A confusing change from the top for Louisville football.
Conferences like the ACC and programs like Louisville football have done all that they feasibly can to get the ball rolling for the 2020 season amid a worldwide pandemic.
However, it appears that Louisville’s efforts were for naught after reports from ACC sources on Thursday.
This news first came down from Stadium’s Brett McMurphy, who says the ACC is the next conference to likely switch to a conference-only schedule.
ACC football also expected to play conference-only games, sources told @Stadium. Last month, ACC commish John Swofford told @Stadium if Power 5 schools played conference-only schedules that ACC would assist Notre Dame with as many games as it needed
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 9, 2020
The ACC is simply the next in the line of dominos to fall. Eventually, it appears, each of the power five conferences will go this route.
But, what does this really mean for Louisville football, and is this the right decision?
What this means for Louisville football
Let’s just get right to it, I guess. I think, in the modern college football landscape, this is a ridiculous idea.
Given conference realignment and the amount of planning and traveling that goes into even playing a conference schedule, it doesn’t make much sense for power five teams to only play against conference foes.
No place is this truer than in the case of Louisville football.
The Cardinals were slated to play three non-conference games and a fourth against Notre Dame, who is contractually obliged to play 4-6 ACC teams a year. Early reports say that the ACC and Notre Dame are working together to make sure the Irish can still have games scheduled in 2020, so the Cards figure to still have one “out of conference” game penciled in.
However, the focus for Louisville football fans should not be on conference play, but on the non-conference schedule, which features three teams from Kentucky.
The Cardinals are slated to play their third and fourth games of the season against Western Kentucky and Murray State and finish the year hosting Kentucky.
Are you seeing the issue at hand here? In an attempt to keep teams within their region and limit the coronavirus spread, the ACC has prevented Louisville from playing three games from teams within its own state. At the same time, the Cardinals will have to travel to games in Syracuse, New York, and Tallahassee, Florida, among other trips.
On the outset, it makes sense to try to prevent games like North Carolina hosting Auburn or Miami traveling to East Lansing to play Michigan State from happening. But why take away Clemson and South Carolina? What good is removing Georgia and Georgia Tech from the schedule?
I understand the need for every team to play an equal amount of games in an attempt to crown a conference champion. I get wanting to salvage as much television money as possible. But this isn’t 1996. Conferences are not strictly based on geography anymore. This isn’t the Kentucky football 6th Region. There are no clusters of teams in 2020. What sense does it make for the Big 12 to cancel West Virginia and Maryland in the non-conference, but then have the Mountaineers travel to Texas and Texas Tech, then host TCU and Baylor?
Finally, the ACC made a push to garner more national attention in 2019 by adding intriguing conference games early in the season. This year, every ACC team opens in conference play. So, the notion that early-season games were canceled for the betterment of the student-athlete, and in order to give schools more time while allowing the coronavirus to run its course would be misleading.
Louisville opens the season against conference foes NC State and Clemson right off the bat. Without three straight non-conference opponents in weeks 3-5, the Cardinals would have a gap from September 12th to October 3rd with no games.
The only acceptable explanation is that this is a final chance at a power five conference money grab. But what that means is that small schools are left behind.
On Louisville’s schedule alone, Western Kentucky and Murray State are left without an all-important payday that helps keep FCS and group of five teams afloat.
These decisions seem irrational and like a final attempt to salvage the 2020 television contracts. However, it feels that power five teams are grasping at straws in what will ultimately be a season that is either pushed back to the spring or just canceled for good.