Big 12 is Aiming to Hold a College Football Season This Fall
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00:00 The Big 12 may have saved college football, at least for now.
00:03 For more on that, I'm joined by our senior writer, Pat Forty,
00:06 and John Hoover of all Sooners.
00:08 Pat, let's start with you.
00:09 How big was the decision by the Big 12 to, at least for now,
00:14 continue to head toward a season?
00:16 Well, it continues to breathe life
00:18 into a 2020 fall football season.
00:20 That's how big it was.
00:22 I think if the Big 12 had pulled the plug
00:24 that the ACC would have followed,
00:27 and that would have left just the SEC
00:29 among the Power Five conferences,
00:30 and I don't think they would have gone it alone.
00:32 So I think that would have taken out all the Power Five,
00:35 and I think the remaining group of five conferences
00:38 would have followed rather quickly after that.
00:40 So that was the--
00:42 described to me as the linchpin conference in any chance
00:46 for fall football.
00:47 And so the Big 12 kept that chance alive for now.
00:51 Now, John, obviously, I'm imagining
00:54 there's a lot of excitement around Sooner country,
00:56 but is that mixed with nervousness, too,
00:58 that this won't hold?
01:01 Yeah, this is-- as Pat and Ross have been writing,
01:05 this is not something-- this is not a guarantee for the college
01:08 football season.
01:09 This does give us a path to September.
01:13 The Big 12 is announcing today its schedule.
01:17 This morning, they're having an 11 AM Central Press
01:20 Conference.
01:21 Bob Bowlsby is going to take questions.
01:22 They're going to reveal the schedule.
01:24 So this gives us that path to be able to at least talk
01:28 college football at this point.
01:31 Now, Pat, when you are talking college football,
01:33 how stuck into the position do you
01:35 think the SEC, the ACC, and now the Big 12
01:38 are to get a season going?
01:41 I mean, I think they want it to happen,
01:42 but I think they're also kind of wary about the next steps
01:46 and understand there's several weeks to go
01:49 before getting the kickoff.
01:51 Student bodies are going to start filling up campuses.
01:55 Chances for outbreaks are going to increase
01:58 in the coming weeks when that happens.
02:00 It's been a lot of hard work, and a lot of schools
02:03 have done great work in terms of maintaining
02:06 a kind of protective cocoon for their programs
02:09 and limiting the number of tests,
02:12 positive tests in most cases.
02:14 But it wouldn't take much to kind of undo all of that.
02:18 So if we're looking at several weeks before kickoff,
02:22 there's still a lot of time for this to go sideways.
02:25 Yeah, it's been a tough week for college football,
02:28 but there apparently is hope at least for three
02:31 of the Power Five conferences.
02:33 Pat, John, appreciate your time.
02:35 Thank you.
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