ACC, SEC ought to seek one specific goal if any games can be played

As the editor of the USC Trojans Wire site, I have written a lot about COVID-19 and college football in recent days and over the past few months in PandemicWorld, this bizarre realm we are all forced to live in.

I have written dozens of columns, but they all flow into a few central points:

1. College football should TRY to play. That doesn’t mean the sport must play at all costs, but yes, it should at least make the attempt to play.
2. If one person — player or coach — gets severely ill from COVID-19 (needing a ventilator or severe medical intervention beyond simple isolation or quarantining, or something in that ballpark), we’re done. No playing sports until we get a vaccine if one person becomes severely ill due to this theater of activity.
3. If no one gets severely ill, we can entertain possibilities for playing.
4. Forget about championships and how much the season means; we’re trying to play sports so that school budgets don’t crater, and so that the public gets a measure of psychological release from stress and misery. That’s it.
5. Flowing from point No. 4, we should think of college football less as a “full season” and more as a chance to play a scattered assortment of games, just to minimize economic and psychological devastation.

In the spirit of those five central points mentioned above, and in light of the Big Ten’s decision to have a conference-only game schedule if we are able to have college football at all this fall, this is what the ACC — and the SEC — need to pursue in the adjusted scheduling plan they must consider right now:

Play your one cross-conference rivalry game early in the season.

You know what I am referring to:

Louisville versus Kentucky. Georgia versus Georgia Tech. Clemson versus South Carolina. And so on.

With all the FCS cancellations slowly trickling in — and likely to increase — and with all the Group of Five schedules being upended by the Big Ten’s decision, the SEC and ACC are feeling a measure of pressure to conform to a conference-only game schedule as well.

Yet, we know that it’s dumb — and a failure of leadership — to not allow carved-out exceptions for cross-conference rivalry games which involve minimal commutes. Iowa and Iowa State ought to play. The game means a lot to the state of Iowa and the people within it. The Notre Dame-Wisconsin game was a huge deal. It’s good that the two schools intend to play in 2021, but still: The idea that they couldn’t keep their game reflects a lack of political and administrative skill (or will, or both).

Yes, I realize we might never get to a point where we play any games at all this fall. That reality cannot be ignored, similar to the reality that if one athlete or coach gets severely ill, any plans to play football would immediately evaporate. We would shelter in place until we have a vaccine, and then reassess our options. I get that and have been explicit in saying that. None of these statements about plans or aspirations have ignored that larger reality.

If there is any chance to play football, however, doesn’t it make sense to include the one nonconference game which really matters, the game fans in localities really want to see?

The very fact that the season is going to be reduced in length — the Big Ten has already set the bar at 10 games down from 12, and other conferences would surely follow in some form — opens up multiple scheduling slots.

Memo to the ACC and SEC: That being the case, don’t try to play your rivalry games in late November. The second wave of the coronavirus might be raging through the country as flu season approaches. More than that, let’s imagine a world in which college teams play only one game at all this autumn. If you’re going to play only one game, what game should it be? Of course it should be the rivalry game.

Pac-12 expert Jon Wilner put forth an eight-game adjusted plan for Pac-12 teams. I outlined what a five- or six-game plan might look like — unsatisfying, to be sure, yet worlds better than playing zero football over the next several months.

What if we get into a situation where the window for playing college football is reduced to one month (say, mid-September through mid-October). Do we abandon the whole season, or do we try to play a few games in that window? If the choice is between playing a very small number of games and zero, wouldn’t fans at least like to see the game which matters for bragging rights… and which is also the game most players on teams would probably be willing to play, given the risks involved?

I go back to the bullet points I listed above: We’re playing these games for economic/budgetary improvement and for psychological release and comfort. If college football teams played just one game this fall, and it was the one game which mattered most to the respective fan bases across the board, that alone would be better than playing zero games.

The ACC and SEC should not only fight for a plan which includes one nonconference game; that game should be scheduled earlier rather than later, so that 2020 ends with at least one significantly positive college football memory, rather than zero.

It’s not satisfying… but it would represent an attempt to make the best of a very bad situation, provided no one gets severely ill in the run-up to such a game.

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