College football leaders to decide on season Tuesday

college football leaders
Erik Buchinger Posted on

I’ve yet to go through all the August 10ths in the history of college football, but I’d have to imagine August 10, 2020 was the craziest August 10 in the 150 years of the sport. It started in the early hours of the morning when Trevor Lawrence and the biggest college football stars hit the Twitter streets with their #WeWantToPlay movement.

Yes I was awake for this around 1 a.m. because that’s what you do when you don’t have a real person job.

Things turned south in a hurry with a report from Dan Patrick that said school presidents voted to cancel the fall Big Ten football season, and the Pac-12, which can never make a decision for itself, would follow.

Coaches, players, media, fans and the president of the United States made their case all day long yesterday to give us a glimmer of hope that college football may return soon. Nebraska threatened to bolt from the Big Ten, which I’m not sure is allowed but it sounds interesting, and every Twitter refresh added the latest in social media mayhem.

Did the power of social media cyberbully the Big Ten into changing its mind? We’ve seen this sort of thing happen before in college football. The Twitter mob formed by noted anti-Twitter mob guy Clay Travis is the sole reason Greg Schiano is not the head coach at Tennessee right now.

Decision day is here

While that was the craziest August 10, I think August 11 will get even wackier because Tuesday is decision day for many of these college football teams. Options include delaying even further back on the fall calendar, postponing to the spring, changing nothing or canceling it altogether. Here’s where each conference stands right now.

SEC

Coronavirus ain’t played nobody. SEC is moving along getting ready for a college football season.

ACC

Just like the SEC, the ACC is but could be swayed by what the Big 12 does, according to Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger.

Big Ten

Presidents are expected to meet at 10:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday to either delay the season to September 26 or postpone the whole thing to the spring, according to ESPN’s Heather Dinich. The conference’s top players and coaches fought the idea of eliminating the fall season as the Big Ten continues to lead the charge to cancel.

Pac-12

It sure seems like the Pac-12 is following the Big Ten every step of the way.

Big 12

The Big 12 is the big question mark with the conference reportedly split on what to do. With pessimism the Big Ten and Pac-12 and the optimism of the SEC and ACC, the Big 12 is the swing conference that may alter what the ACC does and ultimately destroy everything altogether. No pressure, Big 12.

Sun Belt

What pandemic? Nothing stops the Fun Belt as it continues to move toward the season.

AAC

No changes. AAC continues on.

Conference USA

Old Dominion decided it won’t play this fall.

MAC

Already canceled its fall season and is looking toward the spring.

Mountain West

Just like the MAC, it is looking at a spring competition.

Independents

It’s an everybody for themselves situation right now. As it stands, BYU has three games on its schedule. UConn was the first FBS team to cancel its fall season.

Predictions

I don’t think any Power 5 conferences will straight up eliminate the possibility of fall sports in 2020 on Tuesday. We may be delaying the inevitable, but it’s still too early cancel a season that realistically could start in October.

We’ll see if the Group of 5 and independents decide to play this fall, but I’m skeptical from a financial standpoint. However, some teams still have games scheduled against ACC opponents so that in itself is very worth it for those schools’ athletic departments.

By the end of today, we’ll either be faced with the reality we have to spend more time with loved ones this fall or be given another month of potentially false hope.

Bring me that false hope.