Pac-12 approves 10-game conference-only slate for football

In a conference announced on Friday, the Pac-12 approved a 10-game, conference-fall schedule for football starting September 26.

Each team will play five home and five road games, and the Pac-12 Championship will now be played on December 18 or 19. The conference title game will be held in a home-hosted model for 2020, with the Pac-12 and partners. Allegiant Stadium and Raiders, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) and MGM Resorts International agreed to begin hosting the championship game at Elegant Stadium in 2021 for their two-year run in Las Vegas.

Games that cannot be played on their scheduled date can be done in their bye week or week 12 (December 12). The Pac-12 and Big Ten both announced on July 10 that they would play a conference-only schedule, but on Friday the first Pac-12 announced its specifics.

The Pac-12 has approved the 2020 football schedule and plans for a fall game.

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– Pac-12 Conference (@ pac12) 31 July 2020

While the Big Ten and Big 12 have yet to announce their plans, Friday marked the third straight day this week that the Power 5 Conference made a drastic change to its fall football schedule – all with the caveat that it absolutely Nor will the coronovirus epidemic continue to affect college athletics. The ACC on Wednesday announced an 11-game model that includes Notre Dame, and the SEC followed with its move to a conference schedule on Thursday.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott admitted “it may not be possible” to play a 10-game schedule until December 19 – or it may require spring to finish.

“The same thing can happen in other markets,” he said. “… we believe that the best laid plans cannot succeed, whether it is able to start on the 26th, play a minimum number of games that we think will be necessary for the College Football Playoff , And we can start, but are not able to finish, and then we have to adjust. We have to adjust with a spring piece, either to finish or to start, perhaps dates for the playoffs. There may be a delay if it is still possible. Many, many scenarios are still on the table, but we felt it is important at this point that we can give some clarity to our plan. “

Asked on Friday what his confidence level was this season, Scott replied, “I don’t know.” As Major League Baseball continues to struggle with a schedule-stopping outbreak, Scott said he looks forward to college football this fall.

“There’s a bubble and a bubble wouldn’t be appropriate for college sports, and for our campuses,” Scott told reporters on a media webinar that afternoon. “These are students, and they are not able to be isolated or isolated in bubbles, the same way pro sports do … This is one of the reasons that building flexibility in the schedule is so important. If an outbreak on the team Hai, we’re hoping it’s a real possibility. And if it does, especially with a 14-day quarantine period for anyone currently in close contact who needs a game rescheduling Will be.

“And so we’ve given each team two chances for possible rescheduling, or delaying the start. We feel that there are some markets that don’t have the necessary rules to start on time. We need to make sure Requires that they’ve got a safe and strong training camp to be able to play on time. If a team can’t start on time, we’ve got a rescheduled week … either week. In or this December is 10 weeks. We have. “

With its delayed start, and the coronovirus still increasing its geographic footprint, the Pac-12 will enter a period of “summer access” from August 3 until August 3, since the start of its official training camp. 17 (The official NCAA-approved exercise program began a 20-hour hike period on July 24 of this year, and summer camp can officially begin on August 7 for any team that opens on Labor Day weekend is).

Oregon State Senior Associate Athletic Director Drs. Doug Aukerman said that it is difficult to determine many positive cases that would trigger a canceled game.

He said, “You can’t just say it’s a certain number of players.” “Because if you get some infections and they are coming from different sources, and they are happening a day or two before the game, then you probably don’t have control of the transmission of the virus in that instance, and you can stop it. Is required. Is it one to two cases a week and they are both related and you can contact-trace where they were, it’s a very safe environment and situation. So it’s hard to come up with an easy one, quick. Number. If it had been, everyone would have already done so at every conference. “

Not all Pac-12 schools have also been approved to introduce an increased access period, which is primarily strength and conditioning, film reviews and walk-throughs.

“We’ve been talking about this for five months, so we will have a plan based on our local medical and government officials, which we are allowed to do,” said Stanford coach David Shaw. “We’ll find a way to make it. There are things we can do right now that we couldn’t do two weeks ago, and hopefully there will be things we can do a few weeks from now that we can’t Can now. “

The new schedule includes rivals at Arizona State and USC at UCLA in the first week rather than the traditional end of the regular-season.

“We feel at the moment that they are real hot spots, and the expected authority and approvals are not in place yet,” Scott said of Arizona and California. “By putting them in the first week, in the event that these teams are not possible in each of those two markets, it becomes very easy to reschedule them. Each of them may be rescheduled a few weeks later to a sub-week on the calendar. , Or the December week that we left. We are going wide-eyed. “