Texas Football: Probability 2020 season ‘isn’t happening’ is growing

The 2020 season is getting called into question, although no material changes have happened as of yet for the Texas football program.

The 2020 college football season as it stood five or six months ago is not going to be the same. That is all well known at this point in time. But further adjustments or alterations to the looming season as it pertains to the Texas football program is still unclear. The Big 12 really has yet to make any significant moves or adjustments compared to their Power Five conference counterparts.

The Big Ten already announced that it is currently planning to hold a conference-only schedule for the 2020 season. And it appears that the ACC and PAC-12 followed suit in the Big Ten’s footsteps with holding a conference-only schedule. This does impact a few of the games planned for the Big 12 this season, but none for the Longhorns at least so far.

None of the Group of Five conferences that Texas is set to face this fall has announced any major changes that would change their game against the Longhorns. The American Athletic Conference, SEC, and Conference-USA are where the non-con teams the Longhorns are slated to face this fall come from.

The most important of that group of non-con games comes against the defending National Champion LSU Tigers. With the Big 12 and SEC as the lone remaining conferences still with planned non-con games (at least as it stands as of the morning of July 14), the Texas-LSU game remains as likely the most significant of this category left for the 2020 season.

But there are some broader voices that are making their thoughts known at this point in time about what could happen in the college football landscape this year. One of those that came out with a bold but trending take on July 13 was Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports.

On Monday afternoon, Thamel released a piece titled “College Football isn’t happening in the fall”.

Very blunt and to the point.

And this is also something that is a growing trend among the more powerful voices in the college football landscape and the media. There is this growing level of doubt about the certainty of a 2020 season that resembles anything close to what we thought it would be this fall.

A number of FCS conferences have cancelled all fall sports, including the Ivy and Patriot League. And JUCO has already moved the football season to the spring.

The writing is on the wall that something is going to change that impacts the Longhorns, we just don’t know what that change will be yet. Hopefully there is a way to play the 2020 season in some form or fashion in a safe manner in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Texas is supposed to open up the 2020 season on Sep. 5 at home against the South Florida Bulls. Their main game of the non-conference slate is currently set to kickoff on Sep. 12 against LSU on the road in Baton Rouge.