Football season is making a comeback. Tech Football released a spring 2021 Ohio Valley Conference schedule on Oct.7, 2020.
The season will consist of a seven game conference only schedule with a possible non-conference game. Tech will play three games at Tucker Stadium and then be on the road for the next four games within the season.
Tech’s football games will be held on Sundays to avoid conflict with all the other sports taking place. This is with the crazy sports season that will be approaching in the spring semester.
“The schedule is a set round-robin format with all eight teams that elected to play a spring schedule. Teams will have the opportunity to schedule a non-conference foe in the spring,” said Thomas Corhern, of TTU Sports Information, as he went into detail about the upcoming schedule.
With most conferences making the decision to play either in the spring or fall rather quickly, Ohio Valley Conference was one of the last conferences to make a final decision. Coach Alexander Dewayne ‘Coach A’, Head football coach, said the process to try and play in the fall was an inconsistent and uncertain process.
“We had returned all of our guys, our team and other teams had returned in July with preparations to play early September and play football as normally scheduled,” Coach A. said.
Due to COVID-19 cases continuing to rise within the months of July and August, it really determined the season for not just Tech but all OVC opponents. Some had elected to play in the fall and followed through with that. Eastern Kentucky, an OVC opponent, decided to play their games in the fall. This decision made the OVC schedule a seven game conference schedule, and where Tech would have three home games and four away games.
Tech is looking to add a non-conference game on Feb. 13.
“Obviously I would like to play a game between now and Feb. 20. I think it will benefit our team to have a game to play before we open the conference schedule, but there’s not a lot of availability,” said Coach A.
Tech is at the Football Championship Subdivision level, and all 13 conferences made a decision to not play conference football this fall. The FCS championship game will be held on May 15, 2021 in Fisco, Texas.
The NCAA has granted eligibility to football players this year who are graduating to play another season due to the outbreak of COVID-19. If the conference they are a part of is playing in the spring, they can play in the fall.
Tech’s football program has never made it to a postseason game. The team looks to stop the 99 season and streak and get a playoff game. They hope to win the championship game and the Sgt. York trophy. The players see this as a realistic goal.
Quarterback Bailey Fisher is a returning player and Coach A. said that he is a great leader for this football team and is the best quarterback in the league. Fisher was a freshman in 2018. He was second team all conference in 2019, and this year is a preseason first team pick.
