Perhaps the biggest non-conference game this college football season is set to take place on September 12 when Ohio State travels west to take on Oregon at Autzen Stadium in what is a rematch of the 2014 College Football Playoff Championship Game.
You’d think it’d be one of, if not the toughest game on Ohio State’s schedule this season, playing in a tough place to play like Autzen. A helping hand may have just been lent to the Buckeyes though as Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced Thursday that “The Oregon Health Authority is advising that any large gathering, at least through September, should be canceled or significantly modified.”
You can watch Governor Brown’s entire press briefing from Thursday.
North Dakota State is scheduled to play at Oregon on September 5, Ohio State comes to town on the 12th while Hawaii is slated to visit on the 19th. If this is to get extended even a week beyond that it’d take away the crowd from the October 3 Oregon/Washington game as well.
This comes a week after University of Oregon president Michael Schill expressed doubt about having packed crowds at Autzen Stadium at any point in 2020.
“I doubt very much we’re going to have a packed stadium watching our Ducks play football,” Schill said on CNN. “We’re hoping our football games will be played, but we’re not going to take any chances with the health and safety of our student-athletes or the people who come to watch them.”
The same set of rules will obviously apply to Oregon State who is slated to host three games in September against Colorado State, Portland State and Washington State.
For what it’s worth, Notre Dame plays just one game west of South Bend, Indiana this year, that coming on Thanksgiving weekend for annual battle with USC.
This entire global pandemic tests you in various ways. Some days I get up and think we’re about to turn a corner and that we’re about to approach our old sense of normal. Then on others I’m convinced we’ll never see crowds of more than a couple thousand gathered in the same place ever again.
I may change my mind about this when I get out of bed Friday morning but I’m guessing Oregon just happens to be the first to announce this and that plenty of other states will soon be doing something similar.