ACC commissioner John Swofford joined the Packer & Durham show on the ACC Network Friday morning for the network's one-year anniversary.

The commissioner didn't shy away from talking about the elephant in the room, the status of fall sports — particularly football — as the season is set to begin in three weeks.

Here are the highlights from Swofford's appearance:

With the integration of the student population back to some of these campus campuses, it's been a lot like when the student-athletes came back in June or July at some of these schools, right?

"I think so, the difference is there a lot more of the students that are not student-athletes that are coming back at one time. I think all of us involved, looking ahead, knew that this period of time as the students come back and campuses reopen that there would be some challenges in terms of managing what needs to be managed as it relates to reopening our universities and, hopefully, our athletic programs and the competition that comes with that.

"Nothing terribly surprising in that regard, there are more of our students coming onto campus this week, next week, but as I said, we knew these first couple of weeks would be challenging in a lot of different ways. That's proving to be true but at the same time in terms of the management of our athletic programs, the containment of the virus within those programs and the testing that is going on, it continues to go well."

What do you make of the disagreement among medical experts as it relates to playing this seeing and how do you read the big picture?

"It accentuates the challenge that is there for everybody that's trying to deal with this because there's a certain lack of consistency in what we hear from the medical profession.

"The fact that goes with that is that there are unknowns, certainly for the layman, but also for those in the medical profession. The other thing that goes with it is that it shows that medical people can look at the same information and interpret it differently, and feel differently about your ability to mitigate it in terms of playing sports, in our instance, and doing it safely.

"We've been extremely pleased with our medical group that was put together months ago with representatives from each of the 15 institutions, as well as the doctors outside of that group that they have brought in as consultants in giving advice to our presidents and athletic directors.

"Dr. Cameron Wolfe at Duke has just been tremendous in chairing that group. The whole effort is aimed at answering the question, 'Can we play safely?' and 'Can we mitigate the virus in a way that keeps the student-athletes and others around the programs and involved with the competition safe?' Therefore, is it appropriate to go forward with it?

"So far, our board in the ACC, our presidents have continued to believe that is the case and that's why we have consistently stayed with the process we've had for the last five months and consistently stayed so far with the idea that we can mitigate it and play safely and that is the best thing for our student-athletes.

"Every week is different, the students coming back to our campuses changes that environment and hopefully can be managed in an appropriate way that continues for us to have the answers that we've had in the last few weeks in terms of going ahead with playing. Every day is a new day and every week is a new week, and so far we have stayed on that path as has the SEC and the Big 12."

How important now is the infrastructure of fall sports other than football to the ACC since it would be not as symmetrical than what the NCAA is planning, at least from a championship side?

"It's still important, we need some definitive answers from the NCAA that helps us in that regard.

"Yesterday, coming out of the NCAA council, I think we started to receive some of that information that we need, mainly because our student-athletes need it. I think we're going to end up with a situation where athletes will not use a year of eligibility this year because of the uniqueness of everything that's happening and the unknowns just to how many games may be played and when they may be played.

"What seems to be coming from the NCAA is positive for student-athletes and a positive for us making decisions in terms of the Olympic sports where we could go ahead and play in the fall if medically cleared and yet play in the spring as well when the NCAA may have a national championship.

"It's unlikely that there'll be Olympic national championships in the fall. There could be Atlantic Coast Conference championships, an SEC championship, a Big 12 championship and so forth.

"Hopefully that would not be a deterrent to our teams playing in the spring if the NCAA national championship consists there and they would not be losing a year of eligibility. That clarification will be helpful to us moving forward."

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