Amid Pessimism, Penn State AD Sandy Barbour Offers a Lifeline
Looking for a note of optimism in the gloom surrounding college football? Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour offered a small one, albeit tinged with a healthy dose of realism, last week.
"There's no doubt that there's been a little bit of pessimism here in the last couple of weeks that we really hadn't had for probably about 4-6 weeks," Barbour said on a video call with reporters. "We'd been ticking up on the optimism scale. The approach that I'm taking to this is that I think that's part of the ebb and flow of the virus here. Obviously my hope is that maybe, as people start looking at the masking and the social-distancing and all of the precautions and understanding or maybe recommitting to the seriousness of this, that we'll see it flatten out."
Certainly, the news around college football returning amid the COVID-19 pandemic hasn't been positive. Several schools, including Ohio State and North Carolina, suspended voluntary workouts following positive tests among athletes for the novel coronavirus.
The Ivy League announced that it will not play any sports for the 2020 fall season, and Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said the nationwide rise in positive cases of COVID-19 has made an on-time start for college football "a lot more perilous than it was a few weeks ago."
And Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger reported a comprehensive piece that returned this conclusion:
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.
"Until two weeks ago, everybody felt pretty good about starting on time on Sept. 5 and Aug. 29,” West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons said in the story. "The last two weeks have really put a wet blanket on that, and we’re saying, ‘Maybe that’s not going to happen.’”
College administrators still have some time before deciding to pause, delay or even cancel the 2020 college football season. Teams shift from voluntary to mandatory workouts July 13, and the NCAA's new two-week "summer access" period begins July 24. Training camps open Aug. 7 for those teams whose scheduled season-openers are Sept. 5.
According to the SI story, there are some "hopeful" athletic directors who have faith that the season can start on time. How teams respond during the next phases of workouts, along with how they respond when students return to campuses and college life tries to resume, will play a significant role.
"Our students operate in an age group and in a culture where it is all about connection and engagement, and we’re asking them to stop doing that in a way they’ve traditionally done it," Barbour said. "But I will tell you this: Our six teams that are back [for voluntary workouts] have been so disciplined."
Penn State, which last week reported no positive tests for COVID-19, is scheduled to release its next round of testing results July 15. In the meantime, Barbour joined offered this helpful plea.
The athletic director opened her video call with reporters by wearing a Penn State face mask as her form of public-service announcement. She went on to say that Penn State is constructing various models for a football season, whose chances can be enhanced by those who wear masks and distance from others.
"The bottom line is, whatever it is we're going to do, we're going to do only if it's safe and healthy, starting with students and then moving to coaches and staff and then spreading out to our community," she said. "So what we're doing is, we're planning. Obviously given the uncertainty, we're having to work on a lot of different scenarios.
"And when the time comes, if it's healthy and safe to do it, we'll obviously do it. And if it's not, we won't."
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