This Week's Obsession: Is Football Feasible This Year?
In which we attempt to answer the looming question.
Is there going to be football this year? And how?
Seth: Clearly the answer to this is "it depends" but we're at the point now where we can set some contours of the possibility right?
Ace: To some extent, sure. The NCAA and individual conferences are laying the groundwork for athletes to return for workouts, so there’s clearly an intent to move forward. We even had Gene Smith suggesting Ohio State could play games in front of limited crowds. I find Smith’s statements to be, uh, perhaps too optimistic.
Brian: They're going to try because they've backed themselves into a corner where all money must be spent immediately so it looks like these athletic departments aren't wildly profitable and no one has a reserve. Except Georgia.
Ace: Plus they lost the NCAA basketball tournament, which is a massive pile o’ money.
Seth: I imagine everybody's having sober budget meetings right now.
Ace: Smaller schools are already cutting sports. Unfortunately, there’s not really a good way to sell off the unnecessary pieces of the lavish facilities everyone’s built to launder their profits. Not a big market for indoor waterfalls at the moment.
Brian: Put your Lockers From Space on craigslist maybe?
Ace: [greg dooley has logged on]
media day or live auction? [Fuller]
Seth: A lot of that pay-immediately money goes to the huge staffs athletic departments carry. They are also the most dischargeable. Which means this conversation is about trying to save peoples' jobs.
Ace: The NCAA literally dispersed the emergency backup fund in the year or two leading up to when they actually needed it. Everyone spent the money.
Brian: It feels like college sports is steaming right at an iceberg, everyone knows it's there, and they're having tea while looking in a different direction. And there are three guys who are planning to shoot up the iceberg, do a flip, and be legends.
Seth: So they're going to play football, because the alternative is the iceberg.
Brian: Football is the iceberg!
Ace: Yeah, football at any point in 2020 feels like a very bad idea.
Seth: I thought it was making zero money in 2020.
Ace: Both are bad but one doesn’t kill people.
[After THE JUMP: icebergs everywhere.]
Brian: This is a Korean study about a call center outbreak:
There was one infected person who sat in the top area.
Ace: There’s another study that traces a massive number of COVID-19 cases in South Korea to one fitness class. Working out together is the worst possible thing to do if you’re trying to prevent the spread of this.
Seth: Singing together is worse. So "The Victors" is out.
Brian: And the US lockdown has been halfass and is moving into a quarter-ass period.
Been playing around with FT's data for an article I'm working on.
— Jeremy TEST/TRACE/ISOLATE Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) May 22, 2020
This stat blew my mind.
Italy and Spain had among worst outbreaks in Europe. But by day 80, Italy was down 80% from peak, Spain was down 93%.
US (top line in chart) at same point is down only 28% from peak. pic.twitter.com/TC70RCGAD7
Ace: The idea of social distancing at a football game is laughable, too. Sure, you can sit apart in the stands if you limit the crowds, but how are you managing the lines to get in? What about the concessions and the bathrooms? It’s a logistical nightmare.
Seth: Ingress and egress. Outside the stadium.
Brian: That's a separate issue from whether football can be played at all, IMO.
Ace: Yeah, then there’s the issue of even getting the teams together. Players are currently spread across the country. Testing capability is limited at best. Schools aren’t necessarily bringing their students back. Even getting to the point of being able to practice together seems like an enormous hurdle. Then you get to the notion of players working out in close quarters during a pandemic.
Seth: So the one thing the colleges have going for them is if they're open they're going to be controlling the student population.
Brian: I have serious doubts about how much schools can police house parties.
Ace: Same.
Brian: These are young, fit people and some of them have chosen to go to Michigan State.
decisions were made [Patrick Barron]
Seth: They're going to have widespread testing. They're going to have contact tracing. The players are getting three tests a week and the student body is getting one a week, and their temperatures taken when they enter every buildings. They're also going to lock down the campuses. It won't make it 100% safe, but might make it workably safe?
Ace: Wait… they’re going to have all that?
Seth: I'm supposing.
Ace: That’s a big supposing. Particularly on a timeline that’d keep the season on track.
Seth: The season's not going to be on track; I doubt they play a game before October 1st. But I think it's reasonable that a major university can accomplish with its population what South Korea or Germany can with theirs.
Brian: Okay but some of these major universities are Rutgers.
Ace: We also need to establish that, as a country, we are not in the same place as those countries.
Seth: As a country no. As a university campus, if they're going to be open, they HAVE to be.
Ace: Also, instead of acknowledging that, we’re on the brink of a lot of states opening up for business again. You can’t untie the campus from the country. The students are scattered around said country. How do you possibly ensure safety while bringing students back to the dorms in this environment? They need to answer that before even thinking about football.
Seth: The students are going to come back whether they want them to or not. The landlords aren't releasing them from their leases. I'm glad I'm not in charge of the thing, and I'm sure you're right they need to figure that out. I think they a) will, and b) have no choice but to, because the students will come anyway.
BiSB: Even if it is all possible, we also don't have unlimited resources, so spending that much extraordinary effort on football is tough to justify.
Ace: It’s going to take an incredible amount of resources to get the students back on campus in a way that’s safe. Is it worth it to keep things on schedule when you can do classes online? Football shouldn’t factor into that question.
BiSB: This also assumes that schools are going to trust the least competent school on their schedule.
/glances at Maryland
Ace: That’s three Big Ten East schools we’ve now mentioned as being untrustworthy. Ohio State hasn't yet been one of them.
BiSB: To be fair, I can see Iowa screwing this up.
Seth: This is a good year to say fuck Maryland and fuck Rutgers. Adding overnight travel to any of this is purely out of the question.
Brian: Right, it takes just one screwup and then half your conference is shut down. Even if we elide the moral and ethical implications of having football, on a practical level it seems inevitable that teams are going to get shut down for two or three weeks or a month.
Ace: It’s wild that this feels necessary to say: just one screwup, in this case, can lead to multiple deaths. It's not worth it! It's just not. I say that as someone who loves football and relies on sports happening to make a living.
BiSB: People want football. And they want normalcy. And they often equate the two. But even if there is football, it won't be "normal."
these stands might remain empty for a while [Barron]
Ace: I watched the crowdless UFC fights last week. It was sports. It was also surreal.
Brian: There is an argument that if the prospect of football gets someone to do a good test/trace/isolate regime that might be worth it, since you could then spread that model. You shouldn't have to do that since you have good models but Not Invented Here syndrome is real.
Ace: It sounds great in theory but isolating college students is like herding cats.
BiSB: Aside from "can football be played," there's also the question of "what does the season look like?" Are we talking about some teams playing 4 games and some playing 9 and Rutgers and Maryland playing each other 7 times?
Ace: If you push the season back even a week or two, you’re going to get some hellish weather games, too.
BiSB: (I am not opposed to hellish weather games)
Ace: Fair. It adds to the farce, though.
Seth: I think you have to start with no football in September. At least give the students a month on campus with their security protocols before throwing them at each other. Throw out all the Michigan at Washington games now.
Ace: But are they practicing during that time? It’d pose a lot of the same danger as actual games but you can’t start a season without some sort of training camp.
Brian: I think that is what it looks like. Certain teams don't play or barely play. Many games are cancelled. Conference titles are impossible to determine.
Ace: Rutgers wins the Big Ten by flagrantly avoiding social distancing measures and refusing to forfeit games.
Seth: This would hardly be the first weird-ass season in cfb history. We talk about 1918 but there were the WWII years as well under severe travel restrictions. There were intramural (e.g. freshmen vs sophomores) games for a month before any games were played. Honestly the least interesting thing to me about football in 2020 would be who wins it.
Ace: There were a lot of unnecessary deaths in 1918 because we’ve had a literal century since then to better understand concepts like germ theory. Meanwhile, world wars aren’t contagious.
Brian: "Is this a good idea?"
No.
"Is this probably happening anyway?"
Yes.
Ace: Yeah. Doing some half-assed season seems like the worst possible compromise.
Seth: I'm just saying you don't need a precise number of games versus these precise opponents to have a year of football feel like one.
BiSB: If you are suggesting the NCAA would avoid a worst possible compromise, I have news.
Ace: I'd do no such thing.
Brian: Given our luck the only game that gets played is OSU-Michigan and it's 70-15.
BiSB: We looked good in the first quarter, though.
Ace: Cancel the whole goddamn thing right now.
Seth: FWIW Notre Dame is desperately looking for opponents to meet their NBC contract. That tells you where the schools' minds are at. They're going to do this.
Ace: They’re going to try. I’m not sure they’re going to succeed.
Brian: I can't imagine the depths of weird a Michigan-ND game during a pandemic would reach.
BiSB: Oh god, the Michigan/Indiana Pandemic Game.
Ace: We haven’t yet mentioned that this comes at a time when the NCAA’s position on amateurism is weaker than ever. Justifying any games is going take a high-wire act and we may see players refuse. I think most guys want to play but it’d only take one incident to spark something.
Seth: I have a small idea of the temperature of the players; some might refuse, and damn any school that doesn't grant that, but you're right the guys want to play.
BiSB: There's also about 73 types of political implications to all of this, which is going to be oh so much fun to wade through.
Ace: Dancing Through a Minefield: Sportswriting in 2020
Brian: The Athletic has a survey of 45 players out today:
Almost 80 percent of players surveyed were comfortable returning to campus even if their fellow students were not allowed to do the same. Most universities have already elected to utilize online learning for summer sessions but are wrestling with how to manage an on-campus experience they intend to offer in the fall.
“If only athletes are on campus, it would not feel like our health is a priority,” said a Power 5 offensive lineman. “With adequate testing available, I am not worried about the return to campus. My biggest concern is what will happen if and when a player tests positive.”
Said a Power 5 quarterback: “I wouldn’t be concerned unless the numbers of cases suddenly went back up.”
On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being extremely uncomfortable and 5 being extremely comfortable, zero players said that they would be extremely uncomfortable. Only three rated their comfort level with a return as a 2.
I don't know how that shifts if someone's QB gets hospitalized. COVID is weird as hell.
BiSB: Yep, there's gonna be a lot of "I ate the whole pizza" excuses.
Seth: I don't know that Alabama would sit their QB if he tested positive. That's the thing that scares me about this.
BiSB: You're telling me teams are going to sit their best player, who may be asymptomatic, from a big game? Neeeeeeeeever happen.
Seth: The fact is somebody's offensive lineman will test positive, the rest of the OL room will be put into quarantine for 14 days, and as the Brady Hoke study demonstrated you can't play football without an offensive line.
Ace: We also haven’t mentioned that, while the players are generally in lower-risk groups—which is a term I don’t love throwing around given the severity of the illness and the reports of long-term complications in people who’ve recovered—the coaches and other staffers are often very much not in the same category. Coaches have money and power and don’t necessarily have to do this.
Brian: Yeah, this post-distancing outbreak amongst Bryant-Denny construction workers bodes unwell.
Seth: This would maybe be the dumbest or greatest idea ever: what if we play the season without coaches?
Ace: Michigan tried that in 2014.
BiSB:
Seth: One issue with removing coaches: Penn State probably wins the Big Ten.
Ace: I think we’ve concluded that moving ahead with a season in most any form is a terrible idea that’s going to happen anyway?
Seth: I'm interested to hear everyone's ideas for what the hell it looks like.
BiSB: Our predictions?
Ace: They don’t play it. It’s too hard to justify. If they try, something happens in the leadup—namely, positive tests—that nixes the whole thing.
Brian: Games are now dance-offs. Dennis Norfleet re-gains eligibility on a technicality and we win the national title.
Seth:
- Testing and tracing to the moon
- Only essential staff.
- Students only in the stadium, with some insane plan to get everyone in and out.
- Only nearby games are played, some schedule holes replaced with Toledo/Notre Dame
- Advertising in the Big House because it will save some jobs and at this point who really gives a shit so long as they burn the AllState nets at the end of the season.
- Many games canceled.
BiSB: The season starts more or less on time, but generally without fans and with some significant games canceled. Things go somewhat normally for a while, but a few positive tests here and there blow holes in rosters, and then knock out whole games. Eventually the thing takes on too much water, and the season gets scrapped by mid-October. Scott Frost claims a National Championship.
Ace: Unless we get the dance-off, even our best-case scenarios don’t sound very good.
BiSB: Replace football with zorb football. QED.
Ace: Fast-track a license for NCAA 21 and play the season virtually, this is not a joke. Each team gets to nominate their best PS4 player.
Seth: People are going to die this year. I don't say that callously, or advocating for anything, but as a simple fact. They're going to screw things up, and people are going to die so we could play a football season. This is the most surreal thing of all.
BiSB: That's a true statement most years. Football is, uh, rather unsafe. The threat is just more visible this year.
Ace: It’s a much greater threat this year. Cancel the season so people don’t die in order to provide a brief distraction while lining the pockets of people who are already rich, please.
BiSB: Of course that is the ethically and logically correct answer. On the other hand, SPORTSBALL. So it's impossible to say which is right.
Ace: Sorry, dancing in the minefield again.
Brian: <fin>
What AC said makes a degree of sense, and I'm entirely willing to discuss ideas. Except the tracking which _might_ be ok, but my trouble is that it's one of those things that WILL 100% WILL be abused by the government down the line. Not maybe, absolutely 100,000% will be, and so I don't really want to pay that cost... Don't care which side does it, it will be used maliciously against citizens. Probably both sides.
I'm not so clear on the 1/3 number you cited. You're saying 1/3 of the country is above age 65 or has a condition that puts them at severe risk of complications from Covid? I find that exaggerated, we've got ~ 30 million that are 65+, and I don't know call it same number that have underlying conditions, so we're at 18%? I'm not suggesting those in the 18% bunker down unless that's THEIR decision. I'm also not suggesting they just disappear from the economy, there are work from home jobs, there are ways to protect themselves, they can deliberately avoid the Big House on game days for one...
Here's where I'm at - besides good normal protections (wash your damned hands everybody! stop sneezing uncovered, try to stop patting your face every 15 seconds) there's a limit in how much I'm willing to force others to do what I say just because I think I'm right. That's tyranny, and evil, and frankly, despicable. And no, I don't care about the argument, "it's not because I think I'm right, it's what the doctor says" - long version short, they're not always right either, and they give the 100% solution, and we don't always need the 100% solution, often enough the 50% solution will do just fine, and doesn't put much burden on normal people. Often enough, if I think I'm right, I'll tell people what I think, and if they want to listen, well, great. Over time, good ideas tend to win.
No, your numbers are way low. 16% of the population is over 65 which is twice as much as you have. And yes, an even higher proportion of people have diabetes (10% of population), obesity (almost 30%), or hypertension (over 33%).
America is very unhealthy.
Officially, it's over 1/3 of the population in these categories but there a different severities of obesity and hypertension so we'll call it 1/3.
"There are work from home jobs"...my friend, that's an absurd thing to suggest that all these people could magically just find a job in which they can work from home at a time when companies are laying people off, certainly not hiring. Not to mention most of these people are of lower education levels and thus work labor jobs. Many are not qualified to just get a desk job from home even if there were any available.
You are clearly much smarter than our Governor. But that’s not a Stretch.
20 year olds, especially uber-athletic ones, think they're invincible. Them mostly wanting to play is meaningless.
You'll let them vote, or say volunteer for the army, or drive a car, or a thousand other things that we've understood as risk for as long as there's been humanity - but not risk a disease that has an almost 0% chance of killing them?
Them wanting to play is the _only_ thing that matters in this particular discussion. Don't make any of them go out there if they don't want to, but don't tell me they're not grown up enough to understand the risks they're taking. They run their bodies into other bodies at 25mph as a matter of course, repeatedly, every day for 6+ months a year. They understand risk, and how to mitigate said risk.
Its not JUST that it might kill them...even just getting sick from this shit is scary as many on this board have previously expressed. Everything doesn't have to be an extreme case (death) to be really fucked up..especially if it were YOUR kid who got it. I mean imagine being the parent of that kid who gets it and ends up in the hospital because he was playing amateur sports.
And Its not just about the individual players who def want to do what they love..yet they live in communities with older people..you know maybe they'll go to a shop, or out to eat or just go visit family members..some of whom may have other health issues. Or maybe its not them that has the mother, father, aunt or uncle that is older and has health issues..maybe its someone he unknowingly passes it to in his class or at the shop etc.
Yeah we let them drive...but we don't let them drive at 100mph down state street. We have to be more thoughtful than..hell they can drive so they should also be able to play sport and potentially spread a virus around the community.
The individualism that is at the heart of the American mindset..can be a real problem when it comes to something that is highly contagious
And I know its no fun talking about this and it feels better to talk about it going away in time for football and how we should all just get used to it. We are adapting but its not going to be an overnight sensation. This is a global pandemic...its not going to conveniently fit into anyone's sports calendar.
How would I feel if my kid tore up their knee and ended up in the hospital, how would I feel if my kid were one of those kids with a rare heart condition ... Everything has risks. We can choose to face them, and face the consequences therein, or we can hide.
As for the sharing, there's ways to mitigate that too. Keep the team in lock-down practicing together and doing online classes during the season, do testing, and let them out in controlled situations, with a couple weeks between games so we can test if someone on that team shared.
There's no perfect. Hiding from this thing won't save people. For those you save from the virus, you'll lose others to alcoholism or depression or something else. Risk is endemic to life. We measure risks in everything, and find ways to live with the risk, that's part of being human.
These things are called accidents for a reason. Unfortunately luck plays a role in a lot of things that we think we can control. Still have to live your one and only life
Well "to be fair" they pretty much are invincible in this case.
The football field and the classroom are probably the safest areas for these kids compared to dining halls, dorms, house parties, and resulting hookups...
Give your balls a tug. Jonesy
Actually they are smart enough to understand that virtually none of them get seriously sick and our leaders are sacrificing their futures for political gain.
They're going to screw things up, and people are going to die so we could play a football season.
No, people are going to die because of a virus. I think it's safe to say that viruses have been spread at football games for the last 100+ years. And people have died from them. We just didn't blame the deaths on football because that would have been ridiculous. I get that this virus is worse than predecessors. But it is NOT unique in the devastation left behind, just more contagious. And the steps to mitigate bring the damage down to (or below) what any previous virus would have caused.
Also, if I was a player I'd be demanding the RIGHT to play. Why can everyone else play in a park, work indoors/outdoors, go to school but I can't play the game I love? And what about the players looking forward to an NFL career?
Life needs to go on.
"I think it's safe to say that viruses have been spread at football games for the last 100+ years."
Brian, Seth, and Ace -- Go write this line 1000x each on your nearest blackboards until you've actually internalized reality.
Was an excellent point. Going to add that one to my arsenal :)
To me, the answer is quite simple.
If the stadium workers and team members decide, with a vote, that they wish to go forward with playing football games.... and if that vote is greater than a threshold of worthwhileness.... then yes, games should be played.
Then it's up to the consumers (i.e. fans) to decide whether to attend said games or not. And I most certainly think many people will, in fact, attend.
Coronavirus is a big deal. But it shouldn't be regulated like it has been. Individuals and, by extention, companies and consumers, should be able to make their own choices. Don't make it for them.
Everyone who attends a game and then visits their elderly relative in a nursing home just made a decision for a lot of people other than themselves.
No they didn't. The nursing home made the decision to allow visitors.
See? Just give people CHOICE!
Are you serious? You're suggesting that the nursing shouldn't allow visitors here. As if they shouldn't allow choices but that football stadiums should? You're completely contradicting yourself.
If the nursing home should remove choice to protect people because its high risk, the football stadium should as well. Both are very high risk and in the case of nursing homes, the importance of allowing family members to visit people they may never see again is more important than a game.
Wait, I just got back to checking this thread and even though this response will likely never be read, it has to be said...
Where am I contradicting myself? Where did I imply that nursing homes shouldn't allow visitors?
All I'm saying is ANY organization - in this case both football organizations and nursing homes - should have a choice.
In the case of nursing homes, if the majority of people working/living in the home want to allow visitors - fine, do it. If the majority of people working/living in the home want to prohibit visitors - fine, do it.
In the case where someone voted against visitors and the majority was for visitors, then the persons voting against should be allowed to stay in their room until they feel comfortable with socialization again, with meals delivered to them by a single employee, tested covid-free, wearing a mask, etc. They are free to isolate themselves in the home.
In the case where a person does not have the mental facilties to make their own decision in this case, the family members make the choice for them.
And in the extreme situation of multiple people sharing a room, and one of those persons does not want visitiors while the majority of the home is to allow them, then temporarily move rooms around so those who want to be isolated are isolated and those who don't want to be aren't. Simply do a little shuffling and have two different areas within the nursing home.
In case of unforseen situations that I haven't thought of here, just let the home residents vote on the fair thing to do.
I don't understand how this is that hard. This case of nursing homes is probably THE hardest situation, and it's still easy to find a reasonable solution. (And in most cases, I'm willing to bet nursing homes will primarily vote to prohibit visitors anyway.)
But the bottom line again: Everyone has a choice. Don't make it for them.
There's lots of ways to protect nursing homes that don't require shutting off sports and other entertainments. Like say, quarantining nursing homes.
Isn't this just making the same choice for the seniors in the nursing home that you're decrying others making for the athletes? With the exception, of course, that noone's quarantining the athletes, just possibly not letting them play a sport that matters a lot to them.
You are also comparing a fatality rate of 20-30-40%+ for the extreme elderly and infirm with a fraction of 1% for college-age athletes. --- -- Just like you are a lot better off pushing folks to get hurricane insurance in the Southeastern US than in Arizona or Colorado (we do get some hurricane leftovers every once in a blue moon)
I am not sure you can mandate a full quarantine at nursing homes anyway but you can push hard for it on an individual basis but possibly accommodate for an option for "partial" quarantine with increased outside access from family.
The conversation was about letting fans choose. I 100% agree that a couple hundred very low risk college players who are essentially quarantined on a college campus should be allowed to play football, but letting tens of thousands of fans, many of whom live with high risk people, attend a game is completely irresponsible. It's also really unnecessary (one could argue could argue far less necessary than allowing family to visit people in a nursing home for possibly the last time).
Odds actually are one in million of dying from covid age 24 and under. Much much lower than 1 pct
Actually I don't advocate for quarantining nursing homes, but if we've got to choose between nursing homes and college campuses - quarantine the people who have a high risk of dying, NOT the ones who have little risk. If a nursing home CHOOSES to quarantine, then by all means, quarantine. There's even a lot of stages between "open" and "quarantine" like low-visit wings and health checks and lots of things to which more experienced people could speak.
And in a world where MI is still locked down, and could continue to be - there are issues. No matter how strongly one sides with the lock down crowd, any suggestion that there aren't increasing amounts of pent up problems that swell the longer that we say locked down is a bald-faced delusion. Well, if Gov. Whitmer wants us to stay locked down and relieve some of the tension, well, sports is a good start --- and if all we're risking is 100% volunteers who want to go play a game anyway whose risk from Covid is LOWER than the risk they assume you know, playing the game, well, how that can be seen as anything but a win is stupid.
If the boys want to play and basic intelligent thoughts can be put to their protection - then play the game.
Whether we have fans in the stands is a secondary concern. I think fans can and should make their own educated decisions and it shouldn't be up to the state to tell us whether the risk of going to the stadium is too high. We're not children. You want to limit stadium attendance to people under age 50? *shrug* ok, at least that's a decision that's based on logic. I still disagree, but at least it's putting the decision in the hands of the people.
You're arguing that the players decision to play or not only impacts their own personal health. It doesn't. Unless you're also advocating for them to be quarantined only among their team mates. Otherwise, they're just creating a potential super-spreader situation when they leave interact in the community.They're going to go to stores, bars, restaurants, laundromats, parties, as will the people they interact with and possibly infect. They're not going to live and play sports under glass, they're part of an interconnected society and that's where things go off the rails.
How's that any different from you going grocery store then to nursing home?
Absolutely silly to try and blame someone for being out in public wanting to live their life
Well, eating is a bit more important than attending a sporting event in person. There are some risks we simply can't eliminate.
Also, the risk at a football game is many, many times greater than the risk while grocery shopping.
We know that talking, yelling and singing project a LOT more potential virus carrying droplets than just breathing. Where is talking, yelling and singing more prevalent?
We know that close proximity is bad. Fans come into closer proximity with far more people at a football game than a grocery store.
We know that prolonged proximity to people is bad. Football games last over three hours. I know anyone that grocery shops for half that time (and they're never near the same potential carrier for more than a few minutes while grocery shopping, but they could be close to a carrier in a football stadium for the entire game).
My assumption is that colleges will be "back" in some form come the fall, most likely a heavy amount of virtual/online courses with some limited lab access. I have no idea where people get the notion that a college will have the capability or the wherewithal to perform the level of testing, tracing, and quarantining proposed here and elsewhere in order to keep a handle on outbreaks. The more likely outcome is that there are outbreaks across campuses, a number of people get sick but maybe with limited number of fatalities, and we'll all just sort of shrug our shoulders and post laments about how it was "inevitable" and then praise the fact we were all able to watch TCU vs. Texas Tech in front of an empty stadium on a Saturday. It'll be glorious.
At this point it kind of is inevitable. It's impossible to stop the spread of this thing unless you want to shelter away forever. The good thing is that 99.9% of college students will experience nothing more than mild symptoms.
It's a good thing college campuses are full of only college age students with no underlying conditions that could be exasperated. Again, we seem to be coming around to accepting some level of exposure and people getting sick. Which is a decision we'll have to live with, and accept the costs. But I can already see the headlines come the fall when a couple of professors and staff come down with bad cases/die from exposure to all of these students and everyone rushes to the comments to pass along their condolences and lament how nobody could have seen this coming.
If a professor or any university employee has a known health condition that would make them susceptible to serious COVID-related complications then they should do what everyone else would do and not go in to work. It's just impossible to limit exposure at this point, it's become too widespread. So again, we can shelter in place forever or we can start with a return to semi-normalcy by letting the healthy and low-risk populations get back to their daily routines.
Serious question. What makes anybody think we play football next year either? A vaccine is a wish at this point. Would be the first one ever developed for a coronavirus. People are scared to death. Without a vaccine why would people be safer to play next year rather than this year? Forget herd immunity most people want to lock everyone up.
"Most people want to lock everyone up"...really? That's absurd. Every state has gone into some form or reopening and most people are supportive of doing it in a smart way.
And you're correct that if we don't have a vaccine by next fall, we probably won't have fans in stands then either. But we'll have football because that'll be plenty of time to figure out how to do it (we'll have football this year and even if it doesn't work, it'll be a test run that they then have another year to figure out how to improve upon).
As of May 12 in New York City, 95% of all deaths were either over the age of 64 or had underlying health conditions. That means older people or those with underlying health issues should avoid people who may be compromised. The risk of death to college students is very low. People at risk should be cautious and self-quarantine.
If you do the math, you could pump every P5 player with a syringe full of Covid, and their odds of death are the same -the same- as an average year of college football (a little lower than 2 deaths, probably from un-diagnosed issues creating complications. Ok, coaches and support staff who are older, less active, and less medically observed would be under higher risk. Football is a sport of adults, so offer them some PPE and don't make them go out there if they have underlying conditions). Keep the fans home, put games on local tv free and in HD on real channels and lets get on with it.
Keeping people safe at home is only ok to a certain extent. Young, healthy, robust people are at an almost 0% risk of long term effects from this disease. Letting them go out and play football will make it EASIER on everyone who has to stay in. This really is a win for everyone involved. Let's play some fucking football.
The part I haven't heard anyone talk about is liability. Who has it? Are they going to put it all on the players, workers, fans?
If the players vote and 75% vote to play - what do the other 25% decide to do? Are they shunned with hate mail if they choose not to? If they decide to stand with their teammates even if they aren't comfortable but then get sick - then what?
If the star QB at some school gets Covid and has lasting effects that prevent him from getting drafted....does he have a lawsuit?
I have no idea how this is going to work at any level - from pro to my kids' youth sports.
I’ve been wondering the same thing and haven’t heard a legitimate answer to the question. Ultimately, do insurance companies have a say in this decision? (Or - at minimum- a heavy influential hand)
I don't know that it would be well founded from a black-and-white legal perspective, but I can easily imagine a suit by a kid who loses his scholarship because he won't play. Now, I think players are much more likely to be too eager to give it a go, but a situation like that could both look and be very bad for college football.
Does a kid have a liability case against the school if he gets his knee banged up?
I could see the NCAA putting out a proviso that kids can defer a scholarship for a year and schools aren't allowed to penalize them - aside from short term ribbing, if they come out a year more mature and a year on a (non-supervised) college weight program, I have a hard time thinking coaches are going to be all that torn up.
Covid is an "act of God" as far as I know. I'm no expert, but that's my best guess how it would be seen from a liability perspective.
Interesting conversation. I will say, I think the motivation for having a season has been misrepresented in some places. Here's an example from this article:
"Ace: It’s a much greater threat this year. Cancel the season so people don’t die in order to provide a brief distraction while lining the pockets of people who are already rich, please."
I added the italics. Look, guys like Harbaugh and Warde Manuel might make the same amount of money whether we have a season or not. And for those guys, I would be shocked if their personal wealth were a factor in whether or not they want to have games.
But what is a factor - financially speaking - is that athletic departments are more likely to have to fire dozens of employees and even cut entire varsity sports programs if there isn't a football season. I know that for most of us, we won't be impacted even a tiny bit if the Michigan wrestling program is shut down, but for the coaches, staff members, and athletes that have poured their heart and soul into that program, that would be beyond awful. And for scholarship athletes, having your program cut would be beyond awful. Those athletes worked their entire lives to have a 4 year career playing a college sport, for love of the game, and now they have to give up their sport or leave Michigan and find a program that will take them on as a transfer. It's sad situation.
Is it worth firing people and cutting varsity sports programs in order to save some lives? There's a very, very, very strong argument that it is worth taking those measures in order to save lives.
But I think it's incorrect to frame the motivation to have a college football season the way a lot of people are framing it - as a way to line the pockets of people who are already rich. I can totally understand why athletic directors would be desperate to have a season if it prevents them from having to fire staffers and cut varsity sports programs.
Good comment. There is nuance to everything even if it's tempting to make it black and white. There are risks to weigh and there is uncertainty to navigate, but to play the rich Boogeyman card seems intentionally simple minded.
Choose football.
Choose life.
Status at WMU: Football getting paid. University president decreases his base salary to "only" $437,000 (plus car and housing and other benefits). Scholarship athletes still getting full boat rides. All seven vice president retained.
Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum, dozens or even hundreds of graduate students have been fired from their assistantships, including my daughter. Cost to our family for the next school year: $40,000.
Frankly, fuck college athletics and fuck overpaid university administrations and their unaccountable bullshit.
Give what money there is to actual students. Cancel sports. Let the fucking NFL run its own minor league at its own expense. I'm done subsidizing this bullshit.
The reasonableness of this conversation and the concern of Brian and Co. for things other than sports is a big reason this blog is special.
Not for nothing, but Alabama-Huntsville announced today that due to Covid concerns (among other things), they are eliminating their NCAA D-1 hockey program immediately.
Crazy outside the box ideas:
Only play teams in a limited geographic area (state, 200 miles) - hello eastern
cut the games in half and play every other week - gives more time to identify cases and you’re isolating 14 days after every game
Play some teams multiple times - home and homes with 4ish teams
Whole season is just a 7 game series with MSU
Dumb idea that wouldn't work well.
Cut game times in half - four 7.5 minute quarters. Then have 3 teams show up and play a round robin. Neutral doctors test the players beforehand and you just got 3 teams 2 games each.
Your team wouldn't need a series every weekend either.
Do not put ND on the schedule. They need to stew until Michigan sees them again in 2033. To hell with ND.
Even if there is limited on campus classes this fall the football players will probably be tested every day before practice. I think some states will prevent college football and football players on campus. The PAC12 may delay the start of their season or cancel it all together. I hope if the B1G allows conference schools to play football in empty stadiums, and the Michigan governor will allow it? I'm not sure if it will be her call to make but I think she probably would rather just cancel the season.There's a lot unknowns at this point. I'm 50/50 now on the college football season occuring this fall. A month ago, I thought for sure it would be cancelled.
This whole debate is really depressing, not just for football and sports, but society in general. We’re really fucked either way, quarantine (destroying mental health, social development, education, work, economy, exercise, etc, etc), or opening up to what will be an inevitable spike in cases and deaths and panic and potential full blown pandemic part 2.
Beyond the politics and how the US has shit the bed on managing this from day 1, it was Always and remains a no win situation, as we see even in countries that were at the forefront of prevention, testing and tracing like Korea. People will suffer and die no matter the direction chosen now, and it’s really hard to say which path is worse.
Hard to believe the world is in a situation where governments and institutions need to decide what is acceptable “collateral damage” which will occur on either path taken.
It feels as if Mother Nature is calling for a certain number of heads, and won’t be denied no matter the choices made. Maybe we’ll learn from this to stop shitting on the environment, it’s ecosystems, move away from torturous industrialized livestock and dairy farming and realize that we are the most destructive Creatures on the planet. - Or a vaccine is developed and we can forget the lessons and return to our old, convenient decadent ways.
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