Pac-12, Mountain West in danger of being left behind if college football returns to play in 2020
The states of California and Oregon may make it difficult for entire conferences to start up on the West Coast
J.D. Wicker's phone blew up Tuesday afternoon. What the California State Universities Board of Trustees had just announced floored him.
The chancellor of the CSU System announced that its 23 universities would go almost exclusively online for the fall. Almost no students in classrooms. Among those 23 schools is San Diego State where Wicker has been athletic director for the last three-plus years.
"It caught me a little out of left field," he told CBS Sports. "I'm not going to lie. We had to scramble a little bit. It wasn't exactly what we had been talking about."
Not in terms of playing football anytime soon. That decision -- whether a school should play football without students being allowed on campus -- has turned out to be one of the most significant in the return-to-play discussion. Depending who you ask, it may be the deciding factor.
Those 23 universities include not only San Diego State but Fresno State and San Jose State, one-fourth of the Mountain West. The announcement pushed closer to reality thoughts shared last month by MWC commissioner Craig Thompson. His league might have to move forward on the field without those schools if they can't play this fall.
That brings up a looming question that grows bigger by the day: Knowing all schools want to play football in the fall, which will actually be allowed to play if the coronavirus remains so stubborn?
In that discussion, the West Coast has never looked more left out.
"We're in never never land," said Stanford coach David Shaw. "We don't know what's going to happen. My hope is the majority of universities can participate so we can have a real season."
College football's stakeholders have already indicated they're ready to move forward in 2020 without all 10 FBS conferences and perhaps even without all the schools within those conferences.
"The best thing would be to be united," Colorado AD Rick George said of the 10 conferences. "But at the end of the day, that may be difficult to do."
The Pac-12 alone is on alert. The immediate prospects for major-college football in the state of California do not look good. Gov. Gavin Newsom has already said large gatherings are doubtful for the rest of the calendar year. The Los Angeles County stay-at-home order "with all certainty" will be extended for three months, according to L.A.'s public health director.
What that means for USC and UCLA football isn't clear.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown recommended last week any large gatherings would have to be canceled or significantly modified through at least September. What that means for Oregon and Oregon State isn't clear.
"Until there is a vaccine, unfortunately, we will not be going back to life as we knew it," Brown said.
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