PAC Announces Spring Football Scheduling Adjustments
NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. (pacathletics.org)--The Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) announced it will be adjusting its previously established Spring 2021 football schedule. Bethany College will travel to Westminster on Friday, March 19.
Case Western Reserve University and Thiel College recently indicated they will not be playing this spring, leaving the league with eight schools committed to competing during the abbreviated spring campaign.
The initial scheduling format, released September 17, 2020, called for two five-team divisions (North and South) to play four in-division games, followed by a season-ending North Division-South Division crossover game.
With Case Western Reserve and Thiel originally scheduled to compete as members of the North Division, the league moved Carnegie Mellon University, initially scheduled to compete as a member of the South Division, to the North Division.
The North Division will now be made up of Carnegie Mellon, Geneva College, Grove City College and Westminster College. Bethany College, Saint Vincent College, Washington & Jefferson College and Waynesburg University will make up the South Division.
The restructured schedule will begin with crossover games between North and South Division members on Friday, March 19. Those March 19 games will not be counted in the divisional standings. All eight teams will have two home games and two road games scheduled prior to the Friday, April 23 North-South crossover games.
The PAC's Scheduling Working Group recommended the new format to the league's directors of athletics, which was discussed and approved on March 2.
The April 23 crossover games will be played at the opposite site of the 2019 matchup between schools.
The PAC Presidents' Council has decided that, throughout the Spring 2021 semester, spectator policies for outdoor sporting events will be determined and enforced by each individual member institution. The council also agreed that schools will not be permitting spectators from visiting teams.
In consultation with the conference-wide working groups (Health and Safety, Scheduling and Financial Considerations), the PAC Athletic Administrators' Council and sport-specific coaching groups, the PAC Presidents' Council continues its ongoing review and planning for a return to competition in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Due to the extraordinary disruptions related to COVID-19, the PAC and the PAC Presidents' Council understand that plans for returning to competition and current schedule models are subject to change at any time based on available public health best practices and approaches or local, state and federal guidelines, recommendations or mandates.
