AAC & C-USA Postpone Fall Sports (But Not Football) To Spring

Both the American Athletic Conference and Conference-USA have postponed soccer and volleyball seasons to the spring of 2021, though football will remain in the fall for both conferences.

The American (AAC) and Conference-USA (C-USA) are two of the ten conferences making up the Football Bowl Subdivision, or the top level of collegiate football. So far, the FBS has been evenly split between conferences planning to move forward with fall football and other sports, and conferences canceling their fall seasons with hopes of playing those sports in the spring of 2021.

So far, the Big Ten, Pac-12, MAC, and Mountain West have postponed their fall sports. The SEC, ACC, Big 12, and Sun Belt are planning to move forward with fall sports.

The AAC and C-USA have hit somewhat of a middle ground between those two groups. Both conferences will move men’s and women’s soccer along with women’s volleyball to the spring 2021 semester. Cross country remains up in the air, “pending further NCAA clarification” according to the AAC news release.

• AAC postponement announcement
• C-USA postponement announcement

But both the AAC and C-USA will continue with their football seasons this fall. The two conferences represent somewhat of a tipping point, with four conferences keeping all fall sports as scheduled and four conferences postponing all fall sports. The AAC and C-USA were previously grouped in with what has been dubbed the “Stubborn Six” by some sports media: the six conferences who haven’t yet budged on their plans to conduct fall sports amid the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

The decisions about fall sports don’t directly impact swimming & diving, which are considered winter sports. But fall competition for swimming programs is likely to be affected in some way by schools decisions on fall sports, and fall sport decisions could set a precedent for winter sports if the pandemic doesn’t improve over the next few months.