Following the Big Ten, the Pac-12 will cancel its fall season and attempt to play this spring.
First it was the Big Ten on Tuesday, and now it’s the Pac-12.
[jwplayer CKtYFVZx]
This was hardly a shock. The Pac-12 was seemingly on the fence since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the logistics are tough considering the local issues and rules in Los Angeles, and with several hot spots in Arizona.
The California State University system went online early, USC is planning to go remote for the fall semester, and the entire conference had everyone prepared for this.
Even if the Big Ten had decided that it was going to play, the Pac-12 was still likely to tap out.
It’s still not fun, though.
Update on the 2020-21 Pac-12 season below.https://t.co/G6VxDO2VM2
— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) August 11, 2020
Like the Big Ten, the Pac-12 will be looking to ramp things up for spring football. That’s for later – the conference couldn’t even figure out how to play in the fall – but for now, the problems seemed to be around the health concerns everyone has, the travel issues, the lack of strong testing, and more than anything else, the uncertainty about playing a contact sport. That was all in the recommendation to and from the Pac-12 to drop the 2020 fall season.
Official release from Pac-12 pic.twitter.com/gGvloIVrFQ
— Michael Lev (@MichaelJLev) August 11, 2020
Spring football is a likely logistical nightmare, and it’s a bad look to cancel a fall season because of player health concerns and then play two seasons in ten months. However, here’s the one big difference between the Pac-12 giving it a go and the Big Ten trying it – the weather.
Boulder and Pullman could be interesting at times in mid-February, but Los Angeles, Tucson and Palo Alto are a little nicer in the spring than Minneapolis, East Lansing and Madison.
Oh yeah, and then there’s the players’ movement. No, the Pac-12 wasn’t going to shut down because of the demands from the players, but for the conference it’s an added bonus to push that down for now.
And now it’s ALL about the Big 12. The Pac-12 cancelling its season was hardly a stunner, and the Big Ten was always 50/50. Lose the Big 12, and there’s no way the ACC or SEC will push through.
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