The MAC will not play a football season this fall, according to a report Saturday from Stadium's Brett McMurphy.
With the move, the MAC becomes the first FBS conference not to attempt a fall campaign, and thus far the only FBS league to do so. Every other FBS conference has announced plans to play this fall and, while most Power 5 leagues have gone conference only, the remainder of the Group of 5 has attempted to play a 12-game schedule or something close to it.
Instead, the MAC will join the growing ranks of conferences at the sub-FBS level, where nearly every conference has folded up shop for the fall campaign.
Like every other conference that punted on a fall season, the MAC will attempt to field a spring season if conditions permit.
This move was widely expected since Thursday, when a meeting originally scheduled to finalize and announce the conference's new scheduling format ended without resolution. The cost of providing sufficient COVID-19 testing, plus the double whammy of no buy games against the Big Ten and the unlikelihood of selling tickets, made a fall season cost prohibitive for the conference. The conference lost a combined $10.5 million in guarantees when the Big Ten moved to a conference-only format.
Northern Illinois was the catalyst in moving to a fall season, according to the report. Sources also indicated the same to FootballScoop.
2020 will mark the first time since the MAC's 1946 founding that it will not play this fall.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.