On Thursday, the NCAA made the announcement that all 2020 Fall championships would be canceled due to the coronavirus.
The announcement affects men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, and men’s water polo.
The announcement does not affect the College Football Playoff because it’s not an NCAA event.
NCAA president Mark Emmert had this to say on the situation:
“We cannot now, at this point, have fall NCAA championships, because there’s not enough schools participating. The Board of Governors also said, ‘Look, if you don’t have half of the schools playing a sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship.’ So we can’t in any Division I NCAA championship sport, which is everything other than FBS football, that goes on in the fall. Sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall, full-stop.”
But Emmert also shared that the teams deserve a championship event at some point:
“That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t and can’t turn toward winter and spring and, create a legitimate championship for all those students.”
This comes after many NCAA programs announced that they were cancelling Fall sports, due to the uncertainty of the coronavirus.
The PAC 12 and Big 10 made the announcement this week that they were cancelling all Fall sporting events, including all regular-season contests, conference championships and tournaments.
Although this news does not affect the College Football Playoff, time will tell what will occur with the playoff as well.
But until then, college football fans can take a sign of relief knowing there’s still a chance there’s a college football season, for the SEC at least.
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