Best of SI: Where Does College Football Stand Amidst This Global Crisis?

Jon Steinbrecher normally finds himself weaving through crowds to reach the headquarters of the Mid-American Conference, high atop the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland. Lately, that’s changed. “I think it’s just me, some hotel staff and Delta flight crews in the entire building here,” says Steinbrecher, commissioner of the MAC.

In Birmingham, home to the Southeastern Conference, commissioner Greg Sankey starts his day with a 6 a.m. jog around the neighborhood before heading into the league’s new headquarters: his home office. The American Athletic Conference, meanwhile, is on wheels. Commissioner Mike Aresco worked last week from a remote area out west with his family. “An undisclosed location,” he playfully describes in an interview. “That’s what I tell people.”

No matter their locale, the 10 commissioners of the college sports world's highest tier, the Football Bowl Subdivision, are in daily deliberations about how to save the 2020 football season in light of the pandemic. While that's a trivial matter in the big picture, it is paramount to the United States economy and to sports fans across the country. This is a huge task that none of the sport's leaders were prepared to face, because nobody saw it coming. “There is no playbook for this,” says Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott.

Commissioners from the Power 5 conferences—Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, ACC and SEC—have met over conference calls each day for more than two months, they say, and those from the Group of Five talk at least once each week.

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