The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), along with the Southeastern (SEC) and Big-12 conferences, is sticking with its plan to play football in the fall.
After the Big Ten and Pac 12 conferences postponed its football seasons on Tuesday, the ACC released a statement on Twitter that emphasized an established plan of listening to advice from authorities and medical experts as well as making adjustments in necessary.
“The ACC will continue to make decisions based on medical advice, inclusive of our Medical Advisory Group, local and state health guidelines, and to do so in a way that appropriately coincides with our universities’ academic missions,” the ACC said in its statement.
Statement from the ACC: pic.twitter.com/9lBY5h8jNy
— The ACC (@theACC) August 11, 2020
The statement continued saying: “The safety of our students, staff, and overall campus communities will always be our top priority, and we are pleased with the protocols being administered on our 15 campuses. We will continue to follow our process that has been in place for months and served us well. We understand the need to stay flexible and be prepared to adjust as medical information and the landscape evolves.”
The SEC also released a similar statement from commissioner Greg Sankey to Twitter.
Statement from @SEC Commissioner @GregSankey pic.twitter.com/8nyweGPBk1
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) August 11, 2020
It is not clear yet if the decisions from the Big Ten and Pac-12 are going to impact or change the plan in place for the ACC, or other Division One conferences aiming to play.
The ACC presidents are supposed to meet again this week to continue discussions on the situation and receive can update from the conference’s medical advisory group, specifically about the medical data that the Pac-12 used as part of its decision to postpone, according to ESPN.
On July 29, the ACC released all relevant information for its modified schedule to the conference website.
ACC teams, including partial member Notre Dame, will play 11 total games over the course of 13 weeks, consisting of ten conference and one non-conference matchups. The non-conference opponent must be a team from the same state as the respective ACC school, according to the release.
The first games of the season will start during the week of September 7, with the championship game to be played on either December 12 or 19 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Additionally, there will only be one division within the conference, opposed to the regular two, according to the release.
The full ACC football schedule for every team can be found here.
One aspect that remains unclear for teams in the Power Five conferences is if specific schools will cancel the football season despite leagues deciding to play.
This scenario played out on Monday when Old Dominion University (ODU) canceled its fall sports season after Conference USA had announced plans to play football just three days earlier on Friday. Despite ODU’s decision, Conference USA is continuing its plan to play, according to the Denton Record-Chronicle.
It is possible that a Power Five team could do the same, which would result in even more adjustments to the schedules.
For now, though, it’s one big waiting game with the return of college football less than a month away.
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Jacob Taylor is a reporter at The Virginia Star and the Star News Digital Network. Follow Jacob on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Virginia playing Penn State” by Yanping Nora Soong. CC BY-SA 3.0.
