Mack Rhoades: Big 12 focused on full season, final decision could come later than expected
Big 12 and SEC conference officials and athletic directors of the individual programs were caught off guard when the Big 10 recently announced that the cancellations of the non-conference football games for the league.
The PAC-12 played follow the leader and made their own announcement shortly after. It looked looked as though the ACC would be the next domino to fall, but officials squelched the rumors almost immediately and the league remained idle in their decision making process.
Needless to say, the fallout from COVID-19 has started and unless the hot spots around the Sun Belt in the southern part of the country cool off, cancellation of games in the Big 12, SEC and ACC are sure to occur.
But for now, the focus is primarily on a 12-game regular season for the Big 12. And considering the bond between the three conferences that seemingly have remained aligned throughout a tumultuous series of events, all indications point towards that being the plan for the SEC and ACC as well.
Baylor Vice President and Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades told SicEm365 Radio on Tuesday that he could only speak on behalf of the 10-team conference his program is part of, but there is still optimism that a full season occurs.
“I can certainly speak for the Big 12,” Rhoades said. “We’re still focused on 12, on 12 games. We’re in conversations with our medical directors on a weekly basis and we’ll continue to move forward cautiously.
“You know, right now, we still think that is a viable option.”
The league administration continues to work on alternative plans, of course, but what exactly those alternative plans look like are not yet finalized. Rhoades estimates that the variety of fall back plans that are being developed are a little over 50% complete as of Tuesday, July 21st, 47 days from what would be Baylor’s season opener against Ole Miss on Sunday, Sept. 6.
“I think everything other than 12, I would say we’re still in the vetting stages, Paul,” Rhoades told SicEm365 Radio host Paul Catalina. “If I had to put a percentage on it, we are certainly more than 50%, so we’re somewhere probably 50 and 75%. There’s still some detail, there’s still some conversations to have, the data to collect, right?”
The next step to determining what the most viable and realistic options will move in correlation with testing data after football teams began mandatory workouts last week. On Monday, one week after Baylor hit the field for in a mandatory setting, the athletic department announced only four active cases within the entire athletic department, down from 16 the previous week.
After originally eyeing the final week of July as the timeline for a decision, Rhoades stated that the timeline could extend a little further to allow more data to be collected.
“That time frame continues to be right around the first of August and maybe even as late as August 7th, August 8th as you begin to start practice, camp, fall camp for the season,” Rhoades said. “That’s where we’re at. We’ve obviously got a variety of models on the table and still hopeful that we can play 12 and that certainly still is number one on the list as of today.”
Rhoades reiterated the emphasis on playing a full schedule.
“I feel like we’re in a good position, a good place,” Rhoades said.
But with an ever changing outlook due to an ever changing and unpredictable virus, Rhoades also admitted that the Big 12 will be ready to make a decision quickly if things change for the worse.
“If something were to happen tomorrow, right, or in the next two or three days that forced us to make a decision, an alternate other than 12, I don’t think it would take us long at all to get there,” Rhoades said. “I think we could do it pretty quickly and do it with confidence in terms that we are choosing the right model.
That’s likely the case for the SEC and ACC as well.
