ACC live updates: Here’s the latest about football and other fall sports for Aug. 12
It’s the second week of camp for most ACC schools, and despite the college football world crumbling around it, it appears the league is full steam ahead with playing in 2020.
On Tuesday the ACC issued a statement addressing playing this fall.
“The ACC will continue to make decisions based on medical advice, inclusive of our Medical Advisory Group, local and state health guidelines, and do so in a way that appropriately coincides with our universities’ academic missions. The safety of our students, staff and overall campus communities will always be our top priority, and we are pleased with the protocols being administrated on our 15 campuses. We will continue to follow our process that has been in place for months and has served us well. We understand the need to stay flexible and be prepared to adjust as medical information and the landscape evolves.”
Hours before that, Dr. Cameron Wolfe, the chairman of the ACC’s medical advisory team, went on record saying he felt like football could be played safely this fall.
The SEC, also in line to move forward with fall sports, also released a statement on Tuesday.
“I look forward to learning more about the factors that led the Big Ten and Pac-12 leadership to take these actions today,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. “I remain comfortable with the thorough and deliberate approach that the SEC and our 14 members are taking to support a healthy environment for our student-athletes. We will continue to further refine our policies and protocols for a safe return to sports as we monitor developments around COVID-19 in a continued effort to support, educate and care for our student-athletes every day.”
Other conferences, like the Big Ten and the Pac-12, disagree. The two FBS leagues announced on Tuesday that they were postponed fall sports. The Pac-12 took it a step further, postponing all sports events, including workouts for men’s and women’s basketball, until Jan. 1.
The Big 12 is expected to attempt to move forward and play in the fall.
Big South latest league to postpone
On Tuesday morning the Big South Conference released a statement saying it was delaying the fall season, with a target of spring 2021 to resume sports.
“We are all broken-hearted that we will not be able to provide competitive opportunities for Big South student-athletes this fall,” commented Commissioner Kyle Kallander. “However, the path forward must protect the health and safety of our student-athletes, and some of the current trends and unknowns with COVID-19 have made that a huge challenge. Our intention is to shift these fall seasons to the spring as we would like nothing more than to crown Big South champions in all 19 of our sports this year.”
That decision affects four schools in North Carolina, most notably Campbell, which is located in Buies Creek. North Carolina A&T is set to join the Big South in 2021.
