First things first: No, I don’t expect the Sun Belt or Conference USA to play college football this fall. Yet, on the morning of August 12, 2020, that possibility is still in play. Meanwhile, the Big Ten and Pac-12 have called it quits for the fall.
Is this real life? In 2020, you bet it is. Everything is crazy and upside-down. Nothing makes sense. Normalcy has been shredded. Familiarity has been obliterated.
Given the “every conference for himself” reality we are seeing in college football, there is very little coordination or cohesion between conferences in announcing decisions on whether to play this fall. This has left us with the absurd situation of August 12: Three Power Five conferences want to continue to make an attempt to play football this fall, while two do not. Three Group of Five conferences want to try to play, while two do not.
Are we really going to have a world in which the Sun Belt plays fall football and the Big Ten does not? This means the Texas State Bobcats could play while the Ohio State Buckeyes don’t.
One would think that the reality of resources — Sun Belt schools do not have the infrastructure of SEC or Big 12 schools — will close the door on college football for the Sun Belt as well as Conference USA. However, those two Group of Five conferences reside in the same part of the country as the SEC, where football matters more than in many other regions of the United States. If state governors and state populations are galvanized in the pursuit of football, who is to say this couldn’t happen under any circumstances?
This isn’t a verdict on how wise such a move would be. This isn’t a verdict on citizens’ or politicians’ value systems. This is merely an assessment of whether such a scenario could unfold.
It could. It isn’t particularly likely, but what has 2020 been if not a parade of one unlikely event after another?
If the Sun Belt plays this fall — just as if any other conference or school plays in the coming weeks — players would deserve hazard pay and guaranteed health care. Is that likely to happen? No.
If the Sun Belt plays at a time when the SEC has pursued a conference-only schedule, just how much revenue can SBC programs expect to get from television? It won’t be that high.
The situation is so markedly bad for the Sun Belt and Conference USA. The upside of playing is not that high, since league programs were depending on getting game checks primarily from SEC powerhouses; that’s how these conferences get the money which sustains their athletic budgets. Yet, I understand why these smaller FBS conferences are still trying to play: Any revenue infusion could mean the difference between staying afloat for a given period of time and having nowhere else to turn. When faced with a menu of several bad options, playing games offers the less terrible path. I get it.
We will see if the less terrible option remains a possibility for the Sun Belt and Conference USA, or if a postponement of fall football comes fairly quickly, as the walls of a grim reality close in.