Ohio State has Questions on Resumption of College Football
Ryan Day planned on being in Ohio Stadium on Saturday watching the Scarlet and Gray game to complete spring practice and answer what few lingering questions apply to his national championship-caliber Buckeyes.
Instead, he'll have no clue throughout the summer if true freshmen quarterbacks C.J. Stroud and Jack Miller can be trusted to step in should Justin Fields get injured, how a new left side of the offensive line will perform and whether with NFL departures and disciplinary exits a new secondary can approach last season's elite level under a new defensive coordinator.
Day hopes he gets to sort those questions out in an extended fall camp, voicing a preference for at least a six-week run-up to a hopefully-on-time Sept. 5 opener against Bowling Green.
But before any of that can be sorted out on whatever timetable he's given once COVID-19 fears diminish, Day must figure out something else:
How does he get his team back on campus?
Most of the Buckeyes are scattered to their hometowns right now, and have been since Ohio State pulled the plug on most on-campus housing March 22.
"We have guys in Seattle, New York, Californiai, Hawaii, Texas...they're spread out all over," Day said. "We're getting a myriad of questions."
Definitive answers are elusive, because definitive information is similarly elusive.
Day got a sense for his players' unrest this past week when he held a virtual team meeting.
"There's so much unknown," Day said. "We had our team doctor speak to the team about COVID-19, and just give information so they can bring it back to their families. There just so many things out there from social media and the internet We just wanted to give them real information and educate them."
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said he speaks via conference call with his Big Ten colleagues every morning.
They bounce their best ideas and solutions off each other, but cannot come to conclusions about even the most simple matters because conditions differ across the league's expanse that stretches from New Jersey to Nebraska.
"Different states have different (stay-at-home) orders," Smith said. "It depends on what those orders are...Can our athletes, from wherever they are, drive (back to OSU) from where they are?
"There's restrictions in different areas. I don;t know if we want a Gee Scott (in Seattle) driving from Washington. Can he fly? I don't know . So there's a lot things we have to vet before we get to a place of understanding that question. Is it a possibility? Of course. We have to figure that out."
Day remains confident in the powers that run college athletics, even though none of them have struggled to resume normalcy in the wake of a global pandemic.
"'One of the major challenges we have is the group gathering restrictions and things that go on are going to be very different from state-to-state," Day said. "The NCAA is working very hard now to combine groups together to come up with a plan.
"...There so many unknowns here, but we have a lot of smart people in this country. We have a lot of smart people in the NCAA and a lot of smart college coaches. If we just keep communicating and keep talking this thing through, we're going to come up with great solutions as time goes on."
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