Will College Football Be Played in 2020? SI Opinions Aren't Optimistic
The question is simple: Will Cal play football this season?
The answer is complicated. It’s a big “Maybe,” with countless caveats.
More vexing is that the possible answers keep changing. More confusing is that the answer for Cal may differ from the answer for, say, Oregon. More disappointing is that we are less certain of the answer than we were two weeks ago.
Tony Barnhart as well as Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger attempt to provide some clarity to the murky situation with Sports Illustrated opinion pieces. But the conclusions range from uncertain at best to pessimistic at worst. And the pessimism is picking up steam.
The headline on Barnhart’s story says plenty: “Will We Play College Football in 2020? The Latest Signs Don’t Look Good.”
The headline on the Forde/Dellenger column is similarly discomforting: “’We’re Definitely Heading the Wrong Way’: As Virus Cases Spike, Hurdles to a College Football Season Mount”
Cal is scheduled to open its season on Aug. 29 at UNLV’s brand new stadium. We don’t know whether that game, which is just 50 days away, will be played. We don’t know whether the Bears’ Sept. 5 home opener against TCU will be played. We don’t know whether Cal’s Sept. 26 Pac-12 opener against Utah in Berkeley will be played.
We don’t know whether the dates of games will change. We don’t know whether some games will be eliminated. We don’t know whether some spectators will be allowed to attend if the games are played.
Pa-12 commissioner Larry Scott said earlier this month that the pessimism is rising.
An excerpt from the Forde/Dellenger column identifies the roller coaster ride of hope for a season, and the passage ends with this disarming sentence: “College athletic executives enter what many believe is the most crucial month in the modern history of the sport.”
Here is that excerpt:
College athletic leaders are having serious doubts on an on-time start to the 2020 college football season, or if a fall season is even possible at all. Feelings of optimism and confidence have turned to hope and apprehension. Contingency plans, dismissed weeks ago, are back in the proverbial picture, such as delaying the season deeper into the fall or moving it into the spring. And while a month remains before a decision deadline—NCAA leaders are targeting the first week of August—despair looms over a sport that just 15 days ago appeared to avoid the most catastrophic outcome: no fall football.
Until two weeks ago, everybody felt pretty good about starting on time on Sept. 5 and Aug. 29,” says West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons, the chair of an important law-making NCAA body, the Football Oversight Committee. “The last two weeks have really put a wet blanket on that, and we’re saying, ‘Maybe that’s not going to happen.’”
College athletic executives enter what many believe is the most crucial month in the modern history of the sport.
Barnhart outlined the decline in optimism from a personal standpoint:
“Back in late May I did a radio interview and was asked about my confidence level on whether or not we would have a 2020 college football season.
I said, in effect, that we would definitely play college football this Fall but we just didn’t know what it would look like. The only variable was whether or not there would be fans in the seats. Based on the folks I had talked to at the time, I was extremely confident that the 2020 season would start on time and play its entire schedule.
On June 26 in this space I wrote that I was starting to get a little nervous over the number positive tests among players who had returned to campus. But I still thought we were going to play.
Today, for the first time, I’m genuinely concerned that we’re not going to be able to play college football in 2020.
Sure hope I’m wrong.”
The truth is that coronavirus cases must fall or at least plateau for a football season to be played this fall.
Things don’t look good in California, where hospitalizations are up 56% in the past two weeks. Cal’s scheduled home opener is against TCU, and this week the state of Texas is breaking single-day records for virus-related deaths.
And what would it mean if the college football season is significantly curtailed or eliminated altogether? Stanford announced it will eliminate 11 sports after this academic year, saying the financial problems began before the pandemic but the prospects of a modified football season ended any hope of saving those programs.
With athletic departments so dependent on football’s revenue, can Cal hope to avoid similar program cuts if the football season is lost or compromised? The uncertainty is as frustrating as the possible outcomes.
Forde/Dellenger offer a rather rosy conclusion:
That said, a dip in numbers is possible. Coronavirus has been anything if not fluid. It’s a roller-coaster ride, with stark peaks and valleys that are often unpredictable. Take for instance 15 days ago, when college football motored to a surefire on-time kickoff. And then, well… “Things have changed in the last two weeks,” Scott says, “and they may change again in the coming two."
Barnhart's conclusion is similar but less optimistic:
I hope something pretty dramatic happens in the next 3-4 weeks and we can play. But today, at least, the arrows are all pointing in the wrong direction.
I really hope I'm wrong
My conclusion? Give me a few days; the world of COVID-19 may turn upside down again by then.
.
Cover photo by Stephan Blaylock - USA TODAY Sports
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