Oklahoma football, Texas and perhaps Oklahoma State appear to be ones out of the Big 12 most advocating for a fall football season.
Whether that will be enough to sway the Big 12 Board of Directors to preserve a fall football season is a big unknown at this time.
Two big shoes have dropped with the Big Ten and Pac-12 electing not to play football in the fall, but as of Tuesday midday the Big 12 had made no decision to follow suit, meaning Oklahoma football is still alive, as of now, for the fall of 2020.
For over a week now, the widespread speculation has been that if one of the Power Five conferences decides to cancel all fall sports, including football, the other four would join the bandwagon. That may still happen, but for right now, it appears the Big 12, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference are not ready or willing to call off a fall football season.
Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said over the weekend that the Big 12 would not be swayed by what the other major conferences do regarding playing or not playing football in the fall.
“In the end, we are going to do what is best for our league,” Bowlsby said. “I think we all want to play. It’s just a matter of if we can play safely.
“The priority is what it’s always been. It’s to make sure people participate safely and without short- or long-term complications,” the Big 12 commissioner said.
The concerns about COVID exposure and the spread of the virus have not gone away, and cases are still rising in many parts of the country, including Big 12 country. And there are reports now about cardiovascular complications from the coronavirus in large individuals, which is something of concern, particularly for football players.
Oklahoma football in the fall of 2020 hanging on by the laces of a football.
Despite the decision by the Big Ten to cancel all fall sports, Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa and Ohio State have said they hope to still be able to compete and play football games this fall.
Nebraska head coach Scott Frost said on Monday, when it appeared that the Big Ten was ready to make the announcement about cancelling football in the fall, that the Cornhuskers were prepared to play games in the fall, even if it had to do so outside of the Big Ten.
Nebraska reportedly has sent up some flares about its interest in playing games against Big 12 schools in the fall, sort of a one-off reunion with teams out of the Cornhuskers former conference. Who wouldn’t want to see a renewal of the longtime Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry, even with the two longtime rivals scheduled to meet in 2021 in the first of a two-game home-and-home series?
Or how about Ohio State-Texas or Oklahoma State-Michigan?
Sounds intriguing, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s not likely to happen, even in this upside-down world we’re currently living in where individual and group creativity and doing things out of the ordinary have become increasingly commonplace.
The Big Ten did say it would attempt to play football in the spring. The word “attempt” is very interesting to me. Nebraska’s Frost, for one, isn’t in favor of playing football in the spring. He said it would take too much of a toll on his players to have to play two seasons in the same calendar year.
This won’t be news to those who follow this website, but with all the COVID concerns and the exposure risks that haven’t gone away despite our best attempts a protective measures, and with the very nature of football being a high-contact sport, I don’t see how college football can make a safe or sensible go of it this fall. The concerns, and likely the cases, will only increase when the student bodies return to campus.
I do, however, like the fact that the Big 12 and the other two Power conferences are doing everything they can to keep the hope alive as long as they can.
And let me be clear: In my heart, I would like to see a fall college football season, but my mind tells me that it isn’t the right thing to do, not this fall, anyway.