The Big Ten announced last week that it would play a conference-only schedule beginning on October 24. Right now, the Pac-12 is the only power conference left not playing. That could change.
The SEC will begin play this weekend and it is clear that not everyone is likely going to play the same amount of games due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That topic came up on Saturday morning’s Marty & McGee show on the SEC Network and ESPN Radio.
During the segment, Ryan McGee told fans to not worry about the amount of games on the schedule, but instead keep the sole focus that college football is going to get played at all in 2020.
“The complaints about ‘well, my conference is playing 11 games or 10 games. If I win the conference championship, I can play 12 games. The Big Ten conference champion would play 9.’ My response to that is ‘do you really think they are going to play all those games?’ because the answer is they probably aren’t. You and I have said it a million times. Everything is written in pencil. Everything is written in markerboard. It’s a Jenga puzzle. You get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit.”
McGee pointed out how jam-packed the Big Ten schedule with no team getting a bye week between opening weekend and the Big Ten Championship Game (December 19). Of course, they had to do this in order to get in the College Football Playoff, but it is something to monitor.
“I hope everyone plays every game on their schedule, but that Big Ten calendar as it stands now is a tightrope. It is air-tight,” McGee said. “There is no room for poor Baylor. Today was supposed to be their 3rd different season opener, a game they put together in less than a week with Houston, and they had to cancel or postpone that game as well. The odds of everyone in the Big Ten getting in all of their games to me is zero. Just like I don’t believe everyone in the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 are going to play all of their games.”
When the College Football Playoff committee gets together, they go over the data to try to figure out the four best teams. However, if all of the schedules are not equal, McGee points out that “if there was ever a year for the eyeball test, son this is it.”
It is a good reminder that just the fact that sports are being played at all in 2020 is something to be appreciated rather than nitpicking how many games a team actually gets to play this year.
