Just over 24 hours after the Big Ten announced its plan to play only conference football games in 2020 due to COVID-19 concerns, the Pac-12 announced the same intent Friday evening.
“The health and safety of our student-athletes and all those connected to Pac-12 sports continues to be our number one priority,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in the statement. “Our decisions have and will be guided by science and data, and based upon the trends and indicators over the past days, it has become clear that we need to provide ourselves with maximum flexibility to schedule, and to delay any movement to the next phase of return-to-play activities.”
The announcement impacts all Pac-12 fall sports.
Greg Byrne, Alabama’s athletic director, issued a comment reported by FOX Sports’ Bruce Feldman regarding the move. Alabama was scheduled to play USC in the season-opener.
“With the Pac-12’s decision to move to a conference-only schedule, we will do our best to adjust,” said Byrne. “What that looks like is to be determined.”
The league’s conference — and season — opener is now scheduled to be USC at Stanford, which is slated for Saturday, Sept. 19.
This is a developing story. Updates will be provided as they are available.
No ND/USC. First time the game won’t be played since 1945. A real downer.
I have a feeling that this Covid Virus is going to end up cancelling the whole season. This virus could end up killing some G5 and Indy programs. Sad.
I was optimistic back in late May. Now I’m not so sure that the college (or NFL) season will take place. Hopefully it doesn’t kill any G5 and Independent programs.
Notre Dame may have to cancel its entire season. As a fan of them, I’d be disappointed, but I’d understand. It would also give ND time to consider whether Brian Kelly is truly the right person to lead the program.
If there is a season (that is a huge if), ND will be OK. ND already was scheduled to play 6 ACC schools. The ACC commissioner has already said that the conference will help ND to fill its schedule, if necessary. I have a feeling it is all academic, as I don’t see how this season comes off.
we won’t get to see N. Dakota State give Oregon their best competition this Fall.
Hmmm, might be the perfect time to replace the USC or Stanford vs ND games with BYU since the two programs are slated to play 4 more times and have not finalized any dates. These two usually play very exciting games anyway. LED, member FWAA since 1982.
The virus have a greater impact on the USA than World War II.
This was expected, as there is a real question at many of these “schools”, whether they will have “classes” in the fall. I wonder what the conference will do if half of their schools refuse to play, because they are not conducting “classes”. The B1G may also be in this situation
There’s a lot of money on the table. The new year six and the three NCG Games