Will There Be a 2020 Football Season?

[Mavric]

 

[84HuskerLaw]

5 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

Interesting that fall sports only 40 mil while 73 mil already.  ?   Seems like numbers are reversed.  Total sounds about right tho.  

[Husker03]

I am not convinced yet that there won't be football for some. Maybe wishful thinking but hoping there are still some rational people in places of leadership. If we can go maskless to a grocery store, seems like there should be a way to test and mask players up to play an outdoor sport for the sake of the athletes that have so much invested into doing so.  I think harder to imagine allowing fans in the stands. But my kids are playing softball and basketball in Nebraska currently, seems a bit silly to indicate there is absolutely no way kids can play football too. Seems like the University has tried pretty hard to keep the athletes in a position they could make a go playing the game it as long as the rest of the details work out. I guess I think it looks like first and foremost they are trying to figure out if the boys can play safely. From there they are looking at how to generate revenue if they play. Remains to be seen I guess, but I don't see NU throwing in the towel yet. 

[TGHusker]

So, we are reduced to a Big 10 schedule --- if that happens at all. 

 

I wonder if it the NCAA would consider it to be beneficial to punt the season to the spring and try to have the full schedule at that time?  

 

I wonder if it is at all possible to flip the calendar - have limited fall practice instead of spring practice and have a spring football season.   Would that endanger the Fall 2021 season - due to only  having a 3-4 month gap??  A spring season would still generate a revenue stream that the colleges and the college towns need.  Perhaps a vaccine or effective treatment med can be created by then to enable a season to go forward. 

 

What do you all think?  Yes, I know we all prefer fall, but I'm thinking no football versus spring football as I think we very well could see no football this fall.

 

[Undone]

7 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

What do you all think?  Yes, I know we all prefer fall, but I'm thinking no football versus spring football as I think we very well could see no football this fall.

 

When would you envision a spring season kicking off? You'd be hard pressed to start in February in Nebraska. The weather is decent by around 3/01 but then a full season (even if there's no post-season) wraps up right around the time you'd be looking at starting summer camps.

Pretty much a clusterjam here!

[hunter49]

2 hours ago, WyoHusker56 said:

 

That's possible, yes. The biggest spread of this disease though is when someone coughs/sneezes and respiratory droplets land in others mouth, nose, eyes. This would help reduce that by stopping the largest droplets from being propelled forward. There is some evidence of aerosol transmission, but at a lower amount and being outside would help reduce that further.

 

yeah, ok, tell that to the guy laying at the bottom of the pile!.....sweat, fogged up face mask, hand to hand/body contact through the whole game, breathing hard, spitting, etc...body fluids and breathing vectors everywhere waiting for transmission. the mask is useless, maybe a feel good exercise at best. like using a bandana for a face mask.

[Decoy73]

3 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

Perhaps a vaccine or effective treatment med can be created by then to enable a season to go forward. 

Even if there is an approved vaccine by spring, I wouldn’t count on enough doses available Immediately to justify vaccinating young and healthy athletes.   The first several million doses will go to highest risk people and healthcare professionals.  Medical treatments have been and hopefully will continue to reduce deaths and hospital stay durations, but will not reduce transmission.   This plus weather and other logistical factors leads me to believe that moving to the spring is not a very good option.  

[kansas45]

4 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

What do you all think?  Yes, I know we all prefer fall, but I'm thinking no football versus spring football as I think we very well could see no football this fall.

 

Let's think about this for a moment.

1. I personally think moving football to spring is a dumb move; but let me explain why it is.

a. it looks and feels like a desperate move to save something;

b. if we do a 12 game schedule starting in Feb with practices starting in January, you could theoretically end up in April.

c. THEN you have fall practices starting in August. That is only a four month turn-around time. 

d. within a period of one calendar year, a player could play in upwards of 24 games; that would be double what is seen now.

e. even if you would play a shortened season, you are still competing with BB and other sports that are typically in the spring.

f. we think these 18-23 year old as professionals but we still have to take into consideration chronological and maturational age of development and the potential adverse effects. 

g. and who is to say that the virus will be gone by then? 

h. let's think of the games in the north during the winter time at the beginning. 

i. everyone talks about the NFL draft; that could be another factor as to how many of those upper-classmen are going to play in a shortened season? we have already seen several forego a bowl game to prepare for the draft. Of course, this is only a small group and not the entire team but one has to wonder about that.

j. this is all dependent on if students can safely return to campus for full face-to-face classes in January. Again, if it is not safe for the regular student body, then it is not safe for the student-athletes. 

 

The NCAA has too major issues to contend with here.

1. they hitched their wagon to the paradigm of "ultimate safety of the student-athlete";

2. if they play, in any form, that does not resemble the academic mission, then they will forever lose their image of the amateur status image they have used for so long; this alone could be an area that the NCAA does not want to go into as athletics at a university becomes part of the entertainment industry and not part of their academic mission of the "well-rounded student." The whole student-athlete model falls a part in which an athlete is recruited to play the sport similar to semi-pro without the need for academics. There would be no need for an athlete to take classes. Why? They are employees now. 

 

This would then trickle down to where the sport, like football, will keep ALL the money and only be associated with the university in which the athletic department would simply lease the name and become a profit sharing venture; this would mean that athletes would not be students but merely employees of the university; this would cause the university to suspend all the non-revenue sports because they would be seen as "club sports." 

 

Whether I am right or wrong is not the issue; the point is that the whole model of college athletics gets turned upside down. If this is incoherent, so be it. But you had better start seeing the bigger picture with the potential details instead of just looking at a detail singularly. 

 

[WyoHusker56]

14 minutes ago, hunter49 said:

 

yeah, ok, tell that to the guy laying at the bottom of the pile!.....sweat, fogged up face mask, hand to hand/body contact through the whole game, breathing hard, spitting, etc...body fluids and breathing vectors everywhere waiting for transmission. the mask is useless, maybe a feel good exercise at best. like using a bandana for a face mask.

 

I didn't say it was foolproof just that it would stop some avenues of transmission.

[TGHusker]

25 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

When would you envision a spring season kicking off? You'd be hard pressed to start in February in Nebraska. The weather is decent by around 3/01 but then a full season (even if there's no post-season) wraps up right around the time you'd be looking at starting summer camps.

Pretty much a clusterjam here!

Last half of Nov vs first mid Feb  - could be a toss up  - but hey I live in Tulsa and haven't lived in SD in 42 years.    Again, we may have to cut a couple of games to make it work.

[TGHusker]

13 minutes ago, kansas45 said:

 

Let's think about this for a moment.

1. I personally think moving football to spring is a dumb move; but let me explain why it is.

a. it looks and feels like a desperate move to save something;

b. if we do a 12 game schedule starting in Feb with practices starting in January, you could theoretically end up in April.

c. THEN you have fall practices starting in August. That is only a four month turn-around time. 

d. within a period of one calendar year, a player could play in upwards of 24 games; that would be double what is seen now.

e. even if you would play a shortened season, you are still competing with BB and other sports that are typically in the spring.

f. we think these 18-23 year old as professionals but we still have to take into consideration chronological and maturational age of development and the potential adverse effects. 

g. and who is to say that the virus will be gone by then? 

h. let's think of the games in the north during the winter time at the beginning. 

i. everyone talks about the NFL draft; that could be another factor as to how many of those upper-classmen are going to play in a shortened season? we have already seen several forego a bowl game to prepare for the draft. Of course, this is only a small group and not the entire team but one has to wonder about that.

j. this is all dependent on if students can safely return to campus for full face-to-face classes in January. Again, if it is not safe for the regular student body, then it is not safe for the student-athletes. 

 

The NCAA has too major issues to contend with here.

1. they hitched their wagon to the paradigm of "ultimate safety of the student-athlete";

2. if they play, in any form, that does not resemble the academic mission, then they will forever lose their image of the amateur status image they have used for so long; this alone could be an area that the NCAA does not want to go into as athletics at a university becomes part of the entertainment industry and not part of their academic mission of the "well-rounded student." The whole student-athlete model falls a part in which an athlete is recruited to play the sport similar to semi-pro without the need for academics. There would be no need for an athlete to take classes. Why? They are employees now. 

 

This would then trickle down to where the sport, like football, will keep ALL the money and only be associated with the university in which the athletic department would simply lease the name and become a profit sharing venture; this would mean that athletes would not be students but merely employees of the university; this would cause the university to suspend all the non-revenue sports because they would be seen as "club sports." 

 

Whether I am right or wrong is not the issue; the point is that the whole model of college athletics gets turned upside down. If this is incoherent, so be it. But you had better start seeing the bigger picture with the potential details instead of just looking at a detail singularly. 

 

All good points - had to give you a trophy for that reply.  Well thought out.    Spring probably doesn't work. 

 

So let's say the season is canceled all together.  Should the NCAA give one more year of eligibility to seniors and if so, what does that do to scholarship caps for the full team?   

[Undone]

20 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

So let's say the season is canceled all together.  Should the NCAA give one more year of eligibility to seniors and if so, what does that do to scholarship caps for the full team? 

 

I was kind of hoping that everybody would get an extra year of eligibility.

[Husker in WI]

26 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

All good points - had to give you a trophy for that reply.  Well thought out.    Spring probably doesn't work. 

 

So let's say the season is canceled all together.  Should the NCAA give one more year of eligibility to seniors and if so, what does that do to scholarship caps for the full team?   

 

5 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

I was kind of hoping that everybody would get an extra year of eligibility.

 

I don't see how they wouldn't get an extra year, and I'm sure people more familiar with the eligibility requirements/scholarship limits could figure out a way to temporarily expand it without breaking everything. The seniors are easy, just don't count them against the limit if they stayed with the same school. But now you've got double the freshman (unless you count it as a redshirt year, which would suck) and teams that didn't sign as many would complain about teams that signed more. But it feels solvable.

[kansas45]

36 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

So let's say the season is canceled all together.  Should the NCAA give one more year of eligibility to seniors and if so, what does that do to scholarship caps for the full team?  

 

Thank you for the kind words.

1. This is part of the process that I have not thought through yet. But there are a couple of potentialities here.

a. if we are using the model of "student-athlete" and the season is cancelled, then this is no different than that of a regular student who missed doing their senior recital and getting an extra year to just perform that feat. Or the band member who is on scholarship to play in the band, are they granted an extra year of eligibility to play in the band?

b. we do know that scholarships are one year renewable. 

c. we do know that there is the Academic Progress Report in which students must be making progress toward a degree. For those student-athletes that depend on Financial Aid, there is the concept of the PACE Rule. This rule states: The US Department of Education requires students to complete at least 67 percent of all courses attempted for all colleges attempted to maintain eligibility for federal financial aid. PACE is calculated by dividing the earned credits by the attempted credits.

 

Now some of you (and rightfully so) will argue that this has absolutely nothing to do with athletics. Correct. But think about those students who are walk-ons. But just think about this for a moment. IF, and I say IF, the colleges have to drop the # of scholarships or the scholarship award is less than what the university can afford, the ability of students to have to carry some of the financial load, let's say 20% or something like that, could be realized. Thus, while everyone is making sure that student-athletes are academically cleared to play, they also have to perform throughout their academic career as well. 

 

I know we are digging in the weeds here but the digging in the weeds is probably what the universities are thinking right now and have not discussed this with the typical fan because they know that it would totally confuse them. I do know that this gets away from your original question about the seniors but this does potentially answer your question about scholarship limits. Because when the cuts happen, it will be in areas such as academic support and other things that are budgeted. Instead of fully-funding 85 full rides, they may have to drop it down to 65 with FCS going to 48 in an effort to cut back expenses.

 

I believe they will have to honor the scholarship but not the eligibility. This is because the school is in the education business not the athletics business as per their mission. And the premise that a student-athlete cannot receive a benefit that other students cannot receive plays a part into this. Remember the academic scandal at UNC? But of course, student-athletes have the "training table" and the "study halls" monitored by their academic skills people. However, I see this as another cost cutting expense. A lot of issues to contend with I agree and some are bordering on or blatant hypocrisy. But I see this is as one of those smaller details that we tend to forget that will probably be reset. 

 

This I believe will be part of the future equation of athletic department cost containment. If universities are true to their mission of academics, then I do not see how you can keep students on and extend eligibility along with the academic progress rules toward degree achievement. 

 

But let me throw this prediction in here: not only are academic progress reporting going to be key, but attainment of gainful employment rules. Thus, simply getting a degree will not suffice it anymore but that schools are going to have to track and use such things as gainful employment among their student-athletes. This whole thing is really going to make college athletics get back to their original mission of education. 

 

Again, I could be totally off my rocker here but the more I think about it I see this is one of those issues that will come to the forefront along with other things in an effort to cut back expenses while maintaining the illusion of the academic enterprise. 

 

Addition edit: my only thinking is that to preserve you eligibility is to not officially enroll. Once you enroll, your eligibility clock begins. And this is what scares a lot of college administrators about the regular student population and these students forgoing the semester and preserving their financial aid to get that college experience they were told they would get. Anyone see any advertisements for going to college saying "our dedicated faculty are up-to-date on all the features of Zoom in order for you to get the attention you need while taking rigorous courses that will prepare you for a lifetime of learning"? Anyone seen any webpages of on student congregating  with others on Zoom or social media getting their education? Anyone? No, we see pictures and images of students roaming a campus with smiles indicating the "X difference". College prez's are not just worried about football, they are worried about the entire campus. 

Edited July 13, 2020 by kansas45
forgot to add a point

[Husker03]

A lot of these questions are assuming things change even by next fall, which, if we have learned anything, is far from a sure thing.