Cal Football: Is the 2020 Season a Sure Thing or Do We Still Hold Our Breath?

Cal gave us some encouraging news Wednesday with the announcement that athletes will be allowed back on campus for voluntary workouts. The campus provided details on how the transition would work, including testing and other safety parameters.

Sounds like the next step toward rescuing the college football season we all want to see.

I have believed all along we would have football this fall. Sure, there will be adjustments — schedule tweaks, quite possibly no fans in the stadium (or very few) and certainly significant protocols to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

I still believe the season will be played.

But I’m a bit less confident than I was a week ago.

The swelling stack of arguments against being able to play is sobering.

Let me outline three reasons for my concern:

— Despite what one leading “expert” from Washington D.C. insists, the science and medical folks are consistent about one thing: The coronavirus is not gone, won’t be for quite a while and, sadly, is gaining momentum in locations across the U.S. map.

This report from CNN says that 10 states are reporting record-high seven-day averages for new coronavirus cases. Among those states is California, where most of us live, where Berkeley is located, where Memorial Stadium stands.

Also on that list is Nevada, where Cal currently is scheduled to travel for its season-opening game Aug. 29 against UNLV.

And Texas, which will send the TCU Horned Frogs to Cal for the Sept. 5 home opener.

And Oregon and Arizona, both home to rival Pac-12 schools.

Be grateful, Cal fans, that the Bears aren’t traveling to Florida, where the state reported 3,207 new cases on Thursday alone.

— Cal is going to great lengths and following the advice of smart people while slowly “opening up.”

In spite of that, it’s unreasonable to expect no one will get sick. It’s going to happen.

The University of Texas announced that 13 of its football players have tested positive for the virus. Kansas State had eight positives.

The University of Houston became the first school to suspend voluntary workouts after six athletes tested positive last week.

Two Michigan athletes tested positive since returning to campus on Monday and five of 75 SMU athletes tested on Monday also returned positive results.

No doubt, there have been others, and there will be more still as activity ramps up and players begin to share locker rooms, weight equipment and actually begin engaging in football activity on the practice field.

At what point if the virus spreads among its athlete does any school decide enough is enough?

— Finally, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, has issued this warning, “Football may not happen this year.”

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House task force on the virus, was talking specifically about the NFL, not college football.

But it’s hard to see what distinctions between the two make a difference on this topic. If anything, following the roadmap he laid out — with NFL players isolated in the so-called “bubble” that the NBA plans to utilize — it’s even difficult to imagine college programs executing that scenario.

"If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year," he said. He also suggested that players would have to be "insulated from the community" and "tested nearly every day," according to CNN.

Cal’s opener at UNLV is 10 weeks from Saturday. Given all that’s going on, that feels like it’s just around the corner.

*** Several schools are asking their student-athletes to sign a COVID-19 waiver upon returning to campus to begin voluntary workouts, as noted in the video below. Ohio State is calling it the "Buckeye Pledge."

A Cal spokesperson said the university has not yet announced whether it will ask its student-athletes to sign anything along these lines. Stay tuned for that.

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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