If football is going to be played this fall remains a question with unknown answers.
The college football season is scheduled to start in eight weeks and there is a growing concern whether that timetable is realistic with coronavirus cases surging across most of the country. The University of Kansas became the latest program to shut down its voluntary workouts on Friday after 12 players tested positive for COVID-19.
But college administrators remain hopeful a season can be played this fall. TCU, for instance, is still planning to open its season at Cal on Sept. 5.
Time will tell. The Big 12, along with the NFL and others, are consulting with the Infection Control Education for Major Sports, or ICS, an independent organization run by two Duke University infectious-disease doctors, Deverick Anderson and Christopher Hostler.
Dr. Hostler responded to the Star-Telegram via email on a few pressing questions facing the football world.
What would be your message to fans about the current state of the pandemic today and whether college football will start on time and be played this fall? “What I can say is that from my experience, conference and school officials are doing everything they can to give football the best shot possible at resuming safely this fall.”
How do you feel the Big 12’s return to sports plan has gone for schools after a couple weeks? “Like institutions across the country, things are changing every day due to a variety of local factors for each school, so it’s too early to tell.”
Should schools in a state such as Texas that has surging positive cases shut down workouts? “We don’t tell schools what they must do, but we do advise on different scenarios and courses of actions to help them in their decision making process. Mitigation plans will always need to consider distinct factors, and certainly the trend for local infection rates and the needs of local and regional health systems will need to be factored in when schools are making decisions about moving forward.”
Does the idea of playing a conference-only schedule make sense? It would seem to ensure every team would be undergoing comparable testing that way. “We’re not football scheduling experts so unfortunately it’s not for us to say who should play who. Generally speaking, however, there is a lot of interest in having a baseline standard for risk mitigation strategies for non-conference opponents. I imagine each opponent would need to have a testing and mitigation protocol that meets a standard acceptable to the conference.”
This story was originally published July 03, 2020 2:26 PM.
