College football season in serious jeopardy: A Blitz Podcast

An eventful weekend has put the 2020 college football season in jeopardy, with the Big Ten and Pac-12 formally postponing their seasons to the spring.

The potential for the 2020 college football season to be affected by COVID-19 has been on our minds since the first wave of shutdowns back in March. Five full months have passed since then, plenty of time to do whatever it took to slow the spread of the virus and ensure that we could return to a sense of normalcy and watch our favorite college football teams compete on the gridiron on Saturdays in the fall.

Instead, months of politicizing a global pandemic, and a total lack of leadership nationwide and across college football in general has led to the point that we are beginning to see conference-wide mass cancellations of seasons.

Until this past weekend, we had only seen cancellations from FCS leagues and an independent in the FBS in UConn. An eventful weekend saw the MAC and Mountain West announce they were cancelling fall sports, and then both the Big Ten and Pac-12 announcing their intentions to do the same, becoming the first two FBS leagues to do so.

This was a fast-spreading rumor all weekend, but it was momentarily stymied by a players movement spearheaded by star Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence using the hashtag #WeWantToPlay, piggy-backing on the Pac-12 #WeAreUnited letter from a week before.

The players gained momentum with countless players voicing their desire to play football this fall and coaches and fans joining them. But a complete and total failure by the adults in the room have led to the point that cancellations are likely unavoidable.

As of now, the SEC and ACC both seem intent on playing in the fall, while the Big 12 remains a wildcard. The Big Ten, Pac-12 and the Group of Five leagues that have cancelled have stated an intention to try and play football in the spring, but that would present a logistical nightmare with the NFL draft looming in April and then the issue of the 2021 season looming in late August or early September.

Also, at this point, it might be naive to expect our circumstances as it pertains to the virus to be vastly improved in a few short months, especially considering where we sat five months ago.

We apologize again for being unable to dive into our ACC preview, but whether or not there will be an ACC season is still very much in the air. Plus, we think you’ll want to hear all we have to say about the current state of the sport.

The Saturday Blitz Podcast is part of the FanSided Radio Network at Spreaker. The show goes live every Wednesday morning. You can reach John Mitchell at @jlmitchell93 and Zach Bigalke at @zbigalke on Twitter.