The University of Connecticut just canceled its football season.
“After receiving guidance from state and public health officials and consulting with football student-athletes, we’ve decided that we will not compete on the gridiron this season,” UConn athletic director David Benedict said in a news release. “The safety challenges created by COVID-19 place our football student-athletes at an unacceptable level of risk.”
I grew up on college football every Saturday, and still love it. I would normally be very excited come August, but this year, I don’t believe it will happen. I think we are seeing dominoes fall of schools not opening, no schools, no football.
- Give Me A Break - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:33 am:
I give it 3 weeks once games start.
First outbreak will create a landslide of players refusing to play.
SEC will be the last holdout but after their teams and student bodies have large numbers of positive test, even those red state SEC schools will shut it down.
I agree with Oswego Willy on college football in SEC territory. But, if they wanted college football, they should have ordered masks back in March or April. It will be interesting to see who gets the blame in SEC country if college football doesn’t happen there.
I don’t see a positive outcome to football or fall sports in general. The uptick will be coming to these college towns in a matter of weeks. They will not be in a bubble like the NBA. Thousands of students from all over IL and other states will be on campus, dining in restaurants, grocery shopping and all over these college towns. I don’t see how a rise in case numbers can be prevented.
- The Dude Abides - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:50 am:
I think there will be some bumps in the road with some games canceled or rescheduled but I think we’ll have college football.
Went to a SEC school and am a HUGE SEC football fan. Anybody that has frequented a SEC game knows that there are not only 100,000 ticket holders packed into the stadium like sardines, there is another roughly 100,000 fans tailgating and partying in the surrounding community before, during, and after the game.
Then they return to their respective communities far and wide.
Additionally, you have players, coaches, band members, cheerleaders, and support staff packed into buses for multi-hour trips–even if you stay in conference.
And finally, you are asking 18-21 year old student athletes and students to quarantine–in college. It is would be impossible to limit the spread of COVID.
Conferences could possibly prohibit attendance at games but they could not prohibit the rush to bars, taverns, and restaurants to watch the games.
It will be an unmitigated disaster if college football is played this year. For those reasons and many more it pains me to say that college football will not be played.
If you can’t prevent outbreaks from occurring like we’re witnessing with MLB, what would lead us to believe that NCAA sports, be it football or basketball would be any different. Would I like to see football and basketball in the fall? Sure. But it doesn’t appear that we’re willing to make the sacrifices as a country to allow that too happen. College sports will just be another casualty of our unwillingness to get our act together. Why would we expect it to be any different?
- lake county democrat - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:56 am:
Sadly yes - if baseball can’t keep socially distant and masked, even with the huge $$$ incentive to do so, how are a bunch of college kids going to manage it in a sport with more players per team and less inherent social distancing (and overlapping flu season to boot). And hard to see where there’s a bubble option.
I don’t see how the schools can possibly succeed in getting football going right now. As long as they continue to to claim it is an amateur sport of “student” athletes, they simply can’t compel this kids to risk their health in this way. I have to imagine that the potential liability exposure to the universities would be immense.
Also, you can’t really create a system like NBA/NHL where you keep players in a “bubble” to protect their health for a sport like football. This is even more true with students, unless you figure out a way for them to engage in classes from within that bubble as well.
In short, this will all be very hard to accomplish. They can push the envelope more with professional sports, but much harder for any school system to pull off.
I think they are going to try, not much faith that it is going to complete a full season of football.
As for UConn, they are independent in football and likely were going to have a problem with their schedule since so many schools are going ‘conference’ or conference + 1.
The bigger question I think is how if the season is abbreviated how scholarships and eligibility will end up being addressed.
I just read 23 student athletes have tests positive at the U. of Illinois. Does not bode well.
- levivotedforjudy - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:12 am:
Northwestern had to halt practice this week because of one player having it. Wait until the students get back on campus. And as much as anyone wants or hopes, I guarantee there will be an off-campus party where the virus will spread like wildfire unless things have really changed since I was in college (back in the pre-internet/TikTok days).
- Michael Feltes - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:12 am:
I hope Dosunmu and Cockburn are willing to stick around another year because I don’t think we’ll have any NCAA sports at all, even in the spring.
No problem, the NCAA just needs to make all sports e-sports. The gamers can be physically distant while clicking away at their consoles.
- Joe Bidenopolous - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:56 am:
I’m really skeptical there will be much NCAA football given the timing, the widespread community transmission and really, the roster sizes. MLB players - all adult-ish - couldn’t follow protocols and look what happened. Little chance 18-21 year olds, who have always been celebrated and given deference, are going to lock themselves in a room. On the other hand, if 23 Illini football players already have it, maybe at least team-wide herd immunity isn’t far off.
Basketball I’m a little more hopeful about. But that’s now. Check back in October
50+ NFL players have opted out. They don’t make money this year. If you are a Junior or Senior in College with no hopes of going professional why risk it?
I’m a huge college basketball fan. Last year could have been the year my team finally made a breakthrough in March. We’re supposed to be even better this year, only losing one starter to the NBA. I also don’t expect there to be a season this year. I swear my team is cursed.
As for UConn football, they sucked in a non-P5 conference, despite dumping a ton of taxpayer money into the program, and just jumped to Indy when the school rejoined the Big East. They are a Basketball school again. I wouldn’t use them as a bellweather for football.
Hmm, not a bad idea but all my nieces and nephews are serious students pr professionals and not serious athletes. I fear it will be like watching Northwestern from the 1980s vs same each game.
It makes more sense to me for colleges and universities to figure out how they’ll deliver meaningful instruction during the pandemic, then worry about whether sports are viable. Priorities etc.
Been a Fighting Irish fan since birth, but I won’t be watching any games, from any team, this year. It’s absolutely unconscionable that they’re trying to force this season to happen. I’ve stopped my donations to my alma mater because they’re bringing students back and insisting fall sports are happening. I’m not donating money so you can kill kids for your endowment.
=== NCAA Division III championships in fall sports for 2020-21 are canceled. With the health and safety of the division’s student-athletes, coaches, athletics administrators and communities as its priority, the Division III Presidents Council made the decision Wednesday to cancel the championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related administrative and financial challenges.
The Board of Governors directed each division to make a decision on its fall sport championships. It also agreed to require all members institutions to apply the resocialization principles to fall sports and set a 50% sponsorship threshold for a fall sport championship to be conducted.===
Let’s see what Division II, the non-bowl football (FCS) schools move.
- Last Bull Moose - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 2:06 pm:
The testing approach discussed on the other thread could provide a way forward. Otherwise, no way.
- Ok - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:15 am:
I guess that depends on your expectations
- 10th Ward - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:17 am:
YEP. No Sports once breakouts begin
- Captain Obvious - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:23 am:
Football may have some issues getting started but come basketball time things will be smoothing out.
- Rich Hill - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:23 am:
The University of Connecticut just canceled its football season.
“After receiving guidance from state and public health officials and consulting with football student-athletes, we’ve decided that we will not compete on the gridiron this season,” UConn athletic director David Benedict said in a news release. “The safety challenges created by COVID-19 place our football student-athletes at an unacceptable level of risk.”
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:24 am:
UConn canceled football today.
They have spent millions on football upgrades, first the thinking was no fans, now no football.
Still waiting on the SEC, if they decide no football, in the south, it’s like losing pro baseball *and* pro football up north, combined.
Mississippi’s governor ordered mandatory masks. Why? College football.
Still, these college towns, you think their ready for 110,000 in Tuscaloosa for LSU-Alabama as the White House keeps touting?
The PAC-12 players say… “hold up” too.
Can’t see football happening.
- Downstate - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:24 am:
I’m organizing my nieces and nephews into two teams, wearing Big 10 jerseys, so I have some form of college football to watch this fall.
- Moe Berg - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:26 am:
A plan that depends on college students - even elite athletes - not being college students is doomed to fail.
Further, too many other potential points of failure among those who are not students but interact with them.
There’s is now, and only has ever been, one approach that will work: a national, coordinated strategy focused on the virus.
Every problem - sports, dining out, going to concerts, getting the economy going, school - is a virus problem first.
- Birds on the Bat - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:32 am:
Illini are a legit national championship contender in basketball…if there is a season.
- H-W - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:32 am:
I mean no disrespect when I say football will be a battle to the last man standing. There is no way any team will not be impacted.
- No One - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:33 am:
I grew up on college football every Saturday, and still love it. I would normally be very excited come August, but this year, I don’t believe it will happen. I think we are seeing dominoes fall of schools not opening, no schools, no football.
- Give Me A Break - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:33 am:
I give it 3 weeks once games start.
First outbreak will create a landslide of players refusing to play.
SEC will be the last holdout but after their teams and student bodies have large numbers of positive test, even those red state SEC schools will shut it down.
- A Guy - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:34 am:
Might need to re-title this thread…
NCAA ‘Close’ thread
- No One - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:35 am:
I agree with Oswego Willy on college football in SEC territory. But, if they wanted college football, they should have ordered masks back in March or April. It will be interesting to see who gets the blame in SEC country if college football doesn’t happen there.
- jimbo - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:40 am:
~~come basketball time things will be smoothing out~~
How? Even *if* there is a vaccine. and *if* it is available in quantity to the general public, society still would need people to take it.
In my unscientific polling of about 75 ppl, it’s somewhere below 25% that are going to/have their families take it.
When I saw I’ll go on first day people look at me like I’m insane.
- LucRambler - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:45 am:
Well if they don’t have the NCAA this year at least I don’t have to see Loyola lose to Bradley again in Arch Madness.
- Traffic - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:45 am:
I don’t see a positive outcome to football or fall sports in general. The uptick will be coming to these college towns in a matter of weeks. They will not be in a bubble like the NBA. Thousands of students from all over IL and other states will be on campus, dining in restaurants, grocery shopping and all over these college towns. I don’t see how a rise in case numbers can be prevented.
- The Dude Abides - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:50 am:
I think there will be some bumps in the road with some games canceled or rescheduled but I think we’ll have college football.
- Allin - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:51 am:
Went to a SEC school and am a HUGE SEC football fan. Anybody that has frequented a SEC game knows that there are not only 100,000 ticket holders packed into the stadium like sardines, there is another roughly 100,000 fans tailgating and partying in the surrounding community before, during, and after the game.
Then they return to their respective communities far and wide.
Additionally, you have players, coaches, band members, cheerleaders, and support staff packed into buses for multi-hour trips–even if you stay in conference.
And finally, you are asking 18-21 year old student athletes and students to quarantine–in college. It is would be impossible to limit the spread of COVID.
Conferences could possibly prohibit attendance at games but they could not prohibit the rush to bars, taverns, and restaurants to watch the games.
It will be an unmitigated disaster if college football is played this year. For those reasons and many more it pains me to say that college football will not be played.
- M - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:52 am:
Don’t plan on football games this year.
- Pundent - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:55 am:
If you can’t prevent outbreaks from occurring like we’re witnessing with MLB, what would lead us to believe that NCAA sports, be it football or basketball would be any different. Would I like to see football and basketball in the fall? Sure. But it doesn’t appear that we’re willing to make the sacrifices as a country to allow that too happen. College sports will just be another casualty of our unwillingness to get our act together. Why would we expect it to be any different?
- lake county democrat - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:56 am:
Sadly yes - if baseball can’t keep socially distant and masked, even with the huge $$$ incentive to do so, how are a bunch of college kids going to manage it in a sport with more players per team and less inherent social distancing (and overlapping flu season to boot). And hard to see where there’s a bubble option.
- Glengarry - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:57 am:
Of course the pandemic would hit, when the Illini have their most talented football and basketball programs in over a decade.
- M - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:58 am:
==- jimbo - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:40 am:==
jimbo, Why are people refusing to take the vaccine?
- ILPundit - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:58 am:
I don’t see how the schools can possibly succeed in getting football going right now. As long as they continue to to claim it is an amateur sport of “student” athletes, they simply can’t compel this kids to risk their health in this way. I have to imagine that the potential liability exposure to the universities would be immense.
Also, you can’t really create a system like NBA/NHL where you keep players in a “bubble” to protect their health for a sport like football. This is even more true with students, unless you figure out a way for them to engage in classes from within that bubble as well.
In short, this will all be very hard to accomplish. They can push the envelope more with professional sports, but much harder for any school system to pull off.
- No One - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 9:59 am:
Agree with Allin - the ancillary people that come to the game site to tail gate is extraordinary. Covid nightmare.
- bogey golfer - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:01 am:
At least college cross-country will provide social distancing - except at the starting line.
- OneMan - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:04 am:
I think they are going to try, not much faith that it is going to complete a full season of football.
As for UConn, they are independent in football and likely were going to have a problem with their schedule since so many schools are going ‘conference’ or conference + 1.
The bigger question I think is how if the season is abbreviated how scholarships and eligibility will end up being addressed.
- H-W - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:09 am:
I just read 23 student athletes have tests positive at the U. of Illinois. Does not bode well.
- levivotedforjudy - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:12 am:
Northwestern had to halt practice this week because of one player having it. Wait until the students get back on campus. And as much as anyone wants or hopes, I guarantee there will be an off-campus party where the virus will spread like wildfire unless things have really changed since I was in college (back in the pre-internet/TikTok days).
- Michael Feltes - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:12 am:
I hope Dosunmu and Cockburn are willing to stick around another year because I don’t think we’ll have any NCAA sports at all, even in the spring.
- Amalia - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:48 am:
I think they will play for the donors. if at all.
- Angry Republican - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:54 am:
No problem, the NCAA just needs to make all sports e-sports. The gamers can be physically distant while clicking away at their consoles.
- Joe Bidenopolous - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 10:56 am:
I’m really skeptical there will be much NCAA football given the timing, the widespread community transmission and really, the roster sizes. MLB players - all adult-ish - couldn’t follow protocols and look what happened. Little chance 18-21 year olds, who have always been celebrated and given deference, are going to lock themselves in a room. On the other hand, if 23 Illini football players already have it, maybe at least team-wide herd immunity isn’t far off.
Basketball I’m a little more hopeful about. But that’s now. Check back in October
- 1st Ward - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 11:01 am:
50+ NFL players have opted out. They don’t make money this year. If you are a Junior or Senior in College with no hopes of going professional why risk it?
- ChrisB - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 11:01 am:
I’m a huge college basketball fan. Last year could have been the year my team finally made a breakthrough in March. We’re supposed to be even better this year, only losing one starter to the NBA. I also don’t expect there to be a season this year. I swear my team is cursed.
As for UConn football, they sucked in a non-P5 conference, despite dumping a ton of taxpayer money into the program, and just jumped to Indy when the school rejoined the Big East. They are a Basketball school again. I wouldn’t use them as a bellweather for football.
- cermak_rd - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 11:21 am:
Downstate,
Hmm, not a bad idea but all my nieces and nephews are serious students pr professionals and not serious athletes. I fear it will be like watching Northwestern from the 1980s vs same each game.
- Flapdoodle - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 12:10 pm:
It makes more sense to me for colleges and universities to figure out how they’ll deliver meaningful instruction during the pandemic, then worry about whether sports are viable. Priorities etc.
- Suburban Mom - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 12:28 pm:
Been a Fighting Irish fan since birth, but I won’t be watching any games, from any team, this year. It’s absolutely unconscionable that they’re trying to force this season to happen. I’ve stopped my donations to my alma mater because they’re bringing students back and insisting fall sports are happening. I’m not donating money so you can kill kids for your endowment.
- R A T - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 12:40 pm:
Illinois got rid of college football years ago. Didn’t they? /s
- Saluki1964 - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 1:33 pm:
All sports will be cancelled once the insurance companies tell the universities that they will not be covered should someone get sick and sue.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 1:45 pm:
Welp.
Division III decided. From the tweeters;
=== NCAA Division III championships in fall sports for 2020-21 are canceled. With the health and safety of the division’s student-athletes, coaches, athletics administrators and communities as its priority, the Division III Presidents Council made the decision Wednesday to cancel the championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related administrative and financial challenges.
The Board of Governors directed each division to make a decision on its fall sport championships. It also agreed to require all members institutions to apply the resocialization principles to fall sports and set a 50% sponsorship threshold for a fall sport championship to be conducted.===
Let’s see what Division II, the non-bowl football (FCS) schools move.
- Last Bull Moose - Wednesday, Aug 5, 20 @ 2:06 pm:
The testing approach discussed on the other thread could provide a way forward. Otherwise, no way.