Baylor coach Dave Aranda could see a weight being lifted off the shoulders of his players during a meeting Tuesday night, when word began to filter out that the Big 12 Conference would attempt to play football this fall.
“You could just see the joy,” Aranda said. “Everyone was smiling. Guys were cracking jokes, were excited.”
Months of uncertainty had finally given the Bears and their conference rivals the slightest bit of clarity. If all goes according to plan, they will take the field for a non-conference game next month, then begin a round-robin league schedule on Sept. 26 with the intention of crowning a Big 12 champion on Dec. 12 near Dallas.
That doesn’t mean they will be competing for a national title, though. The Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences have so far joined the Big 12 in playing this fall, but the Big Ten, Pac-12 and many smaller conferences are trying for the spring.
So will there be two national champions, like there sometimes were when poll voters declared who was best? Will an autumn champion play a spring champion? Will this year, like so many things around the world, simply be one to forget?
Those are among the questions that still must be answered.
“We have a College Football Playoff call next week and we’ll obviously talk about this. It’s going to be a while into the season before all that is resolved,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Wednesday. “There probably isn’t any obvious reason why it couldn’t work to continue to try to play a postseason, but you’re looking at a December-January time frame right in the heart of the virus season. I just think it’s too early. We’re going to have to be patient.”
Patience is something the league has been preaching since March, when the coronavirus pandemic began shutting down sports in the U.S. as it turned the world upside down.
The Big 12’s board of directors have been speaking on an almost-daily basis with infectious disease experts, scientists and physicians while getting the input of coaches, administrators and athletes. It came up with a plan it believes will work.
Fall sports will begin after Sept. 1 with football playing a schedule in which each team can play one non-conference game before league play begins a few weeks later. The schools will all play each other to give them 10 total games.
All athletes will be subject to three tests per week — likely Sunday, Wednesday and Friday — in “high contact” sports such as football, volleyball and soccer. Should an athlete test positive, they would be subject to echocardiograms, a cardiac MRI, blood tests and other examinations before they are cleared to return.
Non-conference opponents also must adhere to Big 12 standards the week before competition.
“We have been unwavering in putting our focus squarely on the well-being of our student-athletes and staff members,” Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said. “There has been great effort expended in areas like testing and sanitizing, which are part of a comprehensive plan.”
TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini, who chairs the board of directors, acknowledged things could change at any time. The Big Ten, for example, had released a conference-only schedule before scrapping the fall season just days later.
“If at any point our scientists and doctors conclude that our institutions cannot provide a safe and appropriate environment for our participants, we will change course,” Boschini said.
