According to a report from The Mercury News today, the PAC-12 is expected to move forward with a 10-game conference only schedule for this fall and will push the start date back to September 19th.
The league cancelled all non-conference games back on July 10th, just a day after the Big Ten announced the same decision.
At least a half-dozen other models were considered by the league's planning group which includes athletic directors, coaches, and directors of football ops guys over the past several weeks, with this plan eventually winning out. It will need to be approved by PAC-12 presidents and chancellors to move forward.
The details of the plan are:
- A 10-game regular-season with each team playing its divisional opponents and five crossover games.
- Season openers have been scheduled for September 19th. That would have been week 3 of the traditional college football calendar
- At least two bye weeks are built into the calendar to build in some time for rescheduled games.
- The PAC-12 title game has three possible weekend dates (December 4th, 11-12, or 18-19) depending on how the season plays out.
If the league title game was pushed to that last weekend, and a team from the PAC-12 was selected to participate in the College Football Playoff, that would leave a two-week window for them to prepare.
Next week an official announcement is expected, complete with weekly matchups, the article shares.