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  * Non-conference games

The 2020 football season began with a tumultuous and uncertain start. Following the global Coronavirus outbreak, which began in March 2019, the future of the Fall semester was uncertain, with schools variously choosing to start classes earlier or later than usual, and several schools switching to majority-online class models. Not long after the outbreak of the virus, the ACC suspended all athletic activities indefinitely, removing most of the usual Spring football practices. With that outlook on classes for the Fall semester, sports were understandably also subject to change.

As the academic year inched closer, it became increasingly clear that the pandemic had not passed as originally hoped; as such, organizations gradually began to cancel their fall athletics or modify their re-opening plans. By mid-May, the University of California system had reported that it would be unlikely to open to students in the fall, already minimizing the chance of football to be played at those schools, while Division II management lowered the minimum number of required games in the season from 10 to 7 while simultaneously lowering the maximum number of games from 11 to 10.

The first official cancelations began in June; poorer schools who traditionally lacked large monetary backers were the first to go. June 17th marked the first official cancelations, when Tennessee State dropped football games against Southern University and Jackson State, Southern University canceled a game against Florida A&M, and Jackson State lost a game against Langston University. Aside from the Langston game, these cancelations were not actually because of COVID-related fears, but because the games ceased being economically viable due to lowered attendence requirements, though safety was reportedly also a factor.

Part of the problem with schools dropping out was economic. After losing part of their Spring and most of their Summer athletics funding, many institutions faced the pressure of playing a football season starting in a monetary deficit. Initially, larger, wealthier schools held out while mostly smaller conferences and schools among the lower divisions slowly dropped out. Finally, on July 8th, the Ivy League officially canceled all fall sports, marking the first Division I contender to formally pull the plug on fall athletics.

Others began following suit. The next day, the Big Ten announced a conference-only football schedule, and the Pac-12 followed the next day. The ACC, SEC, and Big 12, however, held out--a trend that would continue as the season progressed. Finally, two weeks later, on July 29th, the ACC announced a conference-only game schedule which included Notre Dame as an ACC championship-elible member, plus an additional non-conference game providing the game was played either as a home game or played in the team's home state; this decision was made with the hopes of keeping in-state SEC-ACC rivalry games intact. The next day, however, this hope became an impossibility when the SEC announced that they would be playing conference games only. Finally, on August 3rd, the Big 12 became the final Power 5 conference to announce a revised schedule, mimicing the ACC's revised schedule plan except requiring that their non-conference games be home games.

Despite these on-the-fly adjustments, teams kept falling. On August 5th, UCONN became the first FBS program to cancel their fall football season, followed shortly by most of the FCS teams in the league. Even where conferences remained firm on having a season, individual teams began opting out; for example, the Conference-USA planned to start the season with a modified schedule after Old Dominion opted out for the year.

After a few struggles early-on with teams having to cancel games or adjust on the fly, the resolution of the ACC, SEC, Big 12, and American conferences led to the other FBS conferences resurrecting their seasons, and by October 7th, all the FBS conferences who had planned on postponing their season--the Big 10, Pac-12, and the Mid-American Conference (MAC)--were back on track to finish their football seasons before January 2021. Most FCS conferences, however, remained committed to playing in Spring 2021.