

Del Conte told 247 Sports that the Big 12 athletic directors have been conducting a series of teleconference calls with ongoing talks about a variety of subjects as campuses across the country shut down as a precaution against the spread of COVID-19.

The University of Texas campus will close down student housing by March 30 and conduct classes online for the rest of the semester.

"First and foremost, we're making sure our kids on campus have a place to go," Del Conte told 247Sports. ""We'll start to address what happens with spring ball, but there's been nothing yet. The key is to have a united time as to when it would resume. Some schools have already had some spring practices. Others have not. We don't want to have teams starting at a certain time, earlier than another and gaining a competitive advantage."

TCU started spring practice back on Feb. 28 and the Horned Frogs were near the halfway point when everything was shut down. Other schools like Oklahoma, West Virginia and Oklahoma State were all around a week into spring practices before the halt.

Texas was scheduled to be the last Big 12 school to start spring practices on March 24. The Longhorns pushed back their dates in hopes of giving the new coaching staff more time to gel.

The SEC and ACC have already canceled spring football practices through the end of the year while the Big Ten Big 12 and Pac 12 have both moved to suspend.

While the fact three Power Five conferences have yet to cancel spring football may give some hope, there is more than the current health situation working against this happening as of now. The NCAA doesn't allow practices to be conducted past the end of the academic year, which comes in early-to-mid May for most students that would mean teams will be racing against the clock even if they are able to get an all-clear to return to practice.

Another solution could come by adding a couple of weeks of preparation time to the beginning of the season.

The truth is nobody knows what's going to happen at this point. There's nobody with experience in this situation because it's never happened before in American sports. We're all just sitting back, watching and waiting.