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A quick intro before we get to it, and there's gonna be a lot here. This is a wild time. I never thought I'd cover anything that would hold a candle to realignment. This summer probably does. It's crazy. You can't sleep, you can't take a break because something changes.
The only thing I want to say before I get into the thoughts is this: I cannot speak for everyone in my industry. I can speak for myself, everyone who works for this site and a handful of my good friends in the business. We want football season to happen. Desperately. We are not rooting against it. We do not want to say "I told you so" over having a season. There are a million reasons for this.
My son went to his first high school swim practice this morning. We're letting him play if MSHSAA lets him play. We're letting him go to school if the district lets him go to school. If it were up to me, college football would be played. We want them to play. However, we can only report what people are telling us. That's our job. If someone would tell me "I think we're playing" I would write that. So would pretty much everyone else I know. The problem is that no one is telling us that.
This is not a blanket defense of sports media. There are some problems with it. I understand why people would read some things that have been written and tweeted and believe that there are sportswriters rooting against a season. Again, I cannot speak for the majority of people. I can speak for some. The ones I know well, in no way, want the season called off. I know that won't convince the people who believe it's true, but I have to say it.
Now, on to the thoughts.
1) Let's start here: I don't think we're having a college football season this fall. I think there are a number of reasons for it. I think the main reason that will be given is "health and safety." That's a reason. I don't know if it's the main reason, but it is a reason. Without the virus, we would have a season. I'll get to some of the other stuff later, but let me just address the virus part of it first:
It's not about "are the players going to die?" I mean, on some level, sure it is, but really it isn't. Very few people believe that's going to happen. The players already have the option to opt out and not play and keep their scholarship, so those who play would understand whatever level of risk they are playing. The main reason I believe the virus prevents a season from happening is quite simple:
The protocols (and I found this out when my son tested positive last month) are that when you test positive, or when you have direct exposure to someone who has, you isolate for an absolute minimum of 11 days, the last three of which you have to have no symptoms. There has been a thought that because they are testing so often, sports teams could shorten that time. What happened to the St. Louis Cardinals proved that's not true. I'm not blaming the Cardinals. By all reports, they did what the medical experts told them to do. They had five straight days of no positive tests and so they got out of isolation and went back to St. Louis ready to play. And then someone tested positive. That's not shocking. When my son got his results they told us "Don't get tested for 7-9 days because the result doesn't mean anything until then." They tell you to isolate 11-14 days because that's believed to be the incubation period. It can't be shortened.
Current Power Five regulations call for two tests a week. So let's say you have a player test positive on the Wednesday after the first game. That means he could have had it during the first game. That means everyone who was in close contact with him (and that includes collisions, or tackles) now has to quarantine. Let's say it was your center. The entire offensive line, the quarterback, the running backs, the opposing defensive line and linebackers have to quarantine. For 11-14 days. That means you are down double digit players for two games. You can't play a season that way. It's not realistic.
2) This all comes down to one question: What level of risk is acceptable? Yes, the virus is preventing a season. But, again, it's not all because they're worried kids are going to die or that football makes it more dangerous than anything else. We've said for months, if you're going to shut down for one positive test (and in reality, one positive test is a dagger to the season with these rules) then there's no reason to start because it's never going to happen. The key question someone has to eventually answer and hasn't answered yet that I've seen is how much risk is acceptable? If the idea is that we can't play sports as long as someone is in danger of catching this, then we might as well just shut down sports forever because there's no way we can play. I don't think that's reality. I think a few months or a year down the road we're going to have more knowledge and we're going to accept more risk and we'll play games. But I think right now, it's too new and people know too little and there's simply too much fear on the part of people in charge to deem the risk of playing acceptable. And so they're probably not playing.
3) This isn't all about the virus. I'll try to look at the other major reasons I don't think they're playing one at a time. I think we have to acknowledge the liability factor. Now, there's some debate whether a team can be held liable if something does happen to a player. First of all, the players have been given the choice to opt out. Second, it's almost impossible to prove you caught the virus because you played football. Sure, you might think that's where you got it, but unless you literally went nowhere else and were not in contact with anyone else and were not in contact with anyone who was in contact with someone else, there's no way to say "Player X got this virus and died and he could have avoided that had he not been a member of the State U football team." So I'm not sure anybody could actually sue and win in a case like this, but there are definite concerns about liability and the appearance. There are 12,000-15,000 FBS football players. Let's say two die. That's a very, very low mortality rate. In normal society, that probably wouldn't make most people bat an eye. But you have 130 FBS football programs that simply can't afford to be the one where it does happen. If you play when everyone knows there's some level of risk and everything lines up against you and you're so unlucky as to be the one place where a kid does die, well, it changes things forever. It's a factor.
4) More important than that, though, is the fact that these programs are clinging to the amateurism model.
Administrators have been terrified of this happening for years. Players know they have power. Whether you think players should get paid or not is totally up to you. There are people on both sides of it and I think there's validity to both sides. But the bottom line here to me really isn't about money. It's about this idea of amateurism and student-athletes.
I don't want to paint with too broad a brush. There are Division One players who really are here for the education. There are some who don't come for the education but end up taking advantage of it. There are a bunch that are here to play their sport and because they have to go to class and maintain a certain GPA to play the sport, that's what they do. They have tons of academic help, they are steered toward majors that make it easy on them, they graduate with a degree that doesn't mean much of anything and hasn't really taught them anything. Again, not all of them. But plenty.
But the NCAA wants us to believe they're students first. As long as that's true, it kills your chances to play. Pro sports can play because it's a job. College sports could (maybe) play if they'd admit that the athletes aren't regular students. But they don't want to do that. The last thing they want to tell us is not only that the athletes are special, but that among the athletes, the football players are special. I know it's true. You know it's true. They know it's true. But they won't say it. And as long as they won't say it, well, they can't play.
A quick intro before we get to it, and there's gonna be a lot here. This is a wild time. I never thought I'd cover anything that would hold a candle to realignment. This summer probably does. It's crazy. You can't sleep, you can't take a break because something changes.
The only thing I want to say before I get into the thoughts is this: I cannot speak for everyone in my industry. I can speak for myself, everyone who works for this site and a handful of my good friends in the business. We want football season to happen. Desperately. We are not rooting against it. We do not want to say "I told you so" over having a season. There are a million reasons for this.
My son went to his first high school swim practice this morning. We're letting him play if MSHSAA lets him play. We're letting him go to school if the district lets him go to school. If it were up to me, college football would be played. We want them to play. However, we can only report what people are telling us. That's our job. If someone would tell me "I think we're playing" I would write that. So would pretty much everyone else I know. The problem is that no one is telling us that.
This is not a blanket defense of sports media. There are some problems with it. I understand why people would read some things that have been written and tweeted and believe that there are sportswriters rooting against a season. Again, I cannot speak for the majority of people. I can speak for some. The ones I know well, in no way, want the season called off. I know that won't convince the people who believe it's true, but I have to say it.
Now, on to the thoughts.
1) Let's start here: I don't think we're having a college football season this fall. I think there are a number of reasons for it. I think the main reason that will be given is "health and safety." That's a reason. I don't know if it's the main reason, but it is a reason. Without the virus, we would have a season. I'll get to some of the other stuff later, but let me just address the virus part of it first:
It's not about "are the players going to die?" I mean, on some level, sure it is, but really it isn't. Very few people believe that's going to happen. The players already have the option to opt out and not play and keep their scholarship, so those who play would understand whatever level of risk they are playing. The main reason I believe the virus prevents a season from happening is quite simple:
The protocols (and I found this out when my son tested positive last month) are that when you test positive, or when you have direct exposure to someone who has, you isolate for an absolute minimum of 11 days, the last three of which you have to have no symptoms. There has been a thought that because they are testing so often, sports teams could shorten that time. What happened to the St. Louis Cardinals proved that's not true. I'm not blaming the Cardinals. By all reports, they did what the medical experts told them to do. They had five straight days of no positive tests and so they got out of isolation and went back to St. Louis ready to play. And then someone tested positive. That's not shocking. When my son got his results they told us "Don't get tested for 7-9 days because the result doesn't mean anything until then." They tell you to isolate 11-14 days because that's believed to be the incubation period. It can't be shortened.
Current Power Five regulations call for two tests a week. So let's say you have a player test positive on the Wednesday after the first game. That means he could have had it during the first game. That means everyone who was in close contact with him (and that includes collisions, or tackles) now has to quarantine. Let's say it was your center. The entire offensive line, the quarterback, the running backs, the opposing defensive line and linebackers have to quarantine. For 11-14 days. That means you are down double digit players for two games. You can't play a season that way. It's not realistic.
2) This all comes down to one question: What level of risk is acceptable? Yes, the virus is preventing a season. But, again, it's not all because they're worried kids are going to die or that football makes it more dangerous than anything else. We've said for months, if you're going to shut down for one positive test (and in reality, one positive test is a dagger to the season with these rules) then there's no reason to start because it's never going to happen. The key question someone has to eventually answer and hasn't answered yet that I've seen is how much risk is acceptable? If the idea is that we can't play sports as long as someone is in danger of catching this, then we might as well just shut down sports forever because there's no way we can play. I don't think that's reality. I think a few months or a year down the road we're going to have more knowledge and we're going to accept more risk and we'll play games. But I think right now, it's too new and people know too little and there's simply too much fear on the part of people in charge to deem the risk of playing acceptable. And so they're probably not playing.
3) This isn't all about the virus. I'll try to look at the other major reasons I don't think they're playing one at a time. I think we have to acknowledge the liability factor. Now, there's some debate whether a team can be held liable if something does happen to a player. First of all, the players have been given the choice to opt out. Second, it's almost impossible to prove you caught the virus because you played football. Sure, you might think that's where you got it, but unless you literally went nowhere else and were not in contact with anyone else and were not in contact with anyone who was in contact with someone else, there's no way to say "Player X got this virus and died and he could have avoided that had he not been a member of the State U football team." So I'm not sure anybody could actually sue and win in a case like this, but there are definite concerns about liability and the appearance. There are 12,000-15,000 FBS football players. Let's say two die. That's a very, very low mortality rate. In normal society, that probably wouldn't make most people bat an eye. But you have 130 FBS football programs that simply can't afford to be the one where it does happen. If you play when everyone knows there's some level of risk and everything lines up against you and you're so unlucky as to be the one place where a kid does die, well, it changes things forever. It's a factor.
4) More important than that, though, is the fact that these programs are clinging to the amateurism model.
Administrators have been terrified of this happening for years. Players know they have power. Whether you think players should get paid or not is totally up to you. There are people on both sides of it and I think there's validity to both sides. But the bottom line here to me really isn't about money. It's about this idea of amateurism and student-athletes.
I don't want to paint with too broad a brush. There are Division One players who really are here for the education. There are some who don't come for the education but end up taking advantage of it. There are a bunch that are here to play their sport and because they have to go to class and maintain a certain GPA to play the sport, that's what they do. They have tons of academic help, they are steered toward majors that make it easy on them, they graduate with a degree that doesn't mean much of anything and hasn't really taught them anything. Again, not all of them. But plenty.
But the NCAA wants us to believe they're students first. As long as that's true, it kills your chances to play. Pro sports can play because it's a job. College sports could (maybe) play if they'd admit that the athletes aren't regular students. But they don't want to do that. The last thing they want to tell us is not only that the athletes are special, but that among the athletes, the football players are special. I know it's true. You know it's true. They know it's true. But they won't say it. And as long as they won't say it, well, they can't play.
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