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Spring Football To Likely Feature Eight Games
The oversight committee recommends eight games.
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Spring season would need to end mid-April
While the fall portion of the college football season is kicking off this weekend but the Mountain West and three other FBS leagues are looking at a spring season.
There has been few ideas, and mostly guesses, about how a spring season could look but there is now some clarity. A recommendation to the football oversight committee is looking at eight games and be done by April 17.
“There was a concern about having more than eight games if you’re only in the spring. If you’re using your 13 weeks in both terms, then you don’t get fall ball or spring ball. You don’t get your cake and eat it, too,” West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons told ESPN.
“The April 17 date is key because we’re trying to get it to where there’s enough time between the last competition and starting back up in August and having a normal, ’21-22 football season,” he said. “There’s an expectation that the coaches, the conferences and the medical experts work through what the spring and competition would look like from a health and safety standpoint.”
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Going with eight games is still pretty grueling if the 2021 fall season is going to be a traditional 12-game football season plus championship games and bowl season.
By finishing the middle of April it gives those who play in the spring about 12-14 weeks before fall camp begins. There would be no equivalent of spring football as that is what the season would be and the offseason workouts would mostly be in recovering and staying in shape.
Lyons does mention the possibility of some sort of postseason after the eight games and 13-week period.
Giving about three months off could be a sweet spot for a 2021 season to go on as planned but that is no guarantee since COVID-19 is still very much an issue in the United States.
With eight games, the Mountain West could just go with its planned conference slate with five division and three crossover games to play its season. This proposal does not include a conference title game so perhaps the Mountain West could tweak its schedule with seven league games and then the season ends with the placement of each team from one to six from each division and play each other, and that would provide a Mountain West champion.
The Division I Council is expected to vote on the recommendations at its Sept. 16 meeting.
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