With Pac-12 Games Only, Who Will the Huskies Open With?
Joining the Big Ten in its pandemic approach, the Pac-12 agreed on Friday to play conference-only games for football and other sports.
A schedule will be forthcoming by July 31, conference commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement.
“The health and safety of our student-athletes and all those connected to Pac-12 sports continues to be our number one priority,” Scott said.
On Thursday, the Big Ten set the tone by choosing this approach, thus eliminating marquee games such as Washington hosting Michigan and Oregon hosting Ohio State on consecutive weekends in September.
The Pac-12 action cancels out a USC-Alabama matchup and Stanford and USC games against Notre Dame.
So who will the Huskies open against and when?
The Huskies, by eliminating the non-conference games, are left with Oregon on Oct. 3, providing the current schedule of league games doesn't expand with games before that.
Picture that: Jimmy Lake, in his head-coaching debut, sending the UW out onto the field in Eugene, Oregon in a full froth — to an otherwise empty and silent Autzen Stadium.
Here's another option to consider, figuring the the schedule will expand and other forces come into play.
The Arizona schools, with a huge COVID-19 spike paralyzing that region, might be kept out of Washington state much like Americans aren't permitted to enter Europe.
In trying to fill out an eight- or nine-game schedule, here's an alternative scenario:
The UW opens against UCLA on Saturday, Sept. 26, at Husky Stadium.
Quarterbacking the Bruins is Colson Yankoff, who, if not for his impatience with the arrival of Jacob Eason, would be taking snaps for the Huskies. Yankoff changed schools 15 months ago.
UCLA wasn't supposed to be on the UW schedule this year but might be needed to fill in for those non-conference opponents, all visitors to Seattle, that have been scrapped.
Michigan, Sacramento State, Utah State.
Arizona State is another team that the Huskies were expected to miss that could be added if needed.
The conference also said it would be delaying the beginning of all mandatory athletic activities "until series of health and safety indicators, which have recently trended in a negative direction, provided sufficient positive data to enable a move to a second phase of return-to-play activities."
On game day, some colleges are considering opening just 25 percent of capacity in their stadiums to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus.
Yet how do you manage that?
Do you send people to the bathrooms in waves.
The same for a hotdog and a Coke?
And, consider an opposing team, usually arriving in two teams busses, pulling up to Husky Stadium in six vehicles, ever determined to keep the players in a social-distance mode before the game has everyone breathing on each other up close.
So will it be UCLA, Oregon or someone else doi the honors of opening one of the strangest Husky seasons, indeed?
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