Texas Football: Impact of Big Ten/PAC-12 cancelling season
The Texas football program is pushing along with the Big 12 for the 2020 season, while the Big Ten and PAC-12 are cancelling at least until spring.
And then there were three. With two of the Power Five conferences deciding earlier this week to officially cancel out their fall 2020 football seasons, the ACC, SEC, and Big 12 were the three left standing. The Big Ten and PAC-12 look to at least try and postpone their football seasons until spring, in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. This does leave the Texas football program as one of more than 30 Power Five conference teams still planning on playing a fall 2020 schedule.
With that, it appears that the Longhorns will be attempting to face the UTEP Miners out of the Conference-USA as their one non-conference game this fall. The other nine will come against Big 12 teams, and the new schedule shows that Texas will get their in-state foe Texas Tech Red Raiders to open up the conference slate.
The Big 12 schedule in Week 1 of the conference slate will include Texas Tech traveling to Austin to take on Texas, Baylor-Kansas, Oklahoma State-West Virginia, Oklahoma-Kansas State, and TCU-Iowa State. Texas-Texas Tech and Oklahoma-Kansas State could wind up being the headlining games of the opening weekend of Big 12 play this fall.
However, what will put an even brighter spotlight on the Big 12, along with the SEC and ACC, is the fact that fans of the Big Ten and PAC-12 programs will not be able to watch their teams this fall. The Big Ten and PAC-12 are both aiming to hold their seasons in spring, but who knows what will happen before then in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What does all of this mean for the Longhorns, along with the rest of the Big 12 this fall?
Since Texas didn’t have any non-conference games against any PAC-12 or Big Ten schools this year, that direct link is taken away. But the fact that two of the Power Five conferences just entirely elected to pass on the planned college football season obviously creates a void in uniform scheduling and rankings.
While that is well beyond the main priority at hand in terms of actually having some form of an altered college football season, it does bring about the question of what happens at the end. The usual College Football Playoff is clearly going to be impacted. Will the NCAA move the traditional College Football Playoff to the spring, or will the ultimate goal to be to finish at the top of the final AP Poll and win your conference?
There’s a number of ways that college football could go about crowning a new National Champion, but none that present any good level of uniformity. Winning the Big 12 could be the ultimate goal for the Longhorns when it’s all said and done this fall.
Moreover, I think the main point by now is to try to get through a few games while keeping the players safe this fall, and the season will already be considered somewhat of a success. The MLB might be the closest thing in professional sports in North America to what college football is trying to pull off this fall.
The MLB is allowing each team to play in their own home stadium, just without any fans at games. And the MLB, with all of their resources and many less athletes and overall personnel to test than college football, has run into a good amount of road blocks since starting the season.
If the same problem comes about for any of the three Power Five conferences pushing ahead for the season this fall, then their plan is going to move closer to what the Big Ten and PAC-12 just announced. But it’s too early to tell what will happen in that regard.
The impact that this move by the Big Ten and PAC-12 will also stem beyond the void it creates for the 2020 season, as well as any question marks for the health of the players and staff. It could dramatically alter the fortunes of various Power Five programs on the recruiting trail and in the NCAA Transfer Portal.
If there’s no football in a traditional sense this fall for the Big Ten and PAC-12 programs, if players are granted immediate eligibility, then they might want to jump to the teams that are actually playing games this year. Not everyone is going to leave their current program, but there could be a decent uptick depending on how the NCAA treats this situation with the transfer portal.
With there being a lot of delayed high school football and JUCO seasons around the country, this limits the exposure that various recruits and current college players alike get. Some of the Big Ten and PAC-12 programs are definitely going to have to get more creative on the trail heading into the fall this year.
Texas is supposed to open up their 2020 season on Sep. 12 at home against the UTEP Miners out of Conference-USA. And their Big 12 opener is set to come on Sep. 26 at home against Texas Tech. They really have to ramp up fast for what will be the weirdest and most cautious start to a college football regular season.