The Big 12 Conference announced Thursday afternoon that it is canceling its Virtual Football Media Day scheduled for Aug. 3. The event was previously postponed from its July date and reconfigured for digital attendance. Presumably, this move will allow Big 12 members to meet to discuss the 2020 fall sports season, as both the ACC and SEC announced this week changes and stipulations to their schedules.
Update on #Big12FB Virtual Media Day presented by @Academy Sports + Outdoors
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) July 30, 2020
➡️ https://t.co/JfNyf2q2hM pic.twitter.com/wgTdlCrTtZ
“There continues to be a lot more questions than answers about what the football season will look like,” said Commissioner Bob Bowlsby in the conference’s release. “A media day is intended to talk football and the prospects for the season. Part of that discussion is who you will be playing and when. With the ongoing consideration of scheduling models by our Board of Directors, this is the best course of action at this time.“
So far, the Big 12’s only change in response to the coronavirus pandemic was to move the start of its fall sports season a week, starting Saturday, Aug. 29. However, it will likely need a massive pivot in the wake of the other Power Five conferences adjusting their schedules.
In the past two days the ACC announced it would start its fall sports schedule no earlier than Monday, Sept. 7 and would not allow teams to play non-conference opponents outside of their home states, while the SEC mandated a conference-only schedule and pushed the start of its football season to Saturday, Sept. 26. Earlier this month, the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences announced they would use a conference-only schedule for football.
Today, it was made certain that WVU’s opening-weekend matchup with Florida State is canceled. WVU’s home game against Maryland on Saturday, Sept. 19, has also been scratched from the schedule.
WVU is not the only Big 12 team losing games to these decisions. Oklahoma loses Tennessee, Oklahoma State relinquishes Oregon State, TCU drops Cal and Prairie View A&M, Baylor removes Ole Miss, Texas Tech loses Alabama State and Arizona, and Kansas cuts New Hampshire.