SALT LAKE CITY — Despite what the current schedule says, it’s possible Pac-12 football teams will find themselves playing the first weekend of December without being in the conference championship game.
The Pac-12 is among the Power Five conferences mulling over an idea to delay their championship games by a week to give a buffer for possible makeup games if there are cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Athletic.
“While our goal is to play a complete football season on the schedule originally set forth, we have a comprehensive football contingency scheduling plan that allows for maximum flexibility depending on changes necessitated by COVID-19 for health and safety reasons.” — Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott
“While our goal is to play a complete football season on the schedule originally set forth, we have a comprehensive football contingency scheduling plan that allows for maximum flexibility depending on changes necessitated by COVID-19 for health and safety reasons,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott told The Athletic. “This planning does include for the possibility of moving our Pac-12 Football Championship Game back later in December.”
Athletic directors from the Big 12 and Big Ten are also reportedly considering pushing back their championship games, which are set for Dec. 5.
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told the Dallas Morning News there are complications with schedule changing — they’d have to consult the Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium and ESPN, for instance — but it’s imperative for Power Five conferences to come up with alternative plans because of the importance of the College Football Playoff selection process. It will take extra coordination with the CFP and other bowls if games are pushed back.
College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock told The Athletic that the committee will be ready for whatever comes. The fluidity will require extra flexibility. It might delay Selection Sunday, too.
“No one knows what the proper delta is,” Hancock said in an interview with The Athletic. “But it takes awhile to get ready to go play in a bowl game, and I think everyone is aware of that. Everyone will also be ready for whatever they have to deal with. Not knowing — in a world where people are accustomed to knowing everything in advance and planning in advance — not knowing is the hardest part of this. We’ll learn a lot about ourselves. Probably one of the things we’re going to learn is that we can function in an uncertain world, with less time than we thought we might need in the past. That’ll be one of the great takeaways.”
College football is also grappling with the uncertainty over what to do about canceled games, The Athletic reported. There is a concern that some teams might try to play through an outbreak to avoid a loss, so they might consider unplayed games as a “no contest” instead of a forfeit.
The expectation is that games will be missed, Bowlsby said. “There will be those kinds of disruptions.”
That will call for an additional layer of flexibility as the committee evaluates teams with possible uneven schedules. Teams might be required to play a minimum amount of games for Playoff and New Year’s Six bowl games.
The Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference have not publicly announced intentions to amend their schedules. As it stands, the CFP semifinals will take place on Jan. 2, 2021, with the national championship to be held on Jan. 11.
“It’s got a lot of moving parts,” Bowlsby said. “But we’re at the point where we’re weighing options.”