Published Jul 10, 2020
ACC Targets Late July for Fall Sports Decision
Andy Backstrom
Staff Writer

Rumors have swirled about the ACC’s plans for the fall over the course of the past 24 hours, following the Big Ten’s decision to move to a conference-only schedule. And, on Friday afternoon, ACC commissioner John Swofford spoke out.

He didn’t announce a decision, but he did set somewhat of a deadline.

“Over the last few months, our conference has prepared numerous scenarios related to the fall athletics season. The league membership and our medical advisory group will make every effort to be as prepared as possible during these unprecedented times, and we anticipate a decision by our Board of Directors in late July.”

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The Ivy League made the first move on Wednesday, prohibiting all varsity athletic competition until Jan. 1. Then, the Big Ten announced its schedule change on Thursday—news that reportedly came sooner than the other Power Five conferences expected. A day later, the Pac-12 followed suit.

One casualty of the Big Ten’s conference-only schedule is Boston College’s Week 4 matchup with Purdue, the tail end of a home-and-home series that was negotiated back in 2016.

After the news about the Big Ten broke, several reports surfaced. College football reporter Bruce Feldman tweeted that, according to his sources, ACC coaches were informed of a potential conference-only model—one that would include Notre Dame—but Feldman clarified that nothing was definite.

Before Swofford’s statement was released on Friday, Joe Giglio of 99.9 The Fan and WRAL TV tweeted that one possible ACC scheduling model currently on the table would feature a 10-game season, consisting of five home-and-home series between conference opponents (Notre Dame would be included as part of the ACC in this scenario).

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Until late July, however, reports like this will be left to speculation.

Once again, the ACC has bought itself some more time, just like it did on Thursday morning when it announced that the conference’s Olympic Sport competition would be delayed until at least Sept. 1.