The wheels are falling off the wagon. It’s terrible. It’s awful. It sucks. No one wanted this… but it’s happening.
The college football season is falling apart. Belief that the sport can carry off a full season — from Week 1 through the College Football Playoff — is close to zero within the industry, probably the lowest point since the coronavirus pandemic hit in early March.
Saturday morning brought the huge news that the Mid-American Conference is postponing all fall sports, with the intention of trying to resume in the spring:
News that MAC has canceled football this fall could have domino effect thru out CFB, sources told @Stadium. Group of 5 AD: “This will make our presidents more nervous to continue in an already nerve-racking time” https://t.co/bXYSdv9wEN
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 8, 2020
MAC commish Jon Steinbrecher says intention for league is to play all fall sports in the spring. “This decision was not made lightly"
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 8, 2020
An emotional Jon Steinbrecher discussing fact student-athletes can’t compete: "I’m crushed by this decision. I am so disappointed. It's just crushing we can't facilitate opportunities this fall because of the circumstances. I’m heartbroken in that"
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 8, 2020
The fallout from the MAC’s decision to not play football in the fall has an immediate domino effect on other Power Five conferences. Just look at the ACC:
Say farewell to three of #ACC’s plus-1s.
Western Michigan at ND
Miami, Ohio at Pitt
Ohio at BC https://t.co/c4MPY1X0Q5— David Teel (@ByDavidTeel) August 8, 2020
The MAC’s decision will also affect the other Group of Five conferences who — without the ability to schedule games against Power Five schools — had to play Group of Five games to fill out the nonconference schedules they hoped for. The AAC, which had hoped to play 12 games and four nonconference games, will be significantly hit by this decision from the MAC. No conference will escape the effects of this decision.
The edifice of college football, at least within the context of 2020, is crumbling. We can all see it. There is no point in pretending it isn’t.
Crucially, it has to be said that once again, the various conferences are all acting on their own. One conference does one thing here, and it affects other conferences over there. One conference acts, and the other conferences react, with the situation continuing to flow like a pinball which is violently redirected across the country until the game ends without a single winner… other than COVID-19, of course.
The lack of cohesive, unified leadership and guidance from the NCAA has been a key part of this mess — not the main source (that’s our government and our Congress failing to act on an appropriate scale, back in March and in subsequent months), but certainly a prominent source. The fragmented nature of college sports, allowed to persist by NCAA member schools who should have demanded far more from Mark Emmert but were content to coexist with his mediocrity, has played a significant part in creating this situation.
It didn’t have to be this way… but it is.
Maybe the pandemic will create a very different college sports landscape when we’re living with a vaccine and a return to normalcy in the summer of 2021. Right now, there is no normalcy, and there probably won’t be college football on Saturdays this fall.
Dammit.