The NCAA has officially canceled Division I championship in all fall sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the obvious exception of FBS football.
NCAA executive director Mark Emmert said Thursday that an attempt will be made to play championships in sports such as soccer, volleyball, cross country, field hockey and football in Division II, III and the FCS level in the spring. The NCAA has no control over the championship process in FBS football, which is governed by the individual conferences and the College Football Playoff.
“We cannot, at this point, have fall NCAA championships, because there are not enough schools participating,” Emmert said in a video released on the NCAA’s Twitter account Thursday afternoon. “The Board of Governors also established that if you don’t have half the schools participating you can’t have a legitimate championship. So we can’t in any Division I championship sport — which is anything other than FBS football that goes on in the fall. So sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall, full stop.
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t turn toward winter and spring and say ‘how can we create a legitimate championship for all those students?’ My staff’s been working hard on it, talking to all 32 commissioners in D-1. And there are ways to do this. I’m completely confident that we can figure this out, if schools and conferences want to try to try and have (fall championships in the spring), then let’s do it. We can use the fall to keep kids healthy, keep them engaged with their coaches, focus on their academic success, and let them practice and stay ready to play. Then let’s go compete at that time.”
All but one FCS conference had canceled its conference schedule as of late Thursday, though several left playing non-conference games up to the discretion of the individual schools. For example, Samford has a lucrative non-conference game scheduled at Florida State on Sept. 12, which athletics director Martin Newton said Thursday the school might attempt to play.
Only the Ohio Valley Conference, which includes Jacksonville State, had not closed up shop until the spring as of late Thursday. However, the league was reportedly set to do so eventually.
The pandemic has already caused the cancelation of championship events in 2020 winter and spring sports, including the NCAA basketball tournament and the College World Series. Emmert said “highest priority” would be given to those sports when creating championship schedules for the 2021 spring months.
He also said that it’s possible a “bubble” scenario — that is, quarantining athletes in a particular site for the duration of the postseason, as is being done in the NBA and NHL this summer — could be used to ensure that fall sports championships get played next spring.
“We have to give highest priority to the winter and spring sports, because they lost their championships last March,” Emmert said. “We made that horrible, awful, but necessary decision to shut down. … We’ve got to, first and foremost, protect those spaces. But if we modify the model, which we need to do anyway because of the virus … shrink the bracket sizes, do everything at pre-determined sites instead of running kids around the country … move toward bubbles or semi-bubbles in volleyball or soccer — there’s a way to do it. … It is doable, and we want to do that, make it work for those students.”
You can view Emmert’s full comments below: