FB: Pac-12 opts back in, 7-game schedule begins Nov. 6
Pac-12 football is back. In an abbreviated form.
As a result of a vote by the Pac-12 CEO Group late Thursday afternoon, the Pac-12 announced the 2020 football season will begin the weekend of Nov. 6-7. Each conference team will play a 7-game conference only schedule (5 division games + 2 crossover games, one of them on Dec. 18-19)
The 2020 football schedule will be announced "in the near future," according to a Washington State press release. The Pac-12 championship game is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 18.
No fans will be allowed to attend any games. Moreover, WSU announced no tailgating will be allowed on campus.
"WSU Athletics will continue to abide by all health and safety policies and protocols that follow campus, Pac-12 Conference, NCAA, local, state and federal guidelines, as well as national best practices," the school said.
The Pac-12 vote to play football in the fall follws the Big Ten's decisions to begin play in late October. The ACC, Big 12 and SEC are already playing with the latter conference beginning Saturday.
"Once the Big Ten elected to play, we didn’t want to be the last league not playing,” Schuilz said, adding the vote to play football in the fall was unanimous. "I was behind the scenes pushing pretty hard to get this done."
Additionally, the conference announced the 2020-21 season for men’s and women’s basketball will begin Nov. 25, consistent with the NCAA start dates for these sports.
For universities utilizing daily antigen testing, at least one weekly PCR test will also be administered for each player. All positive tests need to be confirmed with a PCR test. All testing recommendations will be reviewed and updated as needed on an ongoing basis.
"The Pac-12 CEO Group has been committed from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to doing everything in our power to safeguard the health of our student-athletes," WSU president Kirk Schulz said in a statement. "While we all want to provide our student-athletes with the opportunity to compete, we had to be certain that play could commence in a safe manner.
"I applaud the Pac-12 Conference for taking the concerns of the Pac-12 CEO Group so seriously and coming up with rigorous public health protocols that allow for the safe return to competition.”
Pac-12 institutions are participating in a national COVID-19 cardiac registry which will allow for medical practitioners to monitor closely, and gain greater insight into, potential health outcomes in athletes.
The Pac-12 previously announced it would move the football season tot he spring semester. However, "after extensive discussion of the relative merits of the two approaches, a strong preference emerged for a fall season, and the CEOs unanimously agreed to proceed with that schedule."
Fall sports for which post-season championships were postponed by the NCAA until the spring will be conducted starting January 2021, with preparation and practice occurring during the fall as permitted by NCAA rules.Those sports include women's soccer and volleyball.