It could be that only one sport will be left standing in the fall for NC State Wolfpack athletics — football.

Although the ACC is among the conferences that have decided to press forward with fall sports at this time, NCAA president Mark Emmert announced Thursday afternoon that the organization will not host championships in those sports.

“Tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall,” Emmert said.

For NC State, that would include men’s and women’s cross-country, volleyball, and men’s and women’s soccer. It would an especially difficult blow for the women’s cross country team that was expected to be a potential national title contender. It remains to be seen what the ACC will decide to do with those sports in response to the NCAA’s announcement.

Emmert noted that the choices from other conferences to postpone fall sports somewhat forced the NCAA’s hands.

“If you don’t have half the schools playing a sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship,” he said.

The NCAA does not host the FBS football championship. The ACC, Big 12, SEC, American Athletic, Conference USA and Sun Belt highlight the teams that are still trying to play this fall in football, whose championship is run by the College Football Playoff. The chair of that committee released a statement Thursday.

"We don't know right now what the season will bring, but as a committee, we are ready to use the protocol and the expertise of the 13 people who have been charged with selecting the teams," said Gary Barta, the University of Iowa’s director of athletics.

"The committee's task is to rank the teams based on what happens on the field. This week gave us a great chance to catch up with the familiar faces and welcome our three new members to the process. If the board and management committee say we are having a CFP, we will be ready."

What remains to be seen is whether the optics of only football in a few conferences playing this fall add to the pressure on the remaining conferences to call it off.

The ACC presidents met Thursday for a regularly scheduled conference and received the latest feedback from its medical advisory board. Reports suggested that the league is still planning to proceed with football in the fall, at least.

Emmert did not rule out the possibility of fielding the fall championships later.

“There are ways to do this,” he said. “I am completely confident we can figure this out if schools and conferences want to move forward.”

He noted that there will be challenges, and it may require modifying the model. That could include shrinking the bracket sizes and doing everything at predetermined sites.

“It is doable, and we want to do that,” Emmert said.

However, Emmert also noted that there are more pressing issues that they face before they can get around to rescheduling fall championships.

“We have to give highest priority to the winter and spring sports because they lost their championships last March,” he noted.

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