College football entered Tuesday thinking major decisions were on the way.
Instead, it's another day of holding steady.
The NCAA Board of Governors met Tuesday to discuss the future of fall sports championships, among other issues, but came away with no major announcements. Back in March, the NCAA canceled the remaining winter and spring championships, which effectively put an end to all college sports for the rest of the academic year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
"The Board of Governors and I today continued our discussion about the NCAA's ability to proceed with our 22 fall championships in light of the COVID-19 trend lines," NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement Tuesday night. "In order to ensure the health and well-being of college athletes, we have to consider all the implications when determining our next steps and we plan to provide an update to our membership and the public [Wednesday]."
With that decision seemingly pushed to later in August, it might be up to an individual conference to pull the plug first. And that could be the Big Ten, per a Chicago Tribune report. The conference was supposed to release its revised fall schedules Tuesday, accounting for playing only conference seasons and likely a later start. But that announcement now might not come until Wednesday, according to an ESPN report.
Conference Commissioner Kevin Warren has been speaking with student-athletes from each of his 14 schools, per the Chicago Tribune, and has monitored the recent COVID-19 outbreak at Rutgers and other conference programs that have halted workouts after positive tests. Those have reportedly caused Warren to rethink moving forward with the season.
The Gophers still are overdue in announcing their latest round of COVID-19 test results for student-athletes, a spokesman saying this past Friday that the athletic department was waiting on more results. The department planned to update test results at the end of every month. The most recent announcement from June 30 stated there were seven positive tests of 170 administered.
