The Cats Illustrated offseason roundtable series continues with three writers tackling an issue that's dominating sports conversation.
QUESTION: Many conferences are making major changes to scheduling for the 2020 college football season, if conditions allow it to be played. In this Cats Illustrated roundtable feature, our staff mulls how some of the proposals may impact UK if they come to fruition.
Jeff Drummond: With each passing day, it sounds more likely that the SEC is going to play with some type of modified schedule, most likely a conference-only slate that the Big Ten was first to adopt. The number being tossed around is a 10-game season, so the good news is UK fans would get to see two more quality games in place of the typical non-conference fodder. Maybe that means a shot at Alabama or LSU at Kroger Field, which would be a lot of fun. I'm not sure we're going to see bowl games this season, so your record may not be all that important. The Cats could play really well and go 5-5 in a 10-game league format, depending on who those opponents are. Hopefully, fans wouldn't view that as a step back for the program.
On the negative side, you are losing two games from what already feels like a really short college football season. Once it kicks off, it really flies by, especially when your team is winning. It would be a bummer to have two fewer games on the schedule, including the loss of the Governor's Cup game with Louisville. Kentucky finally has the upper hand in this series, and would have been poised to overpower the Cards in the trenches once again this year. Playing fewer games and having no non-conference opponents also means fewer opportunities to play young players and develop depth on your roster. That's important for the team moving into the future, so you could see the impact of that two or three years from now. At this stage, however, we have to embrace all options that give us a chance to play football (in a healthy fashion) this fall. If that means fewer games and possibly two weeks between them, so be it.
Travis Graf: Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen different ideas become spitballed over what the 2020 college football season could look like when it’s all said and done. Conference only schedules have been thrown around, 10-game schedules with eight conference games and two non-conference games have been mulled over, nobody really knows and it’ll probably change again in a week or so, and possibly even into the season.
An idea that’s kind of appealing is a season with two weeks between game days for schools, giving players 14 days to quarantine if need be. In a season that very possibly won’t see a bowl season, it would be cool to see Kentucky play some SEC West juggernauts like LSU or Alabama if the verdict is a conference-only slate. With postseason play potentially scrapped, it would allow the ‘Cats to play much more loosely in a season that’s most likely going to be a cluster anyway. Let’s see how close Kentucky is to the perennial powers of the conference.
Playing just SEC opponents is a double-edged sword, though, in a way. Kentucky’s been on a roll against Louisville on the field and on the recruiting trail and another nice showing against the Cards could continue that trend. In conclusion, I don’t care what the season structure looks like as long as there’s football played this fall and it’s safe for everyone involved.
Justin Rowland: It's a funny situation we're in. For the last several weeks we've all been assuming that the powers that be are working on putting several different plans together. But we're now getting to the point where "the" plan is going to have to emerge. It does seem as though the most likely scenario as of today is a modified scheduled with fewer non-conference games. Whether that means additional conference games will be added as a substitute for the games that will be erased remains to be seen. Based on the recent report that Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida are very eager to keep their ACC rivalry series going, it does seem that there will be at least one non-conference game for SEC schools. It remains possible that things continue getting worse and the season gets wiped out at some point during fall camp but the plan appears to be to move forward as though games will be played.
The biggest question for me is not so much about what a modified schedule looks like or how many fans will be in the stands but what process will be agreed upon for making decisions during the season. At what point might a game have to be forfeited? How long will players who test positive have to be out of action? Could it get so bad that the season is put on hold, and who decides that? How? These are difficult questions but I remain optimistic that we'll get to see college football in some form.
My feeling is this season will be remembered with a massive asterisk so it's more about pride than conventional achievements anyways.
