Ever since the cancellation of March Madness, college sports fans have waited for this moment. This week, NC State Wolfpack fans and others should get their first, initial dose of clarity regarding the plans for the 2020 season.
It will not be finality, however. That will not come until a later date and will likely be dependent on the COVID-19 pandemic more than anything. Colleges in the ACC have already shown signs of dialing back in-class enrollments. Clemson has gone online only until Sept. 21, and students will not be allowed back on campus until Sept. 13.
Duke announced over the weekend that it is reducing dorm capacity by about 30 percent.
This Wednesday, the university presidents at Clemson and Duke will meet with other ACC leaders to make preliminary decisions on the status of college football in the fall.
Pete Thamel of Yahoo! Sports reported on Thursday that the preferred scheduling model for the league is a 10 league games plus one non-conference foe, although David Teel of the Richmond Times-Dispatch tweeted that eight league games with one more out-of-conference opponent is also a possibility. Thamel noted that the start day would be Sept. 12, 19 or 26. The AP is reporting that Sept. 12 is the potential start date.
Adding intrigue to the ACC meeting this week is the question about Notre Dame football. Reports are that the Fighting Irish will become a de facto member of the ACC for this upcoming season and be eligible for a league title, but there are likely financial issues revolving around Notre Dame’s television contract with NBC that would have been settled first.
There have been massive fall sports cancellation at the Football Championships Subdivision (FCS), started by the Ivy League on July 8, with the hopes of perhaps jumpstarting those competitions in the spring. The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), led by the Power Five conferences of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC have been hesitant to go down that route.
Indeed, the Power Five conferences have become increasingly proactive. Over the weekend, Oklahoma has moved up its season opener with Missouri State to Aug. 29 from the originally scheduled date of Sept. 5.
This week, the Pac 12 is expected to release its revised season plans, calling for a 10-game regular season of conference only games that will begin on Sept. 19, which would have been week three of the originally scheduled season.
What does all this mean for NC State? Potentially a completely new-looking schedule that may be more geographically-based as it is likely that the divisions concept will be scrapped for the upcoming year. In terms of the plus-one game, NC State already has a home contest scheduled against Mississippi State on Sept. 12.
If the SEC, whose presidents and leaders are also expected to meet this week, adopt a similar model to the ACC, it too would need to settle on a game for its league members outside the traditional rivalries of Florida-Florida State, Georgia Tech-Georgia, Clemson-South Carolina and Kentucky-Louisville. Thus preserving the Mississippi State-NC State game on the current schedule could work well, especially since it's already scheduled for the potential new start date.
Then the question is how would the league slate look for the Pack. It was already set to play all of its other in-state ACC rivals for the first time since 2013 since Duke is on the schedule. If the conference were to expand the league schedule to 10 games, does it preserve the current games on the slate and add two more or does it scrap them all together and come up with a new one?
Under the former scenario, it would mean that NC State would add two more games from a group that would include Georgia Tech, Miami, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Virginia Tech and possibly Notre Dame.
Regardless, it’s potentially a big week of news likely coming for college football.
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