Podcast: The ACC has a return-to-play plan. Let’s answer all your lingering questions
Blake James said it best.
“I think we all recognize it’s probably very aspirational,” the Miami Hurricanes’ athletic director said Wednesday regarding the Atlantic Coast Conference’s plan for the 2020 season.
Eleven games, starting in September. Ten conference showdowns. No divisions. An ACC Championship Game pitting the the best team in the conference against the second best in Charlotte. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish — and their robust television deal — in the fold.
The ACC’s plan is exciting and intriguing, and, above all else, “aspirational.” On the latest episode of the Eye on the U podcast, David Wilson and Susan Miller Degnan, the Miami Herald’s Hurricanes beat writer, dive deep on the league’s plan to resume play amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Let’s start with the good stuff: There’s an actual plan to play college football! Miami has the Clemson Tigers on the schedule! If all goes well, the Hurricanes will play the Florida State Seminoles at Hard Rock Stadium! Just seeing a plan written out has us excited about the possibility this might work.
Still, it’s just a possibility right now and the Miami Marlins’ ongoing bout with the coronavirus should serve as a warning about ever getting too excited about plans in this COVID-altered world. Hopefully, the rest of the sports world is taking lessons away from MLB’s struggles.
We wrap things up by diving into some of the big lingering questions the plan has left us with. When will the schedule be out? Will the Miami’s nonconference opponent be the UAB Blazers or Temple Owls, or someone totally unexpected? What sort of rules will the ACC putting in place to keep its athletes safe for an almost-full season of traveling up and down the East Coast? Does the NCAA have to make changes to the College Football Playoff with another Power 5 conference now planning to play almost exclusively league games?
We hit on all this and more as we suss through the ACC’s plan to bring us college football this fall. All we can do now is hope.
