A JERSEY GUY: Chaos Taking over as Power 5 Conferences Struggle to Make Decisions

One high ranking college official gave a nervous chuckle over the phone when he was asked to describe the past 24 hours in the world of FBS college football.

""This'' he said,''is chaos. I've never seen anything like it.''

It has been that way for awhile as CFB officials, including coaches and commissioners, have attempted to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has wiped out all previous protocols on how to prepare for a college football season.

The overwhelming consensus at the start of the weekend was that they couldn't and plans were being made at every level to shut college football for the fall season.

When the University of Connecticut became the first FBS school to postpone the 2020 season in the middle of the week, most predictions said that would be the start of a domino affect by the Group of 5 and Power 5 conferences to make similar decisions.

It was following that pattern when the Mid-American Conference and then the Mountain West Conference decided to stop, for a variety of reasons, the chief one being financial.

Still, the main act revolved around the Power 5 conferences, with the Big Ten making the most noise about taking the first step, with the Pac-12 reportedly making similar plans.

It didn't happen on Saturday when conference meetings began to be called in the emergency zoom mode, it didn't happen Sunday when there were more meetings and it didn't happen on Monday when there was a push back surge by players and coaches and even the President of the United States, with a clear message: Let them play.''

If it only were that easy.

According to several sources who TMG sports talked to the past few days, the primary causes of concern include:

A growing reluctance by all the Power 5 conferences to switch their focus on playing a an even further truncated season next spring.

That was regarded by almost everyone as a last resort, which sent everyone back into meetings to figure out a way to make things work this fall.

But that option was also facing almost insurmountable problems as the calendar moved closer to the early September starting date that the ACC, the Big Ten and the Big 12 had created when they unveiled new schedules with limited or no non conference games.

Adding to the angst was the growing concern by everyone, but especially the Big Ten, with the possibility of dealing with a massive liability COVID-19 issue if any player or coach had any permanent disability or damage.

That became reality in the Big Ten a few weeks ago when a freshman offensive lineman at Indiana, Brady Feeney, was a COVID-19 victim who also had some heart issues because of the virus.

""That,'' said several conference officials, ""is the one thing that will shut things down. It's a game stopper.''

And that has been the primary reason why the Big Ten and Pac-12 seemed on the brink of stopping the season on Sunday and Monday and may still do it in the next few days.

But on Monday that didn't stop some very vocal and public push back by coaches such as Michigan's Jim Harbaugh, Ohio State's Ryan Day, Nebraska's Scott Frost and even to some extent Alabama coach Nick Saban.

That left new Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren in the precarious position of referee between his players, his coaches and his Presidents.

One can only speculate how former commissioner Jim Delany would handle the matter.

The major problem was that the coaches were going against the wishes of their own presidents, who were more concerned with the litigation aspects of what could be a law suit in the several hundred million dollar range.

It also created an even bigger split among the Power 5 conferences, with the Pac-12 and Big Ten in one corner, while the ACC, Big 12 and SEC were taking more reasonable let's wait and find out more information stances.

The SEC and commissioner Greg Sankey had taken the most conservative stance, pushing back the start of their season until Sept. 26, which allowed them to gather more data.

The ACC pushed for a Sept 10 start was leaning towards a stoppage, but switched its stance when a few member schools, who were dealing with the start of classes in the fall semester, suggested waiting on a decision until they could determine if having classes being held AND the football team playing in a semi-isolated environment could work without a further spike in COVID-19 cases.

The medical opinion was that it would take a two week period to determine if there were any trends developing.

An ACC decision by the Presidents on that matter is expected on Tuesday.

With a lack of leadership as evident as it has been in 30 years in CFB, and with what appears to be a clear split among some coaches and players and their Presidents, there is no obvious solution.

Sadly, if the powers that be had studied their own history, they could have found at least a temporary solution.

On Monday, I asked one coach, who had played major college football in the 1960's when he had reported for practice.

"Right after Labor Day,'' said the coach. ""And we played our first game on Sept. 26th and played an entire season with a bowl game. It all worked.''

If you looked deeper into the record books, you will find that Notre Dame managed to play an unbeaten (the famous 10-10 tie with Michigan State) with a 9-0-1 record.

The Irish began that season on Sept. 24.

No matter what happens in the next few days or weeks or months, this will be an historic season.

How it turns out is still very much in doubt on all fronts.