Rick George opens up about the loss of non-conference fall sports

BOULDER — The Pac-12 announced Friday that the conference’s member institutions wouldn’t participate in non-conference competitions this fall.

“We felt like this was a necessary next step to ensure the health and safety of our student-athletes throughout the fall semester,” Colorado athletic director Rick George told reporters Monday.

For months, George has been in talks with other Pac-12 athletic directors —as well as with university presidents, medical professionals and others — as the conference has decided how to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We also felt like this decision gave us the most flexibility for making decisions over the coming weeks and months,” George said.

Those decisions could include moving the current conference football schedule up from its current start date of Sept. 26 to early September, in an effort to create more open weeks to play any games that are canceled due to the pandemic.

Another option is playing the season in the spring, though George said there’s no assurance that the circumstances for athletics will be improved at that point.

“Is the spring on the table? Probably,” George said.

Part of the reason the league decided to cancel non-conference games was that the Pac-12 has developed uniform testing protocols to ensure that every school is doing as much as possible to limit the spread of the disease. That makes it less likely a student-athlete will contract the disease from an opponent during competition.

“It was important for us to make sure that all of us had the same testing protocols in place as we move forward,” George said. “It does provide us the flexibility to complete a full schedule.”

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the cancellations is the loss of the Rocky Mountain Showdown. The Buffs were set to take on the Colorado State Rams in the final edition of the rivalry game before it goes on hiatus starting in 2021.

“I am disappointed that we won’t be playing CSU and being able to go up to their new stadium,” George said. “We were looking forward to that. This has been a great series and we’re disappointed that we will not be kicking off our season with CSU. (Colorado State athletic director) Joe Parker and I are good friends. We wear different colors but we’re good friends and we communicate quite often and he knows how difficult a decision that was for our conference and for us individually. I’d love to play Colorado State. Joe and I will continue to have discussions in the future.”

But while the Rocky Mountain Showdown won’t take place in 2020, there is still optimism that the Buffs will play football this fall.

“Look, I think that we’re ready to have a fall football season and a fall sports season,” George said. “We’ve been working incredibly hard to put together the right protocols for our student-athletes when they come back on campus, to ensure their health and safety.”