Baylor coach Dave Aranda could see a weight being lifted off the shoulders of his players during a meeting Tuesday night, when word began to filter out that the Big 12 Conference would attempt to play football this fall.
“You could just see the joy,” Aranda said. “Everyone was smiling. Guys were cracking jokes, were excited.”
Months of uncertainty had finally given the Bears and their conference rivals the slightest bit of clarity. If all goes according to plan, they will take the field for a nonconference game next month, then begin a round-robin league schedule Sept. 26 with the intention of crowning a Big 12 champion on Dec. 12 in the Dallas area.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the conference’s 10 teams will be competing for a national title, though. The Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences have so far joined the Big 12 in resolving to play this fall, but the Big Ten, Pac-12 and many smaller conferences are trying for the spring.
So will there be two national champions, like there sometimes were when poll voters declared who was best? Will an autumn champion play a spring champion? Will this season, like so many things around the world, simply be one to forget?