Dr. Anthony Fauci: Football 'May Not Happen' This Fall
Optimism is growing that college football will return this fall now that the NCAA Council has approved a phased six-week preseason plan that would allow games to be played by Labor Day weekend.
But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the face of President Donald Trump's Coronavirus Task Force, warns that it's still premature to assume that the 2020 season will start on time.
If at all.
"Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall," Fauci said Thursday in an interview with CNN. "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."
Fauci has given his seal of approval to the NBA's return-to-play plan, in which players will be sequestered in a "bubble" at Disney World in Orlando, Fla.. Players will be required to follow detailed guidelines limiting where they can go and what they're allowed to do once they report to Florida and the season resumes.
The NFL is considering a similar "bubble" format.
Such a system for college athletes, however, would be problematic. Not only would it be impossible for players to avoid contact with their fellow students in classrooms, labs, libraries and other academic areas around campus, but because each school, conference and state have their own guidelines regarding the coronavirus crisis, everyone would be playing a different set of rules.
Fauci's warning that "football may not happen this year," came on the same day that 13 football players at the University of Texas tested positive for the coronavirus and have been quarantined.
Voluntary workouts at Alabama and Houston have also been scaled back after a similar outbreaks while in the NFL, star running back Ezekiel Elliott of the Dallas Cowboys has contracted COVID-19.
NC State has yet to report its first positive test. Members of the football, men's basketball and women's basketball teams have been allowed back on campus for voluntary workouts since the beginning of the month.
On Saturday, Phase 2 of the return plan will go into effect, permitting incoming football players that have been cleared by the medical staff to return to student housing.
According to a statement issued when the plan was announced, Wolfpack athletic director Boo Corrigan said the school is keeping a close eye on the situation.
"Since our world in college athletics came to pause in March, we have adapted, evolved and continued to work with our campus, league and health officials on what our ultimate path forward will be," Corrigan said. "It's been a collective effort from our student-athletes, coaches and staffs who have shown the best in the human spirit and what it means to represent NC State University.
"With that in mind, we have begun the process of bringing student-athletes back to our campus in four phases, the first of which is already underway. First and foremost, the overall safety and health of our student-athletes will always be our first consideration."
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