The Big 12 has announced that is Board of Directors has approved a 9+1 (nine conference games and one non-conference game) scheduling model for the 2020 football season.

Each Big 12 team will play the regular nine conference games that they play every year, but will only play one non-conference game this season, as opposed to three. 

“I would like to salute the work of our university presidents and chancellors, athletics directors, coaches, medical advisors and administrators who have worked tirelessly and collaboratively during these extraordinary times,” Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said in a press release.  “We believe this change provides the best opportunity going forward. However, we will undoubtedly need to be flexible as we progress through the season in order to combat the challenges that lie ahead.”

This news was first reported by The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach and Max Olson and later confirmed by the Big 12’s press release.

The one non-conference game that each Big 12 is going to play, will be a home game.

Iowa State has three non-conference games scheduled, against South Dakota on Sept. 5, Ball State on Sept. 12 and UNLV on Sept. 19.

The Big 12’s press release on Monday said, “The start of Conference play will be solidified in the coming weeks, with an anticipated start sometime between mid- to late-September, with the expectation that non-conference games are contested prior to beginning league games.”

Iowa State is currently set to begin conference play on Sept. 26 against Texas Tech. 

This scheduling model is the model that the Big Ten Conference, the Pac 12 Conference and the Southeastern Conference (SEC) are implementing in the fall. 

According to Auerbach and Olson, “The likelihood that a fall season will get disrupted in some way was a key factor in the Big 12’s process, so others preferred the ability to schedule up to 12 games and give the league’s season a larger window of time and a better shot at managing cancellations and rescheduled games.”

“The more flexibility you have, the better off you are in terms of being able to make up games,” Bowlsby said to the Athletic on Friday.

He also said on Friday, “We’ll have some schedules we have to rearrange and that there’ll be some games to make up. If that’s the case, the more time you have, the better you can deal with those things.”

The Big 12 championship game, which is currently set for Dec. 5 at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas, may be moved back to either Dec. 12 or Dec. 19.

The NCAA Board of Governor’s is set to meet on Tuesday. According to the Athletic, “the sense throughout the Power 5 (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC) is that the board will act on Divisions II and III, but not Division I at this time,” although the NCAA could make a decision soon on fall sports.