(Stats Perform) – This year’s annual FCS Kickoff appears back to being the first game of the college football season – the kind of spotlight that was intended when it was first held in 2014.
But will the game happen in a mere 16 days?
Austin Peay, the defending Ohio Valley Conference co-champ, and Central Arkansas, the defending Southland Conference co-champ, are scheduled to meet on Aug. 29 at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. FCS Kickoff officials continue to promote the date of what would be the first game during the COVID-19 pandemic.
All but one other Week Zero matchup in Division I has been canceled or moved to a later date, and the other one – Marshall at East Carolina – is in the process of a switch. In a normal year, FCS schools would crave the national TV spotlight as the season’s first game.
According to reports, the OVC and Southland are on the verge of following 10 other FCS conferences that have postponed their league schedule to the spring semester. Both conferences may allow member schools to play a handful of nonconference games this fall, and if they do, that would allow for Austin Peay vs. Central Arkansas.
However, some of the dwindling number of D-I schools that will compete this fall have been moving back the start of their schedules while they continue to assess health conditions, especially during the return of students to campuses. There aren’t even many games in the usually crowded Week 1 schedule over Labor Day Weekend, although Austin Peay is scheduled to play one of them, at Cincinnati on Sept. 3.
The Cramton Bowl is a tough draw for the FCS Kickoff even if fans were allowed to attend this year because the neutral site is about 325 miles from Austin Peay’s campus and nearly 500 miles from Central Arkansas’ campus. The game was originally scheduled to be played Sept. 19 at Central Arkansas – a 366-mile trip for Austin Peay – before it became the Kickoff and was shifted to Montgomery. That date is no longer available after UCA recently scheduled an FBS matchup at Arkansas State.
If the OVC and Southland postpone their conference schedules, Austin Peay and UCA would have their first mutual open date on Sept. 12.
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