A JERSEY GUY: Has NCAA Given Up On FBS Football?

Over the past few months as the COVID-19 pandemic has spread through the world of college athletics, the slow--and sometimes non-response of the NCAA has been a major topic of discussion.

The NCAA controls all levels of college football, OTHER than the FBS and Power 5 participants.

Not surprisingly, the dispute between the Power 5 schools and the NCAA has been a developing story for months, with projections of an eventual break up becoming more and more frequent.

And, as we approach crunch time for the start of the 2020 college football season, another factor is becoming clear.

The NCAA flat out doesn't care.

Their prime concern is preserving college basketball, which they do control at every level, including a multi-billion dollar event called the NCAA tournament.

"Why should they care,'' said one FBS football coach. "They have a heavy stake in college basketball. They can't afford to lose the tournament two years in a row. And, they have no say at all in FBS football, so they're not going to waste a whole lot of time or effort.''

Said one college basketball official, "I don't blame them (NCAA). If they are completely shut out (of CFB) why should they worry about it. It's not their problem.''

There is certainly some evidence to support such a contention. NCAA President Mark Emmert has been reactive, rather than proactive with statements of concern or action, the NCAA Council in charge of making decisions on NCAA football championships at lower levels has also been slow in reacting to news.

In terms of protocols detailing how schools deal with COVID-19, the response has also been painfully and obviously slow.

The NCAA's prime concern is obviously to save as much of the college basketball season as possible, which traditionally has started in early November and gone through the Final Four in early April.

The NCAA has said they will make a call by mid-September on when they will attempt to start the season. But, there are already snags in any early start plan because the Pac-12, when making its announcement a few weeks ago to shut down football in the fall, shut down ALL sports through the 2020 calendar year.

There is a growing sentiment among college basketball officials that the NCAA can make a college basketball season (including the tournament) work.

"There will be some restrictions and they might have to do it without fans, but I think they can put together a regular season schedule and the tournament and make it work,'' said one veteran college basketball executive.

The NCAA was blindsided by that Pac-12 move, which also affected several of the traditional November and December basketball tournaments on the college basketball schedule.

For the Power 5 conferences--ACC, Big 12 and SEC--the start of basketball season is obviously a secondary concern right now, as they make plans to save this college football season.

The Big Ten is dealing with a communications snafu and push back from parents of its member schools over the issue of making a decision to shut down football too early.

The NCAA's role in all of those discussions is minimal at best.

But, for the time being, all of those schools are still NCAA members and subject to many rules and regulations.

The irony of this situation is that while the NCAA continues to make judgments on what players are eligible to play through a basically out of control transfer portal system and is faced with increasingly vocal players about their rights, it continues to run away from the major issues of finding ways to actually get the games started.

In fact, it has offered strong medical opinions about why college football SHOULD NOT be played this fall.

"I wonder what the medical consensus would be if it was March Madness which was being discussed,'' said one college football official.