Charleston Southern suspends 2020 fall football season

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Charleston Southern’s athletic department announced on Friday that they are suspending all plans for the football team to play non conference games in the fall of this year.

On Wednesday, the Big South conference announced they were postponing all fall athletics but that football teams would be allowed to play up to 4 non conference games if the school chose to do so.

CSU said at that point they were planning on playing 4 games. The team had previously scheduled non conference games set against The Citadel, Furman and Mercer. AD Jeff Barber said the school also had a verbal agreement with a Power 5 school to play the 4th game.

The decision to switch gears came following internal discussions between the CSU coaching staff, student-athletes, and university administration according to a school official.

“Due to the increasing uncertainty related to fall college sports across the country, as well as internal discussions with our student-athletes, coaching staff, and university administration, the Charleston Southern Football Ministry has decided to suspend plans to play an abbreviated football schedule in the fall of 2020.” The school said in a statement.

“As always, decisions on our return to play are based on what is best for the safety, health, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of our student-athletes. Delaying football competition this semester allows us to align with every other fall sport in the Big South Conference, frees our football team to prepare for conference and national championships in the spring, and, most importantly, allows our student-athletes to focus on their studies without adding unnecessary complexity to their lives in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We would like to thank the leadership and communication from our football captains and our coaching staff, as well our university administration for their support during this time and look forward to competing at a high level upon the resumption of competition in the spring.”

A school spokesman said they working on a practice schedule for the team for the rest of the year that will be made public in the coming days.

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