Football Oversight Committee To Recommend Eight-Game Spring Football Schedule To D-I Council

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The Football Oversight Committee reached an agreement to recommend an eight-game spring football schedule to the Division I Council.

On Thursday, September 3, the committee agreed on recommending the spring season model.

The recommendation is for conferences that have postponed their football schedules from this fall until the spring of 2021. Part of the model is to allow 15 practices in 29 days and an eight-game season that ends by April 17, 2021.

Other conferences that have postponed their fall schedules but plan to play earlier than spring will not have the 15 practices.

The recommendation will be that “all leagues that have postponed will have 13 weeks to complete their seasons.”

“There was a concern about having more than eight games if you’re only in the spring. If you’re using your 13 weeks in both terms, then you don’t get fall ball or spring ball. You don’t get your cake and eat it, too,” West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons told ESPN. “The April 17 date is key because we’re trying to get it to where there’s enough time between the last competition and starting back up in August and having a normal, ’21-22 football season,” he said. “There’s expectation that the coaches, the conferences and the medical experts work through what the spring and competition would look like from a health and safety standpoint.”

Football Oversight Committee recommends eight-game spring season – via @ESPN App https://t.co/reIh4WLJMU

— Heather Dinich (@CFBHeather) September 4, 2020

Four of the 10 FBS conferences decided to postpone their football season until spring 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Those conferences include:

• Pac-12
• Big Ten
• Mountain West
• Mid-American

According to ESPN’s Heather Dinich, the D-I Council is expected to vote on the recommendations during a meeting on September 16.