By: Evan Mei
On Saturday, the Mid-American Conference (MAC) was the first league competing in college football’s highest league to terminate its fall season.
MAC was the last conference without a stated plan. Earlier last week, the presidents gathered to discuss how the fall season would carry out and what it would look like, but some schools have already decided not to play.
The final decision was to be made on a Saturday morning meeting. The news was first reported by online sports network Stadium, and started leaking just 90 minutes after the starting time of the meeting. An hour later, the league announced a news conference with it’s commissioner.
MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher stated, “I am heartbroken we are in this place.”
There are currently 12 schools in the MAC, and all are facing heavy burdens trying to meet costly health protocols. The MAC hopes that cancelling sports and pushing them to fall will loosen the burden, so all the university presidents in the MAC have cancelled fall sports, and are exploring the prospect of pushing sports to spring.
The conference that even had a brand name – #MACtion – and was able to get a deal with ESPN by playing on Tuesdays on Wednesdays is now the first to bow down to the pandemic, praying that their sports can restart in the spring.
Now, nine of the 13 conferences at the second tier of Division , aka the Championship Subdivision, have already postponed their football seasons for the fall, but, like MAC, they are looking to restart in the spring.
In FBS, conferences have been formulating plans, but most are tentative and ready to change at any time. Power Five was first, and then the “Group of Five”, with the American Athletic, Sun Belt, Mountain West and Conference USA all completing schedule models this week.