Is UNC Move to Online Classes Beginning of End for ACC Football?
There's a certain irony to North Carolina's announcement on Monday that its fall semester classes will be held entirely online.
UNC and no-show classes?
The jokes are almost too easy, like a softball lobbed across the plate right into a power hitter's wheelhouse.
They'd be funny, too, if not for the fact that the decision was made in response to an excessive number of positive COVID tests on campus. Over the past week since students began returning to the Chapel Hill campus, the positivity rate in testing rose from 2.8 to 13.6 percent.
Kids are getting sick. The danger is real. And it didn't sneak up on anybody.
UNC's switch to virtual learning rather than classroom instruction came only hours after the school's student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, published a scathing editorial -- topped with a provocative headline -- taking administrators to task for their lack of foresight in their coronavirus response.
Combined with recent coronavirus issues at Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Florida State, the situation in Chapel Hill once again raises the question of whether its wise -- or safe -- for college football to be played this fall.
Although the ACC continues to stand firm on its decision to go ahead with its adjusted schedule starting on Sept. 12 -- "our statement from last Tuesday evening still stands," a conference spokesman said -- Monday's development could very well be the beginning of the end for the 2020 season.
According to a report by Sports Illustrated's Mark Blaudschun, sources from the six conferences still playing football this season indicate that meetings will be held on Tuesday to answer two basic questions:
What are the numbers of positive COVID-19 cases with the main part of the student body back on campus? And are they reasonable enough to allow us to play football?
"The issue has never been about waiting until COVID-19 went away,'' Blaudschun quotes one conference official as saying. "That's not realistic at this time. It's whether we can control it enough to proceed in a safe way for our student athletes.''
Some campuses, including NC State, appear to be doing a better job of controling the spread of the virus than others.
“Confirmed cases of COVID-19 remain low, around 1% of those tested at our Student Health Services in the past week," Mick Kulikowksi, State's assistant director for news and national media coordinator told the school's student newspaper, The Technician. "There are not plans at this time to move all of NC State's classes online"
Plans, however, are always subject to change especially when dealing with the changing circumstances of a worldwide pandemic.
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