Texas Football: 2020 season under threat of being cancelled?

A real threat is coming about that the Texas football program could have the fall 2020 season cancelled out in the near future.

This was a pretty crazy weekend in college sports, especially among the Power Five conferences, in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. And the Texas football program could soon be one of many around the college football landscape that is impacted by the ongoing storylines that involves delays and cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just over the weekend alone, the Oklahoma Sooners had to postpone fall football operations, the Colorado State Rams suspended football activities indefinitely, and the MAC postponed pretty much all fall sports operations as a whole. And apparently things are not looking good for the Power Five conferences at the moment either.

The momentum that the Power Five conferences found in putting a plan together to play an altered 2020 season schedule has very much fallen apart in the last couple of days. And according to various reports (including Sports Illustrated) there is a wave of momentum pushing the Power Five conferences to cancel out fall sports altogether.

Here’s more on what the report from Sports Illustrated had to say on the matter.

"Group of 5 league representatives simultaneously were conferring to align their own timelines, a source said.Both the Pac-12 and Big 12 have calls with league presidents on Tuesday night that might present the first scheduled opportunity for Power 5 leagues to formally vote on postponement. But other calls could be scheduled earlier.A Big Ten presidents call to discuss the season was planned for Sunday night, SI confirmed. Conference USA had a call previously scheduled for Wednesday, but that may be moved up, sources said. Sun Belt presidents have a regularly scheduled Tuesday morning meeting, as do AAC athletic directors."

It sounds like the Big Ten was the first to really have some of its lead officials push for fall sports to either be postponed or cancelled out entirely. The Big 12 was one of the slower moving conferences in terms of putting together a concrete plan to have a 2020 season.

What the plan for the Big 12 was this fall included a nine-game plus-one schedule. The Longhorns were set to play a nine-game Big 12 slate, and then one non-conference game against the UTEP Miners out of the Conference-USA.

But if fall sports across the Power Five conferences are cancelled out entirely, then any momentum programs like the Longhorns were able to build of late is completely cancelled out too.

Texas finished up the 2019 season with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12) after beating the Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl. They were supposed to start the season on Sep. 12 at home against UTEP. But a lot of this is getting called into question in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.