Conference USA pushes football title game back to Dec. 18

Jumping out in front of what could've become a hectic situation later in the year, Conference USA announced on Wednesday that its football championship game has been pushed back from Dec. 5 to Dec. 18. 

"The shift of the Championship Game from its originally scheduled December 5th date will create two additional weeks to schedule games that were postponed due to COVID-19-related issues," the conference explained in an official statement. 

"Dates and matchups for those re-scheduled games will be announced at a later date.

"Conference USA is hosting its 16th annual football championship game in 2020. The title game will feature champions from the East and West divisions of the league and the team with the highest league winning percentage will serve as host site for the game."

As noted by the Associated Press (h/t ESPN), three games matching league opponents were postponed over the past two weeks due to issues related to the pandemic. Seven nonconference contests were either postponed or canceled. 

Florida Atlantic has played only one of four scheduled games since the Owls were supposed to open the campaign against Georgia Southern on Sept. 19. That game didn't happen because Florida Atlantic couldn't safely field a squad. The FAU program is currently dealing with a virus outbreak that has caused at least 18 players and an additional nine staff members to recently test positive. 

The Southeastern Conference has postponed Florida-LSU and Vanderbilt-Missouri games scheduled for this Saturday because of positive coronavirus test results and subsequent quarantines.