From a recent SI article: https://www.si.com/college/2020/08/18/n … big-12-acc
Kickoff to the 2020 season is 16 days away. Southern Miss is set to host South Alabama in the earliest scheduled game of this sure-to-be weird season. While all six leagues barrel toward their seasons, each is working independently. They’ve each got their own commissioner who oversees a board of presidents and chancellors, the key group of decision-makers that, more times than not, listens to recommendations from their athletic directors.
Roughly two weeks shy of kickoff, here’s the situation in each of the six conferences:
C-USA
Membership situation: Old Dominion, in C-USA’s Eastern Division, last week became the first member of a conference to bail on a season despite its own conference moving forward. FIU and Rice have both announced a delay to the start of their seasons.
How they got here: The C-USA presidents met late last week with no real decision out of the call except to keep on the path to a 2020 season. They heard from their medical board, specifically getting an update on a hot topic right now in college athletics: lingering heart issues in athletes who have recovered from COVID-19.
What’s in store for this week: C-USA athletic directors meet each Monday and Thursday. It isn’t clear when the next meeting among the presidents will happen. At some point, potentially this week, the league is expected to release a new schedule that recognizes ODU’s absence and could finalize in-season testing protocols.
Outlook on 2020 fall: C-USA, like many Group of Five conferences, is somewhat connected to its Power 5 conference neighbors. In C-USA’s case, that’d be the ACC and SEC. As long as those two are still marching forward, it feels like C-USA will be right behind them. C-USA programs still have four guarantee games on the schedule, and those contests—along with the CFP distribution money—make it worthwhile financially to have a season. That said, the conference is expected to implement a similar in-season testing protocol to its Power 5 brethren, and that means steep prices for programs that have budgets that are one-tenth of the major colleges.
They said it: “Right now, all systems are ‘go.’ Everything is subject to change, but we’re in football mode.” —a conference source