Patriot League Becomes Latest Division I Conference to Eliminate All Fall Sports Competition

Another one bites the dust.

The Patriot League had already decided it was going to eliminate plane travel and most trips which required an overnight stay, which was already going to have an effect on several football games the conference had scheduled against FBS opponents. But following the Ivy League's announcement last week that it would not be holding any athletic events until at least January 1, the Patriot League is now the second Division I conference which will not have a football season this fall.

Among the casualties of this decision is "The Rivalry" between Lehigh and Lafayette, who will not meet on the football field this year for the first time since 1896.

I've run out of ways to continue elaborating upon news of the falling dominoes of canceling college football seasons other than to say that it still really sucks and the storm clouds for the Power Five can be seen on the horizon.

The SEC has all 14 of its athletic directors meeting in Birmingham today — on what was supposed to be the first day of SEC Media Days — likely to discuss the moves of the Big 10, Pac-12 and ACC to conference-only seasons and what its options are moving forward. With FCS conferences already moving towards eliminating football this fall and that move potentially coming for the Group of Five conferences as well, these intra-conference seasons may be our only hope of any college football.

It truly depresses me to say this, but this feels like a slower burn of what happened in March after the Ivy League was the first conference to cancel its conference basketball tournament. We're obviously going to see these moves made at the lower levels first where there are not hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, but eventually the Power Five decision makers are going to have to make a final call as well.

I hope it's the one we all want, but we're running out of time.