When College Sports Finally Return, Things Are Going to Be Different

Could the college football season, if we have one, start as late as October? Color me skeptical

Four weeks ago today the sports world as we have always known it—really the World as we have known it--began to shut down.

Has it only been four weeks? It feels like four years.

And nobody knows when our World is coming back and what it will look like when it does. It was suggested yesterday by Dr. Anthony Fauci that our culture may be forced to give up shaking hands, period. 

That’s a bit unnerving.

In the grand scheme of this horrible pandemic with so much loss of life and so much economic damage, college football is simply not that important except for this: College football’s safe return—with the emphasis on safe—would be another sign that we are getting our lives back. It would give us another reason to be optimistic about the future. And we need all the positive signs we can get.

So many questions:

**--If there is a college football season, would it start on time? Most teams are scheduled to start on Sept. 5. Fall camp would normally begin about Aug. 1. Because so many teams missed all or part of spring practice, coaches feel like they need an additional 2-to-3 week practice window in July just for conditioning. Would students even be on campus for summer school?

**--If the season didn’t start on time, how late could it start? There has been wide speculation about contingency plans that could have college football being played as late as next spring. Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp told the Texas Tribune that he believed discussions have been held that concluded the season could start as late October and still get a 13-game schedule completed.

Color me skeptical.

There are 13 Saturdays between Oct. 3 and Dec. 26. To keep the current College Football Playoff schedule, the SEC championship game would be the day after Christmas followed by the CFP semifinals on Jan. 1, 2021, at the Rose and Sugar Bowls. The national championship would be Monday, Jan. 11, in South Florida.

I don’t see it.

“Our focus is on preparing to play the season as scheduled,” said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey when I reached out to his office on Thursday. “As we have done in recent weeks, using the best available information from public health officials and at an appropriate time, we will make decisions about the future.”

**--If the season starts on time will there be fans in the stadium? The idea of playing college football games with no fans or a limited number of fans is eerie. And if it’s not safe enough for crowds to gather, is it safe enough for the players to play? The optics, as they say in politics, would be difficult.

Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick is on record as being against this idea.

“I don’t see a model where we play, at least any extended number of games in facilities where we don’t have fans,” Swarbrick said on the Paul Finebaum Show recently.

So there is a lot we don’t know. It’s just too early.

But this much I think we’re going to learn: When college football does return, things are going to be different.

For example: We’ve been soberly reminded that almost the entire financial framework of college athletics relies on football games being played. And without the games and the money that flows from them many schools will be in dire financial straits.

Given that reality, can you see a future for college sports that begrudges a student-athlete from making an extra buck or two out his or her name, image, or likeness? Seriously? After all this will we still have those arguments?

Is there any doubt that the one-time transfer rule is going to get passed to give the same freedom to the athletes that the coaches have?

Here’s the bottom line: If we can get past this nightmare, I don’t see us spending as much time obsessing over competitive balance--over whose team gets Apple watches and whose team does not; over whose team made an extra recruiting call or had another practice.

We’ve got to get over that.

What will matter most in the future is what’s best for the individual athlete--not the school, not the coach.

Last week when I was on with Paul Finebaum he said he looked forward to the day when we could again argue about who has the better football team—Georgia or Florida.

Wouldn’t that be nice?