Trying to figure out how this college football season is going to work is quite difficult, in large part because it seems like gigantic dominoes keep falling. Whether it’s been smaller schools canceling their seasons, major conferences opting to go to 10-game schedules without non-conference games, or an FBS school in UConn kicking the can down the road, dominoes have been falling in recent weeks.
The biggest domino so far fell on Saturday, when Brett McMurphy of Stadium reported that the Mid-American Conference has opted to forgo a football season altogether. This report was confirmed by Heather Dinich and Adam Rittenberg of ESPN, who mentioned that this cancelation applies to all fall sports and also confirmed McMurphy’s report that the conference plans to try and give it a go come spring.
On a call with reporters, MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher indicated that the road ahead involves coming up with plans for all of the sports impacted by this decision to play in spring 2021. He did, however, indicate that this is not guaranteed to happen.
“This fall our presidents will get updates on a monthly report,” Steinbrecher said. “By mid-fall, hopefully we’ll have plans in place that will have been approved. And then, somewhere later this fall, whether that’s November or December, I think the virus will have a big determination on our ability to ultimately say it’s a go or a no-go. At some point, we’ll make that determination that we can move forward with these plans.”
With the move, the MAC became the first FBS conference to announce the cancelation of all fall sports, including football. Now, all eyes are on the rest of college football and how it responds, with one individual in Power 5 football ominously telling McMurphy that the “college football season is done.”
