In America, there are hundreds if not thousands of matters more urgent than college football scheduling, but that doesn’t mean college football scheduling isn’t important.
A pandemic has a way of making everything important… but magnifying how some things are comparatively more important than others.
It’s not that college football doesn’t matter — it matters a lot, and millions of Americans could really use some football in their lives this fall. They deserve to have it. I would love it if football managed to be played safely, without disastrous consequences.
That doesn’t mean, of course, we will get such a scenario. It also doesn’t mean that we should play college football if it means even one person will suffer significant health damage (permanently diminished lung capacity, or a stroke, or a heart attack) caused by COVID-19.
Bottom line: We can root for football this fall and want it to happen — you’re not a bad person if you do — but football isn’t driving the bus. COVID-19 is, and our government has to be more responsive in order for the season to have any chance of happening.
Football is important, but other things are bigger right now. This is life in a pandemic.
So, as we acknowledge football’s complicated place in our lives — in this crazy summer of 2020 — we are confronted by a world in which we don’t know how the politics of college football are going to emerge in the coming months. First and foremost — above anything else — we know that the adjusted scheduling plans already put forth by the Big Ten and Pac-12, combined with the soon-to-be-released schedules from the Big 12, ACC, and SEC, could all go up in smoke if the season is canceled or at least postponed this fall, with spring being the only possible alternative.
If there is no fall football, the financial gap between the Power Five conferences and the Group of Five conferences won’t widen, because the Power Fives will get shut out of revenues in addition to the Group of Fives. No fall football will change the equation for the Group of Five conferences and schools which (conceptually) lost nonconference game revenue when the Big Ten and Pac-12 decided to move to conference-only game schedules. It makes a difference whether the Power Fives play conference games; if they don’t, due to the pandemic, any schedule adjustments will be rendered moot. It’s only if the Power Fives play games — with the Group of Five schools watching from the sidelines — that the schedule adjustment has an actual, lived-out effect on the Group of Five schools, at least in terms of the accounting books.
Or so one would think. It might not be that simple.
Yes, if teams actually play games this autumn, the Group of Five schools which had arranged to play Power Five teams — but then were discarded in the schedule adjustments, and weren’t given the game checks they hoped to receive — will likely pursue some form of litigation. There will be some fights over money if the two schools in various disputes aren’t willing to come to an agreement.
Yet, money might not be the only way the politics of pandemic scheduling might shake up college football.
It could be that the mere DECISION to cast aside Group of Five conferences — regardless of whether games are actually played this fall — could have an effect on the future of the sport.
This is part of why the upcoming schedule plans from the Big 12, ACC, and SEC will be so fascinating.
These three Power Five conferences — which have chosen to hold their cards close to the vest, instead of taking the route of (comparatively) immediate disclosure followed by the Big Ten and Pac-12 — are going to be closely watched by the Group of Five conferences and schools.
Are they going to move to all-conference schedules as the Big Ten and Pac-12 have done, or will they include non-conference games?
Keep in mind here that the Big Ten has proposed a 10-game all-conference schedule; the Pac-12 has not yet committed to a specific number of games. How the Big 12, ACC, and SEC play their cards will show the Group of Five conferences where they stand.
The ACC and SEC — given that they play only eight conference games, compared to the other three Power Five conferences — are in a position to accommodate the Group of Five schools (and the FCS schools) if they want to… but any Power Five schools not from the Big Ten or Pac-12 would seem to be first in line if the ACC and SEC want to play any nonconference games. This is especially the case for the rivals involved in several ACC-versus-SEC clashes: Georgia Tech and Georgia, Louisville and Kentucky, Clemson and South Carolina, Florida State and Florida.
We will write more this week about these various scenarios and their ramifications. For now, simply realize that regardless of the path the Big 12, ACC, and SEC take, the mere reality that each conference will announce a schedule will — by itself — send a message to lots of other schools, the Group of Fives in particular.
Maybe no football will be played this fall, which will render some legal questions moot, as explained above. Yet, it could be that these various conference scheduling announcements — even if no football is played — will, by themselves, carry enough political impact to change how the various conferences interact, and how they feel they need to do business in 2021 and beyond.
This is the bizarre world of pandemic scheduling, in a condensed form: No football could be played, and yet the various schedule announcements could change — or intensify — strong feelings the FBS conferences and their member schools have toward each other.