One day after Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne shared the news that “Our current plan is to play the [USC] game,” the position has completely changed. On Friday, Byrne had to make another announcement: the USC game has been canceled.
— Greg Byrne (@Greg_Byrne) July 10, 2020
“As I’ve said before, USC AD Mike Bohn and I had multiple conversations over the last several months, and we were both planning on playing the football game on September 5 in Arlington,” Byrne said. “With the Pac-12′s decision to move to a conference-only schedule, we will do our best to adjust. What that looks like is to be determined.”
The Pac-12 issued an announcement on Friday evening that its members would only play conference games this fall.
“The Pac-12 CEO Group announced today that the fall season for several Pac-12 sports, including football, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball, would schedule Conference-only games, and that it is delaying the start of mandatory athletic activities, until a series of health and safety indicators, which have recently trended in a negative direction, provided sufficient positive data to enable a move to a second phase of return-to-play activities.
The health and safety of our student-athletes and all those connected to Pac-12 sports continues to be our number one priority,” said Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott. “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.”
There’s no certain plan to what Alabama’s next step will be. There’s speculation that the rumored matchup against TCU could still happen.
Reports began surfacing in May that the Crimson Tide might have to face TCU instead of USC on September 5th.
Only time will tell what will happen, and who Alabama could face on September 5th.
Roll Tide Wire will keep you up to date on the very latest on this story!
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