The Pac-12 set a Nov. 6 start date Thursday for a seven-game football season, following the Big Ten in overturning an August decision to postpone until spring because of concerns about playing through the pandemic.
With the conference having secured daily covid-19 testing for its athletes and having been given the green light from some state and local health officials in California and Oregon, the Pac-12 university presidents voted unanimously to lift a Jan. 1 moratorium on athletic competition.
The Pac-12's men's and women's basketball seasons can start Nov. 25, in line with the NCAA's recently announced opening date. The football championship game is set for Dec. 18 -- along with other cross-division games that weekend -- putting the conference in play for College Football Playoff and New Year's Six Bowl selection.
A major college football season that six weeks ago seemed to be in peril, slowly crumbling away, is reforming and has a chance to be almost whole by November. The Big Ten reversed course last week, with kickoff scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 24.
The Mountain West presidents were meeting Thursday night to discuss a possible late October start to the football season and the Mid-American Conference, the first FBS league to postpone, is also reconsidering playing in the fall.
The SEC begins play this weekend, joining the Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference and three others that have been up and running for weeks.
The season is ongoing but it has been anything but normal. There have been 21 games postponed or canceled since Aug. 26 because of teams battling various levels of covid-19-related issues.
This week, four games scheduled to be played Saturday have been called off, including Notre Dame at Wake Forest because of a virus outbreak among Fighting Irish players.
No fans will be permitted at Pac-12 sporting events taking place on campus, the conference said.
