LSU Expecting to Return to Normal Operations in the Fall, Could Spell Good News for Sporting Events
LSU appears to be expecting a much more normal fall semester in 2021. On Wednesday, the school sent an email out to all students announcing that it expects that if vaccinations stay on course, operations will return to a more normal feel in the fall.
"Assuming that vaccinations proceed as expected, we anticipate that by fall, we will be able to operate the way we did before the onset of the pandemic. In other words, we expect the vast majority of courses to be delivered face-to-face once again, and for the majority of campus operations to be back to normal. We expect that overall, fall 2021 will operate similarly to fall 2019."
The school will continue to monitor the distribution of the vaccines closely but it appears the school is preparing for students to return to campus in a full capacity. But for that "majority of campus operations to be back to normal" portion, that's what makes it interesting for sporting events.
Most sporting events on LSU's campus this season have been capped at 25%. For football that meant a little over 25,000 for a stadium that holds 102,000 fans. In basketball and baseball, those numbers have been closer to 2,500 fans in attendance.
Athletic director Scott Woodward has talked in the past about how the hope is to have as many fans in the stands as soon as possible. The last year has been difficult on the athletic department as it's had to take many cost saving measures, expecting to lose $80 million because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I’m very confident our staff has done a thorough enough job to get us through. We have to be prepared for the future, but hopefully this is temporary," Woodward told The Advocate in November. "I am very optimistic about the future of LSU athletics. As we all know, this virus is unpredictable. I don’t know when we will have a vaccine or a good therapeutic or a good solution going forward. But I have confidence."
The SEC just announced earlier this month that each program would be distributing $45 million to each athletic department for the 2019-20 fiscal year.
At this point, this is all just speculative as the vaccination numbers will ultimately dictate just how fast the school can get back to normal. But it appears the school is preparing for things to get back to normal sooner than later and it's nice to see a bright light at the end of what's been a very long tunnel.
