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No 'Major' Decisions Come From ACC Presidents' Meeting

The ACC presidents convened Thursday evening for a previously scheduled meeting. With no 'major' decisions made, the ACC still plans to move forward with the 2020 college football season

Ashley Barnett

After a tumultuous week in college football, with the Big Ten and Pac-12 becoming the first Power Five leagues to abandon their fall sports seasons amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Atlantic Coast Conference is maintaining its status quo to play football this year. 

The ACC presidents convened Thursday evening for a previously scheduled meeting. Heading into the meeting, Florida State president John Thrasher told the university’s board of trustees that he had “every reason to believe it will be the final, final recognition of whether we play fall sports or not.” 

According to multiple sources, including Yahoo! Sports Pete Thamel, no major decisions were made during the presidents' meeting. 

It comes to no surprise that the ACC is continuing to move forward with its scheduled plan for the 2020 college football season. Reports all week have indicated that the ACC, as well as the SEC and Big 12, show no signs of steering away from playing football this fall despite the impactful decisions of the Big Ten and Pac-12. 

The positive news arrives in the wake of multiple ACC football programs being confronted with separate coronavirus-related issues. 

Pitt was forced to cancel its Thursday football practice after several athletes displayed symptoms associated with COVID-19 - practice was later resumed on Friday. 

Syracuse's football team opted to sit out of practice on Thursday - for the third time in eight days - due to the athletes wanting more routine, in-house testing. 

Earlier on Thursday, multiple Seminoles' players took to social media to voice their concerns regarding unsafe football practice conditions. 

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Aside from all the chaos happening in the ACC on Thursday, the NCAA - which doesn't have any jurisdiction over FBS football - formally cancelled all other fall championships, effectively wiping out soccer, volleyball and cross country seasons, as well as FCS football.

“We cannot now, at this point, have fall NCAA championships because there’s not enough schools participating,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a video posted via Twitter. “The Board of Governors said, ‘If you don’t have half of the schools playing a sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship.’…sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall, full stop.”

Emmert said that the NCAA will attempt to solve a way for fall sports to be played in the spring of 2021. Fall sport athletes will continue to train and practice during the time when they'd normally play their seasons.

Related Links:

ACC, SEC, Big 12 Stand Firm on Playing Football

Report: ACC Has Full Intention of Playing 2020 CFB Season

Georgia Tech Players Join the Fight to Save 2020 Season

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Ashley Barnett
ASHLEY BARNETT

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