First Call: How the Big Ten's decision may impact Pitt, Notre Dame, West Virginia and others - TribLIVE

Sometimes this job requires you to act like you have all the answers. All the time. Immediately.

Even if you don’t.

Saying “I don’t know” feels like a cop-out.

But when it comes to asking what the football ripple effects will be from Thursday’s decision by the Big Ten to play exclusively conference games in 2020, I’ll be the first to say, “I don’t have a clue!”

Therefore, for “Friday’s First Call,” let’s at least look at some of the questions that need to be raised and how the college football world might surf through them during the covid-19 pandemic.

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What will the rest of the conferences do?: The anticipation is that at least the ACC and the Pac-12 will fall in line and play only conference games.

The Big 12 doesn’t seem to be going in that direction yet.

When asked if the Big 12 planned to announce soon the likelihood of a conference-football-games-only plan, commissioner Bob Bowlsby responded to me one word: No.

— Randy Peterson (@RandyPete) July 9, 2020

Neither does the SEC.

SEC coaches met this morning. Person involved in the call tells @247Sports they had no idea Big Ten decision was coming and that message from SEC admin this morning is SEC will wait as long as they can before making ANY decisions on football season.

— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) July 9, 2020

For independents, remaining FBS conferences and FCS opponents, this is a huge financial and scheduling hit. USA Today reports MAC schools will lose $10.5 million in scheduling fees from losing Big Ten opponents alone. Bowling Green, as one example, is losing two Big Ten games.

Perhaps those schools can make up that lost revenue by playing against Big 12 and SEC colleges in need of lost opponents if they do attempt to play nonconference games.

For example, Iowa State just lost Iowa from its schedule. Maybe Bowling Green or someone else of that ilk can fill that void for the Cyclones. Penn State dropped Kent State, another MAC school. Perhaps a team such as Kent State becomes cannon fodder for Georgia if the Bulldogs lose Georgia Tech.

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What will the schedule look like?: Multiple reports say the Big Ten is going to make an attempt at configuring a 10-game schedule. It has 14 teams. So do the SEC and ACC. The 12-team Pac-12 may be able to squeeze in 10 games, too.

But if the 10-team Big 12 tries to get to 10 total games, they are going to need some help from the non-Power 5 schools, and they’d still only walk away with nine conference games. What does that mean for their standing versus the other major conferences when it comes to playoff perception?

Those smaller schools would likely jump at the chance (and the check). But what about the travel, which appears to be a major concern for the bigger schools?

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told ESPN a lot of those questions would be answered next week. He also said to expect no clarity about crowning a conference champion between now and then.

It was wondered in that ESPN piece whether the conference may front-load the schedule with division games. But it remains unclear how much—if at all—the conference play will move up.

Or delay.

Some have wondered whether it would be smart to get the season going as soon as possible to minimize the loss of games because of the predicted mid-autumn “second wave” of coronavirus. Others have said it would be better to wait until this recent spike subsides. Under that first plan, it may be wise to bake in a few bye weeks, for individual rescheduling purposes if certain teams have mass outbreaks.

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What will happen in the ACC?: Notre Dame. That’s what’s going to happen. A whole lot of Notre Dame.

The Fighting Irish have a full-time ACC affiliation for 11 men’s sports but not football. Although they do have an agreement with the ACC through 2037. It states that the Irish will average five ACC opponents per season. This year, it’s six. Pitt is one of them. Clemson, Duke, Wake Forest, Louisville and Georgia Tech are the others.

In 2020, Notre Dame is already losing a Big Ten opponent (Wisconsin) and potentially two Pac-12 opponents (Stanford, USC). Maybe Arkansas depending on what the SEC decides.

The two sides could help each other out.

Perhaps the ACC goes with a nine-game conference season but a 10-game full-season slate. With those three or four open dates, Notre Dame could help the likes of ACC schools such as Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami fulfill their one nonconference game. Those four teams have lost Big Ten opponents as of Thursday. Others will have similar issues.

Another avenue that may work is to go to a 10-game conference season. Notre Dame’s six existing opponents could count their result against the Irish toward the ACC win-loss record for this year. And perhaps those other four teams get to use Notre Dame as one of their 10 conference games as well.

That’ll also loosen up scheduling options for the other schools to get to 10 games.

Or, potentially, Notre Dame can be absorbed into the ACC as a conference opponent for one seas…

Ha! Who am I kidding? We all said college football would disappear before Notre Dame joined a conference. Well, I feel like we are getting close. But the option exists.

Now then, home and away? How does the ACC Network money versus the Notre Dame NBC money get split? Who knows?

Maybe Notre Dame will just work out a side deal with the AFC South this year.

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What about conference championships and playoffs?: Up in the air. But that’s where some structure has to come into play. I’m just spitballing, but how is (theoretically) a 9-0 Big 12 school measured against a potentially 11-1 Notre Dame team or a 10-2 squad from the SEC?

Especially when there are very few—if any—out-of-conference games to help gauge the relative strength of the conferences.

And, if you are a good school out of the Power 5, forget it! You didn’t have much of a chance to begin with. But the Central Floridas and Boise States of the world are completely out of the picture now. Those teams alone have three ACC opponents they might lose as a result of these changes.

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Does any of this matter?: Probably not. If they can play college football at all this year, I’ll be stunned.

Pro sports will be hard enough to get off the ground. With all of these moving parts, dense coronavirus numbers and unpaid college kids acting as covid-19 guinea pigs, color me pessimistic.

That’s an answer I actually feel as if I can provide. I just wish I had a different one.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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