Syracuse Football: Let’s face it folks, a fall season likely isn’t happening

The current state of the novel coronavirus pandemic is significantly increasing the likelihood that Syracuse football will not suit up this fall.

At this juncture, with record numbers of Covid-19 cases unfortunately occurring across the country, the writing seems on the wall that Syracuse football will not play a 2020 campaign – at least this fall.

Sure, Atlantic Coast Conference leaders have said that they will make a decision on the 2020 football season at the end of this month, and they’ve postponed their virtual pre-season media event, slated for July 21-23, for the time being.

That’s all well and good, but so many ominous indicators are surfacing which have driven me into a pessimistic viewpoint related to an upcoming term.

The Patriot League has nixed fall sports, removing Colgate from the Orange’s non-conference calendar. The Big Ten Conference will only play league tilts, eliminating Rutgers from the ‘Cuse docket. The Pac-12 Conference is mirroring the Big Ten’s decision.

The Colonial Athletic Association (“CAA”) has elected to suspend conference competition for football this fall, but it may explore the possibility of having a season next spring. The CAA also said that its schools can look into the potential of suiting up as independents in the fall of 2020.

The Mid-American Conference (“MAC”) has delayed the start of six fall sports until early September, although football isn’t affected, at least for now. MAC member Western Michigan is a non-conference foe of Syracuse football in 2020.

The Ivy League has canceled fall sports, as has the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, which says it has yet to make a decision on whether to transfer fall sports to the 2021 spring semester.

Of course, if football doesn’t transpire, that has massive implications for athletic-department budgets at the ‘Cuse and every other program out there. Non-revenue, so-called Olympic sports could get cut as a result, and that would prove terribly sad.

One interesting proposal that ACC athletic directors are apparently weighing, per an article from David Teel of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, would entail dividing the league’s 15 squads – including Notre Dame – into three geographic pods of five teams each.

The ACC crews would play each opponent in their respective pod twice, with the remaining games coming from other league match-ups or non-conference avenues.

In Teel’s story, Syracuse football is listed in a pod with Boston College, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and then either Louisville or Virginia Tech.

The NCAA has eased up its rules for bowl eligibility in the 2020 campaign, which could benefit Syracuse football. However, if teams from conferences that are part of the Football Championship Subdivision keep on dropping their fall sports, then these loosened-up rules may not matter all that much.

NCAA President Mark Emmert, who I think is completely incompetent, offered a bleak assessment the other day, saying in a press release, “If there is to be college sports in the fall, we need to get a much better handle on the pandemic.”