Where College Football Commissioners Stand Amidst Global Crisis and How it Impacts BYU Football

Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger sat down with the 10 college football commissioners and the Notre Dame AD to discuss the conversation around college football's return. You can read the full story here. Here are a few of the most important points and how it might impact BYU football.

Six-week training period

"There is consensus in a six-week training camp that begins in mid-July and elevates in physicality from Week 1 to Week 6, slowly acclimating players who will have gone as much as four months without supervised training. Anticipating this, some schools are even exploring the purchase of testing equipment for their training rooms, as commissioners agree that every athlete and staff member needs testing."

The commissioners noted that a decision "must be made to continue the season as scheduled or delay its start must be made over the next five to seven weeks."

Big12 commissioner Bob Bowslby said the "Athletic administrators aren't going to decide this stuff. It's going to be the university presidents empowered by their boards, and their board is typically powered by the governor and public health director." 

Do students need to be on campus for football to resume?

"A lot of universities have declared their intention to open up and have students on campus, which for me and a lot of my colleagues across the country has been a gating issue. We’ve felt that if our campuses are uncomfortable having students back on campus, we could not envision having student-athletes back on campus competing." Larry Scott (Pac12)

"If the main students are taking classes online, I don't think it's a problem that student-athletes take classes online and participate in athletics. However, if the university is closed and nobody is taking classes in-person or online in any way, I don't think you can have sports because these are student-athletes and they need to be enrolled and going to college to participate in the program." Bob Bowlsby (Big12)

BYU kicks off their against the University of Utah. According to the latest from Larry Scott, it sounds like BYU's game against the University of Utah is contingent upon the University allowing students back on campus in the fall. However, Scott added that he is "cautiously optimistic" that all 130 FBS teams start on time.

Return to play by region

Most of the commissioners acknowledged the possibility that some regions return to play, while other regions remain in quarantine depending on the severity of the outbreak in their area.

Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said, "The sense I get, we would trend toward this: If states and universities are open and ready to play, we'll play with whoever is available. But that's not a final answer. I can't imagine a scenario, from a Mountain West perspective, where 12 different institutions in eight different states come to the same conclusions on when to reopen. We're all over the map."

If this scenario comes to fruition and BYU is forced to drop a few games on their schedule, it's possible that they could fill those gaps with schools from the Mountain West. Other commissioners noted that they would consider playing if the majority of their schools were ready to play. 

Contingency plans

"Contingency models for a season that can’t start on time still include a delayed and truncated season or one that unfolds during the spring, though the latter is on the 'backburner,' one commissioner says. Meanwhile, a deadline closes in on conference leaders.

"I think [conference-only schedule] is a very real possibility. There is support for a conference-only plus-one [non-conference game]. If that's the model, we'd be fine, because we would be most people's plus-one. The ACC has been a great partner for us, and we've got six ACC games scheduled this year instead of the usual five. That's a pretty good building block. The Naval Academy is adamant about playing us." Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick

In this scenario that the Notre Dame AD outlined, BYU might be able to retain some of their scheduled games if they are the "plus one" option for their scheduled opponents. 

Here is BYU's 2020 schedule broken out by conference:

• Pac12: 3
• Mountain West: 3
• Big10: 2
• SEC: 1
• AAC: 1
• MAC: 1
• FCS: 1

The fate of BYU's 2020 football schedule remains uncertain, but the next five to seven weeks will provide answers.

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