As conferences announce cancellation of their college football seasons, others claim games should go forward and a growing surge of players demand it.
PROVO — We’ve got a real debate brewing over whether or not we should have college football. The perfect solution eludes us. In the meantime, BYU’s 2020 schedule went from 12 games to six then just to three after the Mountain West (Utah State, Boise State, San Diego State) pulled the plug on the fall season Monday. Should BYU follow suit as an independent right now? Just quit? Or try to build a new season with a foundation of three games? I know that BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe has been working like crazy the past month to create a season after losing Pac-12 and Big Ten games. I was told Monday that folks have little idea how many calls, emails and texts Holmoe has churned through the past few weeks to land opponents, but so much is out of his control. Related He’s like a hamster running on a wheel. Late Monday, I got the assignment of opining about all this. After hours of research, phone calls and pondering things, I told my boss this was like surfing, you never know what wave is coming. It’s just nuts. In the past 48 hours, things have been changing by the hour. Right now, if the SEC, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference and American Athletic Conference decide to go forward, they might need an independent free agent like BYU to fill in somewhere since some games will get knocked out if the Big Ten cancels its season. Or not. Nebraska says it will play even if its conference does not. If it does, it certainly will call Holmoe and other remaining hopeful survivors. The Air Force Academy announced it would look into games with rivals Army and Navy despite the MWC postponing games until spring. Maybe AFA will call Holmoe. Maybe other MWC and Big Ten teams will rebel against league edicts as AFA did. Or not. In all this, we have a divided country. It isn’t cut and dry. We have Weber State unable to play football, but Weber High will play this week. You have Utah running back transfer Devonta’e Henry-Cole leaving Utah for BYU then going to Utah State this summer and now he can’t play this fall.
