Oklahoma football: Big 12 adopts 9-plus-1 schedule for 2020
By Chip Rouse
The decision by the Big 12 on Monday to play a 10-game schedule in 2020 means the Oklahoma football schedule will consist of nine conference opponents plus one game out of conference.
The action taken by the Big 12 Board of Directors puts the Big 12 in parity with three of the other four Power Five leagues, each of which have elected to play a total of 10 regular-season games in this unusual year greatly altered by COVID-19 concerns.
The Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 will all play a conference-only 10-game schedule. The ACC will play a 10-plus-one schedule consisting of 10 conference games and one nonconference opponent.
The Big 12 said the conference schedule would be firmed up in the coming weeks, with an anticipated start date sometime between mid-to-late September. The plan approved on Monday calls for all nonconference games to be completed before the conference schedule kicks in.
Four Big 12 teams, including Oklahoma, are currently scheduled to open the season on Aug. 29. The Sooners moved up their season opener against Missouri State, out of the Missouri Valley Conference, to Aug. 29 to allow more time between their first three games to start the season. The game was originally scheduled for Sept. 5. It could be moved back to the original date with the reconfigured schedule, but at this time that appears unlikely.
Big 12 officials said that some teams could begin conference play on Sept. 19 and others on Sept. 26. The original schedule called for Kansas to play at Baylor on Sept. 12.
Oklahoma football will play a 9-plus-1 scheduling model in 2020.
Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said Oklahoma still intends to play its annual rivalry game with Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, despite the fact that the State Fair of Texas, where the Cotton Bowl is located, has been cancelled for this year.
“We expect to play that game in the month of November,” the Sooner AD told ESPN senior writer Heather Dinich. “The only reason we’d have to look at another venue is if something developed that the Cotton Bowl was unavailable for whatever reason.”
Sources told Jason Kersey of The Athletic that neither Oklahoma nor Texas was interested in a home-and-home arrangement for this game.
“The more flexibility you have, the better off you are in terms of being able to make up games,” said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby in an interview late last week with The Athletic’s Kersey. “I go into it with the assumption that we are going to have some disruptions (caused by COVID cases),
The Big 12 Championship game is currently scheduled for Dec. 5 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. In view of the reworked scheduling plan, the game could be moved back a week, to Dec. 12, or even Dec. 19. A couple of the other Power Five leagues have proposed holding their conference championship game as late as Dec. 19.
A Dec. 19 date for the Big 12 Championship, however, presents a conflict with AT&T Stadium, which is scheduled to host some of the Texas high school state championship games on that date. If it’s decided to host the Big 12 Championship game on Dec. 19, the venue will likely be moved to nearby Globe Life Field, the new baseball home of the Texas Rangers.
It’s one thing to have all the reworked scheduling plans on the table from the Power Five conferences, but the NCAA still holds the trump card in all of this. There are some college football officials who fear that when the NCAA Board of Governors meet next week that body could decide then, or at some later time, to cancel all fall collegiate championships, which would make it difficult for football to operate as the only fall sport.
Figuring out how to get through the college football regular season is going to be difficult enough this year. The next consideration is the postseason bowl environment.