College football will be played Saturday after all — sort of.

The Pac-10, Big East and ACC postponed all of their games when a summit of conference commissioners agreed Wednesday to let leagues and individual schools decide whether to play. The Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and other Division 1-A conferences will hold games, with a few exceptions.

NCAA conference commissioners deliberated Wednesday afternoon over the telephone after the conference member schools met independently with each commissioner.
Minds were split, with Pac-10 head Tom Hansen adamant that the entire NCAA postpone games this week. Hansen felt that playing college football so soon after the national disaster would be disrespectful, akin to playing after John F. Kennedy was shot in 1963. College football took the day after that assassination off, but the NFL continued play despite criticism.

Big East officials refused to play, since many of its institutions are located in the Northeast, with league headquarters in New York.

Meanwhile, SEC chairmen thought that playing the games would do some good.

The conference believes these events present a meaningful opportunity to bring our people together in a common expression of sympathy and mourning,” the league said in a statement. “An appropriate ceremony to express these sentiments will be held prior to each game.”

The divide among the conference leaders resulted in the decision to let games proceed, unless schools held objections.

No teams plan to play Thursday, with Penn State at Virginia and Ohio at N.C. State postponed and Texas Tech at UTEP moved to Saturday.

University administrations altered the scheduling of those games Tuesday evening. The first Saturday game postponed was San Diego State at Ohio State, although neither the WAC nor the Big Ten is suspending play as a whole.

We feel that for these two institutions, this is the right decision at this time,” San Diego State executive director Rick Bay said.

Conferences are moving to reschedule games at the first available open date for participating schools. For many schools, this opportunity does not appear until late November or early December.
The highest-profile games postponed were No. 13 Washington at No. 1 Miami and No. 11 Georgia Tech at No. 5 Florida State.

Obviously the kids wanted to play,” Georgia Tech head coach George O’Leary said. “But they also understand the pulse of the country.”