The NCAA is dead. They have no power in college football because they don't control the playoff. But if the SEC says they are only playing 8 games and everybody else can also or pound sand that is what will dictate play. That's why the Big10 hasn't put out a schedule for 10 games. The SEC runs college football and will dictate what everybody else does. They meet Monday and will either delay the decision until the end of July to see what the conditions are then or make the season a certain number of games with everybody else following.
You basically have the same comments regarding the SEC in another thread as you do here, and you are wrong both times. The Big Ten makes more money than the SEC, and has for the last two years. You are correct that this crisis has exposed the failings of the NCAA. And it's also true that it has exposed the failings of the Power 5 conferences to create an organization that can work during a crisis. All the power resides within the conferences - and directly to its university presidents that vote on all important conference matters. And the Big Ten has taken (usurped?) the role of the leader in the clubhouse. All will follow.
Why? Because, as noted another articles, the Big Ten gave reasons for why it did what it did, and any conference that does it differently will have to explain why it would dare to be different. The Big Ten is treating the college football season as a current set of unknown variables, with the possibility of new variables down the road. There are several reasons why the Big Ten is going conference only, the two main ones being the ability to control testing and quarantining protocols, and the ability to treat the 10 game schedule as flexible over a 14 week period. The Big Ten didn't announce their schedule yet because they are trying to decide if they can still start the season Labor Day week-end and have 3 open dates to move games around in case a game gets cancelled: contrast that with the PAC 12 - they are most likely going to start their 10 game season on Oct. 3 because of the spike in their region. This is what conference only games give you. You can't be flexible with OOC games because the other team has a different scheduling system.
I have written previously about the impact of a person with an NFL background being the Big Ten commissioner. The Big Ten made their announcement now so as to control the narrative. Kevin Warren met with all the other commissioners, he heard their reasonings for maintaining OOC games, and decided to only concern himself with what he can control. The PAC 12 followed suit. The Big 12 already plays a full round robin of 9 conference games. The SEC can decide to play only 8 games; it can decide to keep its FCS games - but then it has to deal with the Big Ten and when the playoff rules for 2020 are "amended". And make no mistake, Bill Hancock has said that they are prepared to do anything. The SEC planning an 8 game season will do so at their peril.
And now - I apologize - a little history about ND and the ACC as it impacts the talks that are currently underway. ND has its unique situation, as discussed in many threads. The ACC and ND have a strong relationship, but let's be honest. When the deal was struck in 2012, ND and the ACC said that there was a "pathway to full membership" should the direction of the sport of college football warrant it. ND has made its way to the playoffs as an independent and the term "pathway to full membership" hasn't been heard for years. There is some bitterness in the ACC for this, and you will need to have a little history to understand why. Please bear with me, as this history is critically important in the next two weeks.
In 2003, Swofford had a plan of expansion to add Miami, Syracuse and BC. (Syracuse was replaced by VT for political reasons in the state of Virginia). The purpose was clear: Swofford wanted to destroy the old Big East and go after ND who was playing all its non football sports there. But that didn't happen; the Big East survived. This is when Louisville and Cincinnati joined the Big East and saved the conference. Swofford's plan failed, but he tried again in 2011. This time, the ACC was looking closely at Rutgers, UConn, SU and Pittsburgh, and invited the latter two. Some football schools - such as FSU and Clemson wanted a "football" school like West Virginia but were outvoted by the basketball bluebloods. Suddenly, Bob Delany, Big Ten commish, actually believed that ND might join the ACC for football, and went after Rutgers and Maryland solely (per Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin) to disrupt the ACC. Then he went after UNC and UVA. Losing Maryland was a disaster - it was the northern most ACC charter school. Having SU and BC is meaningless without them. Some boosters in the Big 12 were "talking" to FSU and Clemson. The SEC started working on its own conference network; the ACC wanted to, but it had a legal connection with Raycom that it couldn't break....and ESPN refused to invest unless each ACC member signed a GOR - a grant of rights contract that would force any member that wanted to leave the conference pay the conference for any revenue it would have earned had it stayed. Many FSU fans are bitter about the GOR as it totally limits our ability to change conferences...or even renegotiate our relationship with the ACC. But without a GOR, the ACC probably would have broken up in 2013.
When FSU joined the ACC in 1992 and made it a 9 team conference, its per member TV revenue for 10 years was greater than what it would have been had it joined the SEC. But - As of the past two years, and for as long as you can project, the ACC per member TV revenue is the smallest of the Power 5.
How did this happen? This is where you ND fans need to pay attention. Without adding ND for football, and with the loss of Maryland to create a sensible footprint that goes from Miami to Boston, the ACC expansions have been a failure. The conference footprint is southern heavy with football schools - middle heavy with 6 members concentrated in North Carolina and Virginia - and northern heavy with schools that don't move the football meter. The conference is unable to create a northern and southern division. With equal revenue sharing, the ACC members have diluted their earning potential. FSU and Clemson cannot monetize their value. Clemson makes $12M a year less than schools in the SEC (such as Mississippi State) and $17M a year less than Northwestern. Memo to MBA students: How long can this last?
Now you can say - and correctly so - the ACC bargained for what they got. No doubt. Funny how Swofford announced his retirement days after the future TV projections were made public.
I write this so that you can understand the mindset of certain ACC members that were always outvoted when they wanted the conference to add only schools that treated football as the primary sport. The ACC has now "gotten religion" with regard to football but all crises expose weak spots in an organization that were hidden when times were good. But the northern expansion was completely illogical without ND joining for football. The ACC gambled it would happen. The Big Ten believed them and reacted (another reason - among others - that the Big Ten is the power source of college football).
There actually is a great football conference hiding inside the ACC, and it's going to take a leader to perform an exorcism on the in bred current leadership to find it. Takers anyone?
And that's the state of the mindset of certain ACC members in this two week period as we chat about scheduling 2020. Cheers.