All systems are still a go for fall sports in the Great American Conference. Whether or not it stays that way is a different story.
As rumors and reports swirled Monday about the viability of a 2020 college football season, GAC Commissioner Will Prewitt remained optimistic that the 12 schools in his conference will play a fall schedule.
He also expressed concern, given the way things have transpired over the past week.
The NCAA Division II Presidents Council announced last week that fall championships were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The move came after the NCAA board of governors instructed each division to make its own decision about fall championships.
Prewitt said the NCAA's overall ruling didn't catch him off guard, but he would've preferred to have known about the verdict a bit earlier.
"It wasn't really a shock for me, particularly with the financial component involved from the NCAA this fall," he said. "At the time that things were canceled, we were already had 11 of 23 conferences in Division II indicating they weren't competing in the fall. It wasn't really stunning, but honestly, it's not the biggest thing we're dealing with right now.
"We'd love to have the championships for our student-athletes to compete in. The big thing that we're trying to battle through is the directives from the NCAA board of governors."
The virus already had forced several other NCAA Division II conferences to either cancel or suspend competition, with some opting to shift those activities to the spring. Last month, the GAC agreed to delay the start of fall games until Sept. 28, which was designed to allow its members to reopen their campuses while obtaining more clarity about additional guidelines pertaining to covid-19.
The GAC hasn't made any pertinent changes to those plans, but the landscape for college athletics has changed significantly. Prewitt isn't certain about what's going to happen next.
"I guess fluid is a really nice way of saying I have no idea," Prewitt said with a laugh. "We're like everybody else in the world. Obviously, there's a ton of things in the air, and there's a lot of different things that have to be resolved, too. We haven't scrapped our schedule as of yet."
The NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to all athletes in spring sports who had their seasons canceled. It's not clear what the organization intends to do for participants in fall sports if they are canceled.
"That's the one piece where the association has been really proactive," said Prewitt, referring to eligibility resolutions by the NCAA. "There's been a lot of groundwork laid by the NCAA, but there's still pieces that have to be figured out. It would create some obvious roster management issues, and it brings up the real brutal decisions for our student-athletes. 'Do I graduate, do I try to get another degree, do I try to get a double major?'
"As much as all of this stinks for my office, our [athletic directors] and our coaches, it's even worse for our student-athletes."