With their Power-5 peers lined up and ready to play, or playing already, the Pac-12 CEO group announced Thursday the conference’s unanimous agreement to begin play of a fall football season Nov. 6, while also giving clearance to men’s and women’s basketball to begin play on the NCAA’s proposed start date of Nov. 25.

“Certainly delighted for so many people that we’re able to announce the resumption of play,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said during a Zoom press conference Thursday evening, announcing a seven-game football schedule and plans to resume other fall and winter sports.

In announcing the conference’s plan for a return to play, Scott touted the medical progress the conference had made since announcing its’ postponement Aug. 11.

“This has been the result of what we said back in August. That we’d follow the science, follow the data, follow the advice from our own medical experts,” Scott said. “We know how badly our student-athletes want to compete as student-athletes for the Pac-12, but we would only do so when we felt we could do so safely.”

The conference’s decision came just over a week after the Big 10 announced its own return to play initiative, and on the same night as the Mountain West announced it would return along with the Big 10 on Oct. 24, two weeks before the Pac-12. After a deal with diagnostic testing leader Quidel Corporation was announced Sept. 3 as a “breakthrough” for rapid testing, the conference needed three more weeks to settle on a plan for the resumption of college athletics in 2020.

“We had thought maybe we would vote last week,” said University of Oregon President Michael Schill, who resides as the Chair of the Pac-12’s CEO group. “We decided not to and the reason we decided not to was because we wanted to go back and talk with our students and talk with our faculty and staff as well as our board.

“The group that is most in my mind is the two groups of student-athletes that I met with. They were so desirous of going back to practice and play. This is something that they dream of, this is something they want for their future and this is something they had been deprived of.”

Despite Schill’s admittance of a potential vote to return to play a week prior, Arizona State Vice President of University Athletics Ray Anderson pushed back on the narrative surrounding the conference’s slow decision-making process, instead citing a unified collaborative effort to get back on the field.

“The collaboration and alignment of the folks in this conference since day one has been extraordinary,” said Anderson. “Commissioner Scott, the presidents, the chancellors, the ADs, our football coaches, the ops people, and certainly our medical folks were going to be relentless in terms of protecting the interests of our student-athletes. And we just weren’t going to deviate from that.”

While Anderson and the rest of the Pac-12 administration attempts to spin things in a positive direction, he was able to concede that the process took a long time to come to fruition.

“It took us a while, it was deliberate, it was thoughtful and at times exhaustive,” Anderson explained. “But that was necessary to do the right thing, and I think we’re here today.”

Schill and Scott cited local and state laws prohibiting large gatherings as hurdles that needed to be cleared for schools like Stanford and California to be able to practice. Ahead of the Pac-12 CEO’s vote Thursday, California state health officials committed to expanding the allowable gathering capacity in order for schools in the state to practice.

The decision by the state ended a week-long dispute between Scott and California governor Gavin Newsom regarding the capabilities for schools to practice.

In the conference’s release, the conference announced that all 12 institutions will begin play the weekend of Nov. 6. With each school playing seven games, the schedule will consist of five divisional games, one cross-divisional contest, and all 12 schools playing a game Dec. 18 during the week of the conference’s championship game.

Because of the Pac-12’s delay in returning to the field in comparison to other conferences across the country, the Pac-12 and Big Ten each will have no bye weeks at their disposal heading into their respective conference championship games Dec. 18th and 19th. With seven games in seven weeks, Schill admitted there was potential for disruption to the schedule.

“We’re moving forward now, but we’re not moving forward with our eyes shut,” said the Ducks’ president. “We are going to be paying attention to what is happening, and if we are getting spikes that suggest that it’s not sustainable, we will just stop playing. Because again, the value is in the health and safety of our players.”

With Scott and the Pac-12, the last to announce plans to play in 2020, questions surround the conference’s lack of effort to play earlier and how it will impact each school’s attempt to make the College Football Playoff. While entering the abbreviated season with even fewer games than the majority of participating football programs, the Pac-12 heads into play facing an uphill climb in its attempt to break a three-year period in which the conference has failed to have a participant in the College Football Playoff.

Scott expressed a belief that despite a shorter season with fewer games to prove themselves, schools would still have opportunities to make a case for inclusion in the 2021 College Football Playoff.

“Our schools are going to have every opportunity to be in the conversation. We’ve regularly discussed this at the CFP management committee; there is no minimum number of games,” Scott said, of the College Football playoff’s criteria for inclusion. “We’re all very humbly going into the season, realizing there could be disruptions along the way.”

With fewer games to evaluate and make a case for the playoff, Scott made note of the added challenge the College Football Playoff committee faces in determining the best four teams in the sport this fall.

“It’s going to be a challenge for the committee,” said Scott, whose conference has not fielded a team that reached the College Football Playoff since Washington reached the Peach Bowl in 2017. “They’re going to have more subjectivity than they’ve ever had in terms of different numbers of games, player availability, and other conditions to contend with, but that’s why we have a committee.

On the same day the NCAA Division 1 Football Oversight Committee recommended waiving the requirement for bowl eligibility, Scott said he had no plans to push for an expanded playoff despite the unprecedented circumstances surrounding this year’s postseason.

“Our schools knowing that we’re going to be able to play a meaningful number of games, high-level games with our championship concluding a couple of days before that final CFB meeting, we absolutely have the opportunity to have a team in the mix for the playoff.

“Ultimately the format of the CFB is in agreement amongst the ten conferences with Notre Dame. We have robust conversations about a lot of things, short-term and long-term, but… people are very comfortable with sticking to the current format that we have this year especially given the circumstances.”

While the discussion will remain around where the conference stands in comparison to the remainder of Division 1, Thursday’s announcement paved the way for men’s and women’s basketball programs to begin preparations for a 2020-21 season beginning Nov. 25.

Anderson and Scott both expressed a desire to explore all avenues to playing non-conference games and multi-team events either on campus or in bubble settings across the country. Practices can begin Oct. 14 as long as state health officials approve.

“We’re also waiting on the decision of the medical advisory board to establish what the minimum testing standards are for non-conference opponents and MTEs,” said Scott, who had a call Thursday evening with Pac-12 coaches to discuss scheduling procedures for the 2020-21 season. “We are committed to ensure that any non-conference competition will be against teams that uphold the same testing standards that we have.”

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