Conference-Only Schedules Around the Power Five Could Come This Week

Last week, the Big Ten conference announced that it will move to conference-only games this fall and it blindsided the college football community. Athletic directors and conference commissioners all voiced their opinions on Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren’s decision with a resounding “never giving an indication that’s what he was going to do”.

However, this was one of the three options being discussed by the College Football Oversight Committee headed by West Virginia Athletic Director Shane Lyons.

Following the Big Ten’s announcement, social media swirled with rumors that the ACC was heading in the same direction. However, they announced the next day that they would wait till late July to decide, but a few hours later, the Pac 12 Conference decided to take the same route as the Big Ten.

As for Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, he originally said “no” to the question of whether the Big 12 was going to make the same move. He later told CBS Sports "We need to do what our doctors and our scientists are telling us, which is move slowly ahead and constantly reevaluate."

Whether or not it’s feasible to start college football on time, this may be a way to delay the start of the season. On the other hand, one reason for conference-only games is the ability to spread the season out if there happens to be a team outbreak.

"The only advantage to [a conference-only schedule] is you can spread the games out over more weeks,” said Bowlsby. “It doesn't mean you're going to start your schedule the first week of October. You're going to try to start it on time and spread it out, so you have more time to recover and more time to get over outbreaks.”

If that is the scenario that plays out, then the college football season might start on time with a few extra bye weeks.

The big domino may start to fall on Monday as the SEC athletic directors are being summoned to Birmingham, AL for an in-person meeting to discuss its fall sports schedule, according to Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated. Nonetheless, it is reported that this meeting was scheduled two weeks ago.

If the SEC decides to pull the trigger, the Big 12 and the ACC will surely follow.

The Stadium’s Brett McMurphy reported that the ACC will assist Notre Dame with as many games as needed which brings new questions to the discussion.

ACC football also expected to play conference-only games, sources told @Stadium. Last month, ACC commish John Swofford told @Stadium if Power 5 schools played conference-only schedules that ACC would assist Notre Dame with as many games as it needed
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 9, 2020

SEC members only have eight conference games scheduled; will they add one more to keep up with the rest of the Power Five Conferences? Or, instead of spreading out the schedule, will it be about conferences following the same protocols and guidelines and still fill out an 11 or 12 game schedule of conference games?

If that happens, all of a sudden the Big 12 will be a few games short. Then, if there is a fight for the playoffs (If that is even an option) the Big 12 will undoubtedly be on the outside looking in.

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