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Coronavirus: NCAA president says fall championships scrapped except for FBS football

NCAA president Mark Emmert said Thursday there will be no Division I fall championships, except for the FBS college football playoffs.

In a video conference call with reporters, Emmert said Division I fall championships for FCS football, volleyball, soccer, and cross country have been canceled.

“We cannot, now at this point, have fall NCAA championships because we don’t have enough schools participating,” Emmert said in a video released on the NCAA’s official Twitter account. “The NCAA Board of Governors has decided that if you do not have at least half of the schools participating you cannot have a legitimate championship. So, we can’t in any Division 1 NCAA championship sport have a champion in the fall, which is everything except FBS football in the fall.”

The decision means national championships have been scrubbed in volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, cross-country and field hockey, Sports Illustrated reported.

Emmert’s announcement comes a day after the Big East said it was canceling all fall sports. The Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences also decided to scrap fall sports until 2021, while the Big 12 announced Wednesday that it would attempt to play football in the fall, ESPN reported.

On Thursday, the Southland and Southern conferences announced they would not have conference play during the fall season, CBS Sports reported. That leaves the Ohio Valley Conference as the only FCS league that has not made a formal announcement on the future of its season, the network reported.

Other conferences that will not play conference games this fall include the Ivy League, MEAC, Patriot League, CAA, NEC, Pioneer Football League, Big Sky, Big South, the SWAC, and the Missouri Valley Football Conference, CBS Sports reported.

Emmert still believes the conferences can hold fall championships early next year, or even in the spring.

“There are ways to do this. I’m confident we can figure this out,” Emmert told reporters. “ If schools and conferences want to move forward and try and have … more than half want to do it. Let’s do it.

“We can use the fall to keep kids healthy, keep them in engaged with their coaches and athletic departments, focus on their academic success, work with them, let them practice and stay ready to play.”