Report: Elimination of Non-Conference Games This Fall Seen as Realistic Scenario
The hits just keep on coming for the chances of college football being played this fall.
Wednesday appeared to be a point in which college football took a turn for the worse.
The Ivy League announced that all fall sports would be postponed, while at the FBS level, North Carolina and Ohio State paused voluntary workouts after recent COVID-19 tests came back with less than ideal results.
Will the college football season even be played?
It's a loaded question - but one that we'll likely have the answer to sooner rather than later.
Earlier this week, prior to Wednesday's news across college football, Matt Hayes, a Senior National College Football Writer for Bleacher Report, tweeted that the elimination of college football non-conference games was an option that athletic departments across the football landscape were discussing with the NCAA.
The "minor miracle" becomes even more remote given Wednesday's news of schools pausing workouts. Given that we are in early July now, the longevity of workout shutdowns could begin to have an impact on the competitive balance across college football.
A school like Notre Dame, which reported no positive cases across its football program earlier this week, is now in a much better position than Ohio State or North Carolina.
I don't believe that major conference college football at the FBS level will be as swift to cancel as the Ivy League. There are more moving parts that are impacted at the FBS level, such as scholarships and television revenue, that are simply not as big a part of the equation at the FCS level.
However, I do believe that a delayed start to the season is nearly inevitable given the recent news regarding testing this week, and if that ends up becoming a reality, non-conference games being eliminated would be the easiest way to ensure that a meaningful football season gets played.
This, of course, would mean that Virginia Tech's biggest game of the year, the home tilt with Penn State in September, would be canceled. But without a full stadium of fans, does this really matter?
Stay tuned.
