“We won’t make any decisions about our willingness to participate in a MEAC football or volleyball season until much later in this semester,” A&T athletics director Earl Hilton said. “We’re going to be in consultation with our student-athletes and coaches, and we’ll base our decision upon them and upon sound medical advice.”

The MEAC announced last month it would suspend all fall sports because of the global coronavirus pandemic.

This afternoon, the league unveiled a plan for a football season that would split the league into Northern and Southern divisions. Each team would play six conference games in the nine weeks starting Feb. 27, 2021, and running through April 24, with the division winners playing for the MEAC championship May 1.

Volleyball, meanwhile, would play its season in January and February, with a championship tournament March 13-14 in Norfolk, Va.

At A&T, those sports would overlap the rest of the Aggies’ winter and spring sports, adding upward of 130 athletes for existing training, strength and conditioning and sports information staff to cope with during what’s already the busiest season of the school year.

That concerns Hilton, who also worries about the amount of football that would be compressed into the 2021 calendar year.

With non-conference games, the Aggies could conceivably play eight or nine games in the spring, then another 11 in their first Big South season in the fall — more if they make the FCS playoffs.

“That’s an awful lot of football,” Hilton said. “It’s a lot of blocking and tackling, a lot contact for the young men. And I would need medical professionals — doctors and trainers — to tell me that it’s OK to play a season in the spring, take three months off, then start conditioning for another season in the fall. I’m just not sure that’s wise. I have some real reservations.”

An NCAA Board of Governors vote is needed for approval Friday, but the NCAA Division I Council voted today to allow athletes who play fall sports, including football, to have a free year of eligibility no matter how much they compete over the next 10 months.

Hilton, speaking earlier in the day, said he still needed answers for his questions.

“Not the least of which is the NCAA has not taken a position yet on championships or eligibility or APR status or missed semester exceptions,” Hilton said. “When they make all that clear, that will be helpful to us in making our decision.”

Under the MEAC’s plan the league would be broken in two, and travel for all sports would be kept as regional as possible. The divisions are:

• Southern — A&T, N.C. Central, South Carolina State, Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M. (This is the final MEAC season for the Aggies, B-C and FAMU before they leave for new leagues in 2021-22).

• Northern — Coppin State, Delaware State, Howard, Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State, Norfolk State.

The MEAC’s model is dependent on a lessening of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as NCAA scheduling guidelines for fall championships possibly being played in the spring.

Each individual institution can opt out of competing in the spring based on local and state COVID-19 conditions, according to the league’s news release.

“I know the MEAC is saying, ‘We think we’ll be playing the spring.’ A&T has certainly not made that decision,” Hilton said. “We have not decided to play in the spring. That will be a decision to be made in consultation with my coaches and my student-athletes, and it will be after we get more direction from the NCAA in terms of what it will do to our student-athletes from an eligibility and academic perspective. And we won’t decide until we’ve developed plans about how we make sure we’re not short-changing the other sports so we can play football.”