Earlier this week, the Pac-12 Conference announced that all Fall Sports, including Football, would not be played due to the COVID-19 outbreak. How does UCLA Football progress from here.
Monday’s news might have been unsurprising, but it was disappointing nontheless, as we will not see a Pac-12 Football season, at least this fall.
The news came just a matter of hours after the Big 10 announced its plans to postpone the fall football season, with hopes of playing in the spring, a contingency plan that both conferences share in.
There are two immediate red flags that come with a spring football season. The first, is that a season would presumably start in the middle of the basketball season, which would create a conflict in television deals, ticket sales, and other money-related areas of the athletic program.
The Pac-12 also announced that basketball will not start until at least January 1st, so with both sports starting around the same time, neither sport will get the season-long focus of attention that they are accustomed to.
The second problem is that the season would come very close to the NFL Draft, leaving many players with a decision to make, that decision being whether to play or to opt out. For UCLA, a team with few NFL prospects, this would not impact the Bruins too much, but would certainly impact the level of competition and competetive nature of the conference.
What would effect the Bruins in relation to the time frame would be that UCLA would likely play around 20 games in the same calendar year, a major issue for player safety. Could players sit out a watered-down spring season in order to save eligibility for a hopefully normal fall season? Absolutely.
With the Big 12, SEC, and ACC all still planning on playing, a conclusion to this matter is far from over. It will certainly be interesting to see where, when, and if the Bruins will take the field at all by next fall.