Louisville athletics director: ‘I don’t foresee games without fans’
If there is going to be a college football season in 2020, there seems to be growing feeling without fans in the stands.
That was the position Louisville Athletics Director Vince Tyra took on a conference call with the media on Thursday.
“I don’t foresee games in the stadium with our fans, I just don’t,” Tyra said, adding, “It seems counterintuitive to have young men out there tackling and touching each other and using the same ball and the things you go through, if we’re all in masks and staying at home.”
Tyra also said that if the season is delayed, he hopes “we move it in a schedule block where we move forward from Sept. 1, Sept. 15 or Oct. 1, Nov. 1.”
Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick recently told ESPN he is opposed to playing college football without fans.
“College football is about the cheerleaders and the band and the campus environment on game day. We’re interested in the solutions that allow to have a traditional game-day experience.”
North Carolina Coach Mack Brown agrees.
“I don’t think we can have football without fans,” Brown told Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network. “I can’t even fathom it. That’s not even something I think about or talk about. Because number one, financially, football supports all the other sports.”
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told Columbus radio station WTVN, ““It seems inconsistent to me that we could say that it is unsafe for the fans to be in the stands -- but it is safe for the players -- to be in that gathering environment,” Smith said. “But I’m not sure. I have not gone down that path, but I think you guys know me; I tend to lean to work with my colleagues in the Big Ten and work with my colleagues nationally. My focus, first and foremost right now, is if we’re going to do something, it comes down to how do we make sure the players are safe first?”
Some more news out of Louisville:
▪ Louisville coaches have agreed to take a 10 percent salary reduction for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Tyra has agreed to forgo a $150,000 bonus he would receive each of the next two years. That’s just a portion of the $15 million in total adjustments the school hopes to make because of the coronavirus. Overall, Louisville expects a $2.1 million revenue shortfall.
▪ Louisville women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz told Rick Bozich of WDRB that he will back as the Cardinals’ coach in 2020-21. There had been reports that Mississippi State would make a run at Walz after the Bulldogs lost head coach Vic Schaefer to Texas.
▪ Louisville’s top basketball recruit, Jay Scrubb, the Junior College Player of the Year, has entered the NBA Draft, signed with an agent and will not be coming to U of L, after all. That’s what his father told Evan Daniels of 247Sports.
▪ Good news out of Louisville. Jody Demling, publisher of Cardinal Authority and a member of the U of L Radio Network, is off the ventilator and on his way to making a full recovery from COVID-19. Demling had entered the hospital last week with symptoms.
Read more:
▪ I conducted a media poll that received over 50 responses to the question of whether (a) the college football season will start on time, (b) be delayed or (c) be canceled. One of the choices was the overwhelming winner.
▪ Add UCLA football coach Chip Kelly to the list of those not in favor of games without fans. Kelly also said the call won’t be made by coaches or universities.
“The governors of the states and mayors are going to be the ones who tell you whether we can do it because the NCAA can say, ‘Hey, you guys are all going back’ and if Governor (Gavin) Newsom says, ‘We’re not going back’ then we’re not going back.”
▪ Meanwhile, ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweeted that “speaking to people in and around college football this week, there is ’strong conviction’ there will be college football this season. Uncertainty about when — multiple scenarios being debated — but they sound certain there will be college football this season.”
▪ Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated, who participated in my poll, spoke to several college administrators about the effect of a possible canceled season.
“A total or partial loss of the sport could send some athletic departments so deep into the red that one administrator predicted even Power Five football programs shuttering. But the absence of football is only one piece. The long-term and severe financial impacts from an economic recession could not only reform forever how departments operate but also could spell sweeping changes to the landscape of college athletics — from the formation of a super division to a new wave of conference realignment, from money-saving travel modifications to football scheduling alterations, from discontinued sports to thousands of lost jobs.”
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This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 7:37 AM.
