Big 12′s Bob Bowlsby: NCAA will be ‘lucky’ to get through upcoming football, basketball seasons without disruptions

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby believes the college football season will start on time or close to it this fall.

When and if it will finish is something he’s not about to guarantee in the current coronavirus environment. In a candid and wide-ranging interview with the Big 12 Radio’s Holly Rowe, Gabe Ikard and Chris Plank on SiriusXM on Thursday, Bowlsby discussed a variety of subjects related to COVID-19 and other college issues.

“We will be very, very lucky to start on Labor Day weekend and get through the football season without disruptions,” Bowlsby said. “We will be very lucky to get through the postseason and the basketball season without disruptions. We’re going to have a new normal and we’re going to have to have an idea of how we’re going to deal with these things.”

Bowlsby noted one possible issue in the heart of the Dallas: the annual Red River Showdown between Texas and Oklahoma.

“When you think about a Petri dish for spreading infection, can you think of one that’s better than the State Fair of Texas,” Bowlsby said. “People are jammed in there and they’re enthusiastic. It’s about a perfect place to transmit any kind of infection.”

For Bowlsby and other college decision-makers, that’s the quandary and why they’ve spent so much time going over options in the past several weeks.

“So you think about how does that happen?” Bowlsby said. “OK, in this new normal, how do we have one of the great sporting events in the entire United States, how do you have that at the Cotton Bowl when you’ve got to walk through 300,000 people gathered in the outer reaches. It’s those kinds of things that we’re going to have to think ourselves through.”

Texas-OU is just one example. So are college campuses. During the interview, Bowlsby kept referencing a “new normal” and indicated that he expected COVID-19 to linger like previous viruses.

Bowlsby had made headlines last week by suggesting a split college football season to The Athletic. Teams could start in September but may have to finish sometime in the spring.

He clarified in the interview that it was merely a fallback position.

“But we may find ourselves falling back,” Bowlsby said. “I think with the warmer weather I think we’ll get back to campus and we’ll get to practicing and we’ll start the season. We may not start exactly on time but I think we’ll start the season.

“I worry more about the end of the season and the postseason than I do the beginning parts of the season but I think we’ll figure it out in the near term. If the virus comes roaring back in the traditional flu and virus season in December through March, I wonder if we’re going to get basketball seasons in. I wonder if we’re going to get the CFP playoff in. I wonder if we’re going to get the NCAA Tournament in.”

Find more Colleges stories from The Dallas Morning News here.