Pac-12 Schedule Leaks More Promising than Previously Thought

When the Pac-12 and Big Ten announced that they were eliminating non-conference games from their schedule, a common reaction to the news was that this meant the two conferences were punting on the month of September. Now, at least as far as the Pac-12 is concerned, not so fast?

Jon Wilner of the Mercury News in San Jose, who is as plugged into Pac-12 business as anyone, is reporting that the conference is planning for a 10-game schedule beginning in mid-September. There are the following parameters:

While one of Wilner's sources acknowledges that coronavirus numbers would have to improve over the next 1-2 months for the best case scenario to play out, this is ultimately good news for college football fans that the conference has not yet written the month of September off entirely.

As we wrote before, the Big 12 and SEC appear to be planning on forging ahead with full schedules. This was evident from the facts that 1) Texas sent an email to season ticketholders saying it was planning for a half-full stadium for home games and planning to start its season on September 5th as previously planned, and 2) Alabama is hoping to schedule a new opponent for its season opener after its game versus USC got canceled by the aforementioned Pac-12 conference-only decision.

How the College Football Playoff committee would deal with different conferences having a different amount of games would be a fascinating situation to watch play out. If this happens, expect to see TV debaters getting blue in the face over semantics.