Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott confident about football in January

According to Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, January could be a very special time for conference football.

Quidel Corporation, a diagnostic company with rapid COVID-19 testing that can produce results in 15 minutes, is partnering with the conference to give it daily testing for athletes.

“This is a major step toward the safe resumption of Pac-12 sport competitions,” conference commissioner Larry Scott said in a released statement. “The availability of a reliable test that can be administered daily, with almost immediate results, addresses one of the key concerns that was expressed by our medical advisory committee, as well as by student-athletes, coaches and others.”

According to a webinar with Scott last Thursday, he said that each school will be able to have rapid testing available on campus as soon as the end of September.

“Simply put, it’s a game changer," Scott said.

Scott, who was a guest on the Dan Patrick Show last Friday morning, spoke about the "groundbreaking" announcement and how it's completely changed his outlook regarding the college football season.

“Right now, I’ve got a high degree of confidence that we’ll be playing in January,” Scott told Patrick. “It’s possible because of this announcement that we could play sooner. I think the significance of yesterday’s announcement, having access to this testing, I can look you in the eye virtually and tell you that I have a high degree of confidence we’re playing, just on a postponed base. We are going to have a full and exciting season for our student-athletes. I shouldn’t say full as in playing 12 games, I think it will be abbreviated like it is in other conferences. What’s now also a possibility is that we could start earlier than January but that’s going to depend on some things outside of our control.”

"I've got a high degree of confidence that we'll be playing [football] in January. It's possible that we could play sooner." -Larry Scott @Pac12 Commissioner pic.twitter.com/NDxgArjaGJ
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) September 4, 2020

This is HUGE news for fans of the Pac-12 who are hoping for a season sooner rather than later.

Prior to the announcement with Quidel, the Pac-12 was looking at scenarios of playing football in the spring — basically in place of the traditional "spring" season that's essentially a glorified training camp.

But now with schools able to receive the results almost immediately, it's given hope to football being played in either the fall (which is still a possibility) or by Jan. 1. The most obvious holdup, at least according to Scott, are each teams respective governments who are in control.

“I believe we will be whether it’s in the fall or January 1 remains to be seen,” Scott said. “This isn’t unfortunately our only challenge. We have six schools currently, the four California schools (USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal) and two of our Oregon schools (Oregon and Oregon State) that currently don’t have government approvals to have contact practices. I know the approval has been given for pro sports but not for college sports. We’ll need some help from the counties, public health officials to bless this and say it’s okay.

“Now what I think what we announced yesterday (Thursday) will be an important piece of that. I think the public health officials are keenly interested of what our plans and protocols are so I am hopeful that we will get what we need,” Scott added.

Scott did say tell Patrick that while the Quidel partnership is huge, it hasn't changed the status of the current season as of now. He did say that the start of the college basketball season, which is looking as if it's being pushed back to Nov. 25, would be the Pac-12's first priority.

“It could,” Scott mentioned. “It doesn’t yet. We don’t have government approvals yet. If we can get the government approvals and implement this testing, certainly we could. For basketball, it looks like the NCAA is going to change the start date for the basketball season from November 10 to probably November 25 or later so that’s probably the first decision we gotta take and we revisit the decision not to play basketball before January 1 and maybe start the season at the same date or close to when the rest of the country is. And then on a parallel path, we’ve got a weigh up does it make sense to start the football season in late November, early December or does it make sense to get through finals for the student-athletes, get through the Christmas holidays and start in January."

If the Pac-12 elects to move forward with a season beginning on Jan. 1, the coaches have all reiterated that they need at least six weeks to properly prepare for the upcoming season. That would mean that training camps would need to begin on Saturday, Nov. 21.

Regardless of what happens, the words that came out of Scott's mouth provided more than a little bit of faith for Utah quarterback Jake Bentley.

Going to be playing in some blizzards but I’ll take it!!! Can’t wait to get on the field!!! https://t.co/H5krvfxFN0
— Jake Bentley (@Jake_Bentley_) September 4, 2020

"No doubt today is very good news and a major step forward. But hope has never been a strategy for the Pac-12 and our presidents and chancellors when they’ve made these decisions,” Scott said after the Quidel partnership. “We’ve said all along we’re going to let the science and the data and what our public health officials are telling us drive our decision-making. And when we made our decision we didn’t have the government approval that we needed.”

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