I don’t usually write about any football teams other than Baylor (here’s my last recap!) and Hawaiʻi, but today’s college football news is too important to ignore. After lengthy discussions and meetings, both the Big 10 and Pac-12 conferences have voted to postpone their fall seasons in favor of a possible spring return. Big 10 Commissioner Kevin Warren said, “As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott followed with “The health, safety and well-being of our student-athletes and all those connected to Pac-12 sports has been our number one priority since the start of this current crisis. Our student-athletes, fans, staff and all those who love college sports would like to have seen the season played this calendar year as originally planned, and we know how disappointing this is.” The decision to postpone for the Big 10 was made after school presidents voted 12-2 to cancel all fall sports this year with Nebraska and Iowa being the only votes in opposition. Shortly following the conference’s cancellation of the fall season, Pac-12 CEO group of presidents voted unanimously to move the season’s sports to winter 2020. After the quick announcements declaring college football’s lack of movement, the Big 12 Presidents voted to continue the regular fall season (this is surprising to exactly no one) despite COVID cases moving along their same path of high infections. Because the Big 12 didn’t join Big 10 and Pac-12 in their cancellations, the ACC and SEC will 100% play every game in person despite schools in their conference’s states collecting countless new cases. I’m assuming more updates will arrive soon, so we’ll see what the conferences eventually decide to do!
