Ugh.

Via CNN:

Most of the more than 770,000 students at California’s two main university systems aren’t likely to return to campus this fall.

The California State University system, which claims to be the nation’s biggest four-year university system, plans to cancel nearly all in-person classes through the fall semester to reduce spread of the coronavirus, Chancellor Timothy White said Tuesday at a board of trustees meeting.

At the University of California, which has 10 campuses across the state, “it’s likely none of our campuses will fully re-open in fall,” Stett Holbrook, a spokesperson for UC, told CNN in an email

The California State University system includes Fresno State, San Diego State, and San Jose State, which play in the Mountain West. Schools like Cal and UCLA, which represent the PAC 12, are part of the University of California system.

Two different things, similar names.

It would seem that California college football is totally up in the air at this point, and the trickle down effect is interesting, to say the least. Without its three California schools, the Mountain West is only has nine conference teams remaining, which are:

  • Boise State
  • Air Force
  • Utah State
  • Wyoming
  • Colorado State
  • New Mexico
  • Hawai’i
  • Nevada
  • UNLV

And then you look at the individual schedules of the California schools and think about the additional dominoes that would fall. If Fresno State doesn’t play their season, the October 10th game at Texas A&M isn’t going to take place. We know that Texas and SEC officials will do anything possible to make sure college football happens in the fall, so does TAMU just play an 11-game schedule, or what?

Likewise, San Jose State is scheduled to play Penn State in September, so we’re possibly looking at a lost game there as well.

We haven’t made it that far yet, but this news doesn’t bode particularly well for college football. Perhaps the red state schools (SEC, BIG 12), soldier on and play shortened schedules instead. The one positive I could possibly see here is power five schools in red states stepping in to play each other if blue state teams aren’t available, for instance:

  • Texas A&M loses the Fresno State game schedule for 10/10
  • Notre Dame loses the Stanford game, also scheduled for 10/10
  • The Aggies play the Irish on 10/10 instead

That wouldn’t be a bad way to proceed. Wishful thinking on my part, but there are a ton of puzzle pieces to put together over the next three months.