Tuesday was another hugely significant day in the process of presidents and commissioners deciding the fate of college football.

There are so many moving parts and such regular updates it's only right that Cats Illustrated would round up the biggest stories and provide analysis in real time.

Following a hectic end of the Tuesday news cycle, here are some of the big topics for the day ahead and beyond.

Big 12 gives college football a lifeline

SoonerScoop.com, the Oklahoma affiliate right here on the Rivals.com network, reported late Tuesday that sources had indicated the Big 12 conference was committing to try and press ahead to make a season happen.

Prior to that the Big 12 had been perhaps the linchpin of the entire remaining effort to preserve the sport in 2020. (As a refresher, reports had the SEC steadfastly in favor of a season with the ACC leaning that direction, but the former preferring two additional Power Five allies which would also play.)

The Big 12 as a conference fractured, got smaller, and nearly fell apart completely because of the absence of a balance of power and the place of Texas in the league pecking order, or at least that perception and the grievances it created.

It's not yet clear how the Big 12 arrived at its current decision to move forward, nor is it clear how long that will last (if we know anything these days it's that one day's news won't necessarily be relevant tomorrow). But football is very important to Texas and Oklahoma so it's no shock they're giving it a go. If anything based on history it might be a little more surprising that the Big 12 has been more on the fence than the ACC.

Potential devastation for the Big Ten

If the SEC, ACC, or Big 12 are able to successfully work in most or all of a football schedule this fall it could be a a real problem for the Big Ten and Pac-12 but particularly for the Big Ten relative to the other conferences.

Both leagues are self-imposing the assurance of heightened economic catastrophe for their athletic departments (again, all leagues may eventually be there, and the cuts will come for even the leagues that play).

Beyond that, what will be the short and long-term impact on recruiting for programs in those leagues? How many players will transfer from those programs? How much long-lasting strain will the decision create in the relationship between fans and school personnel at the various institutions in the conference? Will it impact future realignment?

The questions are too numerous to count.

Or we could have two college football seasons

When the Big Ten announced it would be postponing the 2020 season it meant just that: Postponing, until at least the spring of 2021. They are at least paying lip service to a desire to play the season in the spring.

Urban Meyer and others have said there's essentially "no chance" of football in the spring. This has been deemed impractical primarily because of the strain it would place on the health and safety of student-athletes who would then play two potentially shortened seasons in the span of one calendar year.

Here we're getting into issues of television contracts and financial commitments that could provide incentives close to obligations for the conference to come up with a solution for the spring, however imperfect and impractical that might be.

Given the certainty that COVID-19 will still be an issue in the spring the same conference that voted overwhelmingly at first to postpone, how likely is it that they will be willing to play until a vaccine is available en masse?

If they make a season happen and everything runs safely and fairly smoothly in both the fall and spring, the best case scenario for college football fans across the country is that we get two seasons: Three Power Fives in the fall, two in the spring. Two national champions?

I'd be interested in a poll of Big Ten fans to find out whether they're hoping the remaining conferences cancel this fall to erase some of the fallout or whether they might just like to see some football in the months ahead, even if its in different conferences.

Recruiting could get very interesting

Kentucky is well over halfway to the finish line in putting together its 2021 recruiting class but it has always been understood that a radical reshaping of classes across the country could take place during such an unprecedented year.

The obvious question is how many decommitments from Big Ten schools this could open up for Kentucky and other schools to poach.

Nebraska going rogue?

Ohio State's administration has made it clear they are not going to leave the Big Ten to play in the fall. That's a downer for many Buckeye fans who were in open rebellion against the league and even floating the idea of going independent or making overtures to the SEC.

But Nebraska appears to be the league's one school that is holding out. Football is in the DNA of Nebraska's state culture and the school does not have the deep ties or sense of loyalty to the Big Ten that Ohio State and others in the conference do.

Contracts present a serious problem for Nebraska in any bid to go rogue but this will be an interesting story to follow.

What's happened to the ACC?

There isn't anything wrong with the ACC. It's just not your grandfather's ACC.

Remember the old eight or nine-team league heavily skewed toward college basketball, dominated by schools in North Carolina that prided itself on putting athletics behind other considerations?

That was ages ago. From the start of this COVID-19/college football debate and deliberation process reporters have mentioned that sources have the ACC as leaning toward the SEC's position in a pronounced way. In other words, the ACC has been leaning toward trying to have a season even while the Big Ten and Pac-12 were mostly opposed and formalized that opposition in a cancellation on Tuesday. Years ago it would have been a given that the ACC would have made the same decision.

So what has happened?

My theory points to a number of factors that has brought the league more into the SEC's way of thinking.

First and probably most importantly the league's significant expansion beyond the eight teams (and nine with the addition of Florida State) to its present form significantly diluted the power of the schools on Tobacco Road, notably North Carolina and Duke but also Wake Forest. Virginia and Maryland traditionally aligned themselves with the same thought patterns as those North Carolina schools, which is to say they had an aversion to any appearance of athletics driving the cart.

Those schools prided themselves for decades on putting academics well before athletics. They put forth a pristine image of themselves. They certainly were not culturally in line with the SEC's member institutions, nor did they want to give the appearance of being like that.

Secondly, football has become a lot more important for all conferences but the ACC is somewhat enjoying the benefits of that right now with Clemson's rise to national prominence.

Third, the SEC has become the unquestioned superpower conference in college football, which means in college athletics. The ACC has gradually seemed to move more towards the SEC's way of thinking perhaps because of the SEC's success and prominence as a league.

Fourth, the admission of Louisville to the ACC was a crossing of the Rubicon. There was a very real debate during the expansion and realignment hysteria over whether the Cardinals should be admitted on the basis of the school's academic rankings being lower than most others in the league that existed. The decision to admit the Cardinals might not have been a tipping point but it certainly represented a change in thinking from the old ACC we used to know.

Finally, perhaps North Carolina's two-decade long academic scandal impacted not only the psyche of folks in Chapel Hill but across the conference, since the Tar Heels historically seemed to represent the image the league as a whole wanted to project.

Whatever the reasons, it's interesting that the ACC has become more of a natural ally of the SEC than the Big Ten. In this case, it's a big reason a season has become more likely.