What might a conference-only MWC football season look like?

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Las Vegas News Bureau

UNLV Rebels running back Charles Williams (8) dives in for a touchdown during their NCAA Mountain West Conference football game against the San Jose State Spartans Saturday, November 23, 2019, at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas. The game marked UNLVis final game at the stadium they have called home since 1971. (Sam Morris/Las Vegas News Bureau)

Sun, Jul 12, 2020 (2 a.m.)

College football is going to look very different this season — and that’s if we’re lucky.

The dominos have already started to fall, as the Big Ten announced on Thursday and the Pac-12 on Friday that they will be adopting a conference-only schedule for 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Other power conferences such as the ACC and the Big 12 are reportedly going to follow suit.

The Pac-12 cancelations in particular will impact UNLV’s nonconference schedule, but it might only be a matter of time before the Mountain West goes to a conference-only format as well.

A conference-only schedule would offer some obvious advantages in trying to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, as it makes travel shorter and easier. And conferences can more readily institute uniform testing and health policies for all its members.

So what would a football season comprised entirely of Mountain West games look like? There are a few different options:

Full-length season

If Mountain West schools are still intent on playing their full allotment of 12 regular-season games — and for obvious financial reasons, they want that very much — the best way to do it might be to start the 2020 campaign on time and play a round-robin style schedule.

The MWC has 12 teams, so UNLV could play every conference opponent one time to populate an 11-game schedule. A final game could be added in a number of ways; home-and-home rivalry matchups could do it (for example, UNLV and UNR would play twice). That would allow the conference to fulfill its home dates.

The Mountain West could also devise a schedule in which teams play their division opponents twice; for UNLV, that would mean a pair of games against West Division rivals UNR, San Diego State, Fresno State, San Jose State and Hawaii. Those home-and-home series would account for 10 games.

If programs are determined to get to a full 12 games, adding two dates against local FCS programs could be one possibility (The Athletic reported that the NCAA may allow teams to count two games against FCS opponents toward bowl eligibility this season).

The benefit of a divisional schedule would be a compressed travel footprint. All of UNLV’s opponents (aside from Hawaii) would be within busing distance, which would reduce some external factors that contribute to spread of the virus.

Shortened season

If the Mountain West does nothing to replace its lost nonconference games, the season could begin in October and follow the already-established league schedule. UNLV would play (in order) at San Diego State, vs. Wyoming, at San Jose State, vs. Colorado State, at Boise State, vs. Fresno State, at Hawaii and vs. UNR.

In that scenario, MWC teams would only play eight games this season. That is not ideal for fulfilling television contracts, but the extra five weeks before kickoff would hopefully allow more time for the country (and specifically, the Mountain West regions) to get the COVID-19 outbreak a little more under control. It would also give the league some flexibility to reschedule games when — not if — the coronavirus forces some contests to be postponed along the way.

Spring season

The Ivy League has already postponed its entire fall sports season, while leaving open the possibility that football could be played in the spring. Could that be the eventual end game for college football as a whole?

Shifting football to the spring would basically be kicking the can down the road and hoping for a vaccine to be developed in the meantime. That would be a drastic move for the country’s power conferences and Group of Five leagues, but it might turn out to be the only way to salvage a football season.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.

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