Unrivaled: What Suddenly Changed In College Football?

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – College football has had a wild 96 hours going back to Saturday when the MAC canceled football for the fall, the Big Ten reportedly voting to cancel its season, players banding together with #WeWantToPlay, to the Mountain West not playing this fall, Nebraska’s Scott Frost wanting to play an independent schedule, and a whole lot more.

There are meetings with Power 5 leagues to discuss what they are going to do for the college football season. The Big Ten and Pac-12 are the conferences to watch right now. The Pac-12 has been meeting with doctors about the impact of COVID-19 this week.

The doctors also expressed concern about proximity that comes with full-contact practice. “It’s all in the presidents’ hands,” said a source. 2/2

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 11, 2020

A lot of time was spent creating a schedule with flexible dates, testing protocols – that weren’t the same for every conference, and slowly starting to practice.

There is a reason that padded practices have been pushed back, but the bigger issue is that being on a college campus where thousands come from other areas from the country and do college things, it would be nearly impossible to keep college athletes safe. There was no real plan to implement that.

What Changed?

Just within the past two weeks, conferences either announced brand new schedules or announced modified schedules with specifics to follow. The Big Ten had been saying for about a week that all options were on the table and then the reported 12-2 vote in favor of not playing this fall caused an uproar in the sports community.

There were releases from Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh laying out a plan for why college football can go forward, Ohio State’s Ryan Day saying he will fight for his players, and even politicians all the way up to the President of the United States suggesting football should be played.

Source 1: Pac-12 "on course to cancel" regardless of Big Ten decision.

Source 2: CEOs have "leaned into" medical advice since pandemic began and "I see them doing that today"

— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) August 11, 2020

“I don’t understand this at all. It feels like an offsides penalty and the penalty is you just lost a game. I just don’t understand why you can’t start the season,” Mitchell said, “I am thinking back and it is like we are on this roller coaster and we are in the wrong part of the wave. We are behind or something.”

“These student-athletes come back in June and they feel good about this and some of the schools have testing, and went through all of these different scenarios of seasons with conference-only or a delayed start. There are all of these things with a back-and-forth.”

KSL Sports Alex Kirry wants to know why were those schedules made so recently and now they are basically being put in the shredder.

“I want to know what’s changed. I want to know why it was four days ago we got the Big Ten calendar?” Kirry asked, “What is the thing that happened over the last four days that made people change their minds about where you’re at the Pac 12? Same thing. Then why is the SEC saying we’re moving forward? Why is the why is the SEC. saying, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re moving forward, we’re still playing.’ Is it just because they’re holding on to the desire to play it to make that money? That’s going to look bad, too, if that’s the case.”

Right now all of the Power 5 leagues are basically in a standoff about what should and will be done for the 2020 season.

The Big Ten and Pac-12 are expected to have some sort of announcement whether it is to cancel, delay, or pause football this fall.

This is a very fluid situation and could change any moment so stay tuned to sports.ksl.com and follow us on Twitter @KSLSports for the latest updates on the college football season.

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