My idea:

Practice starts January 4.
Season starts February 13.

Weeks 1&2 - Guarantee game vs B1G and home game vs FCS
Weeks 3-7 - Divisional round-robin
Week 8 (April 10) - Championship game. The other 10 teams can play an eighth game against each other if they want.

Just for giggles, start the season with weeknight MACtion and end the season with non-conference games on pleasant spring weekends.

Empty fields and stadiums...... that’s spring football.

(08-13-2020 12:51 PM)utpotts Wrote:  Empty fields and stadiums...... that’s spring football.

nah that is just the MAC in general

I'd say start practice the 2nd week of March, after spring break. The first game would be the first Saturday in April. Run the 6 game regular season (division +1 OOC) through April and May (two bye weeks) and have the championship game Memorial Day Weekend for a 7 game season. Teams not in the championship would play their corresponding team in the other division. The teams with the better overall record would host. A tie-breaker could be point differential.

An example schedule for Ball State could be

4/3 - NIU
4/10 - @Indiana
4/17 - EMU
4/24 - Bye
5/1 - WMU
5/8 - @CMU
5/15 - @Toledo
5/22 - Bye
5/29 - Championship weekend

April & May sounds good to me. Whatever the schedule, the CCG on Memorial Day Weekend seems like a good idea.

No senior or any other player with a sniff of a chance in the NFL is going to play an April/May schedule. With the draft at the end of April and rookie mini camps starting at the end of May, we would see some terrible MAC football.

The NFL has already said they can be flexible and will adjust the draft accordingly if there is spring football.

(08-13-2020 08:59 PM)utpotts Wrote:  No senior or any other player with a sniff of a chance in the NFL is going to play an April/May schedule. With the draft at the end of April and rookie mini camps starting at the end of May, we would see some terrible MAC football.

Realistically speaking, how many MAC seniors/juniors have a sniff of a chance in the NFL? Maybe 2 or 3 per team?

(08-13-2020 04:30 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  April & May sounds good to me. Whatever the schedule, the CCG on Memorial Day Weekend seems like a good idea.

It'd feel weird - the weather would get better as the season went on, rather than worse as it does in the fall.

I'll chime in:

First game say first or 2nd weekend in March. Play either 9 or 10 games including one or two OOC games (8 MAC games same as 2020 schedule) to start the season. Pre-season training could start say February 1st.

MACC could be Memorial Day weekend as Bruce suggests.

I believe MAC baseball moves north in early March so if base-a-ball can play in mid-March so can CFB.

The season was squashed because of player safety. How smart is it to have them play 20 games between Spring 2021 and Fall 2021? Players injured in Spring will not be ready for Fall. Ridiculous idea.

April and May seems way too late if we're having Fall 2021 football. I might have imagined it but didn't the MAC already float a 5-7 game schedule? Would probably have to start in February at the very latest. Would be some nasty weather.

(08-14-2020 11:22 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  April and May seems way too late if we're having Fall 2021 football. I might have imagined it but didn't the MAC already float a 5-7 game schedule? Would probably have to start in February at the very latest. Would be some nasty weather.

What he said.

Having a spring CFB season bad idea. Sole purpose would be for money regardless of player health-safety.

(08-14-2020 10:41 AM)GoChips Wrote:  The season was squashed because of player safety. How smart is it to have them play 20 games between Spring 2021 and Fall 2021? Players injured in Spring will not be ready for Fall. Ridiculous idea.

Twenty games spread out of 10 months isn't too bad. The NFL plays 20+ games per season including pre-season and playoffs.

Remember, lot of the players (maybe 20/team) will be seniors and will exhaust their eligibility at the end of the 2020 season.

Redshirt frosh: No big deal. The 2021 season is their 'spring ball.'

The ones I'm most fearful are those who will play in spring and then go on to the NFL in 2021. THAT is the big fear. Since the MAC doesn't produce many players who will move on to play major minutes as a rookie (few make NFL rosters) that point is kind of moot.

(08-14-2020 11:35 AM)MajorHoople Wrote:  

(08-14-2020 11:22 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  April and May seems way too late if we're having Fall 2021 football. I might have imagined it but didn't the MAC already float a 5-7 game schedule? Would probably have to start in February at the very latest. Would be some nasty weather.

What he said.

Having a spring CFB season bad idea. Sole purpose would be for money regardless of player health-safety.

I could see P5 doing it for the money in spring, but unless P5 vs. G5 non-conference games and CFP come back in spring there isn't any money in it for G5. Playing in front of mandated 20% capacity MAC stadiums would only amount to around 4-5k paying fans.

(08-14-2020 12:41 PM)epasnoopy Wrote:  

(08-14-2020 11:35 AM)MajorHoople Wrote:  

(08-14-2020 11:22 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  April and May seems way too late if we're having Fall 2021 football. I might have imagined it but didn't the MAC already float a 5-7 game schedule? Would probably have to start in February at the very latest. Would be some nasty weather.

What he said.

Having a spring CFB season bad idea. Sole purpose would be for money regardless of player health-safety.

I could see P5 doing it for the money in spring, but unless P5 vs. G5 non-conference games and CFP come back in spring there isn't any money in it for G5. Playing in front of mandated 20% capacity MAC stadiums would only amount to around 4-5k paying fans.

If I'm allowed to tailgate I'm buying tix. Starving for football... I watch the XFL in March.

(08-14-2020 11:22 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  April and May seems way too late if we're having Fall 2021 football. I might have imagined it but didn't the MAC already float a 5-7 game schedule? Would probably have to start in February at the very latest. Would be some nasty weather.

I agree. Too late. I would watch closely what the B1G is doing and align the league to closely match their dates, as the NFL will adjust any of THEIR dates based on that.

The MAC needs to be planning this out right now. If you have to pull the plug at the 11th hour so be it. But they should not be sitting around wondering what to do. Plan to have early spring football. They can build in enough bye weeks to work around any bad weather-and possible postponements/rescheduling.

(08-14-2020 11:22 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  April and May seems way too late if we're having Fall 2021 football. I might have imagined it but didn't the MAC already float a 5-7 game schedule? Would probably have to start in February at the very latest. Would be some nasty weather.

If ending at the end of May is too late, then start in Mid-March, six games give a division round robin and one cross division game, one bye is seven weeks, end on May Day, CCG on May 15th.

(08-14-2020 02:17 PM)zrb2 Wrote:  

(08-14-2020 11:22 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  April and May seems way too late if we're having Fall 2021 football. I might have imagined it but didn't the MAC already float a 5-7 game schedule? Would probably have to start in February at the very latest. Would be some nasty weather.

I agree. Too late. I would watch closely what the B1G is doing and align the league to closely match their dates, as the NFL will adjust any of THEIR dates based on that.

The MAC needs to be planning this out right now. If you have to pull the plug at the 11th hour so be it. But they should not be sitting around wondering what to do. Plan to have early spring football. They can build in enough bye weeks to work around any bad weather-and possible postponements/rescheduling.

Early spring semester or early spring season? January and February suck in the MAC. 2 inches of snow on the ground and sub 32 degrees every day. March is probably comparable to November. April is hit and miss.