SALT LAKE CITY — The Pac is back. Pac-12 football, that is.
Weeks after officially shutting down the season until at least early next year, the Pac-12 is revving up, ready to join the rest of the country in playing some football this fall.
Yay, pull out the old jersey, get those pompoms ready and make sure your 65-inch big-screen television is working well because you’re not going to be able to see any games in person.
“Let’s be real: It’s probably not going to be easy... So let’s cheer for Pac-12 football starting up again, but at the same time keep our fingers crossed that it all works out.”
The new plan, outlined by Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and other officials Thursday, is to play seven games, starting the weekend of Nov. 6-7 and finishing up in time for a championship game on the weekend of Dec. 18-19 when everyone else will play consolation games.
Hey, I’m as happy as anyone for Pac-12 football, even if it’s from the selfish standpoint that I’ll finally have some actual games and practices to write about for the rest of the year.
However, there are reasons to be a little wary.
Just look around with what is happening with the pandemic, which is as bad as ever in our part of the woods. We’ve set records for most cases three times this week, topped by 1,197 cases in Utah on Thursday. Every day, high schools are shutting down for a couple of weeks, and prep football games are being canceled right and left.
So the timing seems a little bit strange to suddenly be starting up a football league that announced a month ago that it was being shut down for the rest of the year.
I’ll admit I was one of those in favor of the Pac-12’s decision to shut down for the year, saying the league was correct to “choose medicine over money.”
At the time it seemed like the safe and correct decision, and after following in the footsteps of the Big Ten, the Pac-12 probably assumed the other big conferences would follow suit and nobody would be playing this fall.
But the others didn’t follow along, and as football games began being played all over the country — or east of the Rocky Mountains, anyway — the Pac-12 and Big Ten began to have second thoughts and wanted in on the action.
All those schools in Texas and back East were playing and seeing those TV dollars flow back into their beleaguered programs.
Give the Pac-12 credit for reconsidering after getting pressure from football players and their families, various politicians and a lot of fans, along with a new, more reliable testing system.
Pac-12 officials made a point in Thursday evening’s press conference of saying testing was a big part of the decision to start, along with generally declining cases in the Pac-12 footprint (Utah being one of the exceptions) and more information on the heart disease myocarditis and the ability to monitor any athletes that do get infected.
So we’re back on, with practice starting Monday and the first game just 40 days after that.
The Pac-12 better hope it has everything in order before it starts, because it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing around the rest of the country.
Last weekend, six college games were wiped out because of coronavirus outbreaks. So far this week, another half dozen have been canceled.
In all, about 20 college games (it changes almost daily) have been postponed or canceled because of the virus already this season, including Notre Dame-Wake Forest earlier this week.
Poor Houston, one of BYU’s future opponents, had its fifth season opener postponed this week when North Texas came down with too many cases of the virus, a week after Baylor had the same problem. Earlier, Houston’s games against Rice, Washington State and Memphis were canceled.
And what’s going to happen when the SEC begins its league-only season this weekend?
Look at the top 10 states for most coronavirus cases per capita and you’ll find eight — Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas — are from SEC country. Do you really think they’re going to play their full schedule of games?
Last week, LSU coach Ed Orgeron acknowledged that the majority of his players had already contracted COVID. That’s good for the fact that the Tigers won’t have to worry as much about players catching the virus in the near future. But it also shows how vulnerable teams are with so many being shut down because of a few cases.
I still think safety of athletes is more important than the almighty buck, but if the Pac-12 is able to play a season keeping its athletes healthy, then they should be able to join all of the other Power Five conferences currently playing.
However, let’s be real: It’s probably not going to be easy. We may hear that certain players can’t play on a certain week, or if enough players test positive, then a game or two may have to be canceled. With no leeway for open dates, perhaps the Utes will end up only playing only four or five games.
So let’s cheer for Pac-12 football starting up again, but at the same time keep our fingers crossed that it all works out.