David Cutcliffe: Football's Return Needs to Be Uniform

Duke coach doesn't want conferences to have different timetables

The coronavirus pandemic has not had the same impact across the United States. Some areas have been hit sooner, and harder, than others. That makes things more complicated as discussions about college football’s return begin to heat up. It’s possible that different teams or conferences could have different timetables for when to bring the players back to campus.

“It has already been, in the discussing, a great area for argument,” Duke coach David Cutcliffe said. “That’s when people start trying to take care of themselves a little bit. They take off their college football hat and put on their university hat. I have tried my best to put on my AFCA (American Football Coaches Association) hat, my college football hat, as I’ve listened to people.”

Since teams across the country will be competing with each other, they need to have an equal playing field.

“We’ve got people in New York. We’ve got people in Louisiana. We’ve got hot spots. We’ve got potential new hot spots,” Cutcliffe said. “I think it’s really important that this isn’t done conference to conference. Ultimately, it has to come down from the athletic council, the football oversight committee, the presidents. Hopefully, it doesn’t get too involved with state politics, but there’s a chance of that. I think there has to be uniformity. One of the things we have discussed is a lot of people have missed a lot of their spring practice or all of it. If we get back, if we’re back soon enough, how do we rectify that so there’s equal circumstances?”