College football notes: Pessimism about fall season after punts and pauses
We may not have college football this fall, but we have college football notes right here, right now.
▪ Reports say the Ivy League has officially canceled fall sports, including football, and will not entertain any sports being played before Jan. 1.
“With the information available to us today regarding the continued spread of the virus, we simply do not believe we can create and maintain an environment for intercollegiate athletic competition that meets our requirements for safety and acceptable levels of risk,” said the league in a statement.
▪ Christine Brennan of USA Today: “If past is prologue, we will soon be hearing that the rest of the college sports world is considering canceling all fall sports. But that’s not going to happen right away. The Power Five conferences will take their time before they make such a momentous decision. The last thing our biggest football schools want to do is lose football — and the payday football brings — this fall. So they’ll hang on for a while longer, buy some time, shudder as they watch coronavirus cases soar in the country and wonder how they’re going to pull this off in the midst of a raging pandemic.”
▪ Ohio State and North Carolina both paused voluntary workouts on Wednesday after a high number of student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19. North Carolina had 37 positive tests out of 429 UNC athletes tested. We don’t know the numbers on Ohio State.
▪ Kansas announced this week that it has halted voluntary workouts after a spike in positive tests. Reports say 12 players tested positive for COVID-19.
▪ Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh says he doesn’t think playing sports will make the COVID-19 outbreak worse. He also said that COVID “wasn’t caused by football.”
▪ Harbaugh also said he was close to finalizing a contract extension with Michigan before the pandemic hit. The coach has two years left on a deal that pays $7 million annually. Harbaugh is 47-18 in five seasons at Michigan.
▪ Josh Kendall of The Athletic reports that in a radio interview South Carolina AD Ray Tanner had interesting things to say about the possibility of football in the fall.
Tanner: “Our numbers are really good. We are in really good position right now. Our numbers are extremely low or in some sports non-existent.”
Tanner: “We hope to start on time, but if not will that be the spring? Not necessarily. We could move things back, adjust dates. Could it be spring? Certainly, but I don’t think we would all of a sudden go, ‘Well, let’s go to the spring.’”
Tanner on the possible capacity at Williams-Brice Stadium: “Probably 15,000 would be a number I would throw out. I’ve had some people who have studied that. It might get as high as 20. It might be no fans. We still have some time but not as much as we once did.”
▪ Wyoming AD Tom Burman says college football is 50-50 to start on time.
▪ Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated says that he was told by one Power Five commissioner that a delay until mid-October would be more likely before a move to spring.
▪ Jon Solomon, editorial director for the Aspen Institute of Sports: “Major conferences may wait as long as possible before a football decision. If they do play, university presidents will have to answer why they think it’s safe to play when some of the country’s leading health experts in the Ivy League disagree. That’s a hard question to answer.”
▪ There have been some good news on tests. Wisconsin reports that out of 117 student-athletes, two have tested positive.
▪ Missouri says that out of 377 tests there have been 10 positives among student-athletes and staff.
▪ Tulane announced that since July 4 all 115 COVID-19 tests to student-athletes, coaches and staff have been negative.
▪ Stanford is dropping 11 sports at end of 2020-21 including men’s and women’s fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men’s volleyball and wrestling. Stanford says that trying to field 36 sports “is not sustainable” financially at this time.
▪ The Division III Centennial Conference has canceled fall sports.
▪ Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway thinks a decision will be made on the college football season “in the next two weeks.” Holloway has said he thinks a spring season is realistic.
▪ A Power Five conference coach told Rivals: “We have a big meeting tomorrow (Thursday, July 9). But, yeah, it just seems to me that probably in the last week and a half, I could just kind of tell from the tone of our leadership that that’s the direction that they want it to go and felt most comfortable going. Nothing has been decided. Nothing’s official. But I would be surprised if it’s not that.”
▪ Alabama will only accept mobile tickets beginning in 2020. The school also says it is open to selling single-game tickets for football.
▪ The Wisconsin vs. Northwestern game scheduled for Wrigley Field is being relocated amid coronavirus concerns.
▪ Toledo defensive lineman Jahneil Douglas has died after being shot. Toledo lost to Kentucky in the 2019 season opener. Douglas played in 12 games in his first two seasons with the Rockets.
▪ New York Post reports ESPN thinking of using Kirk Herbstreit on both Saturday college football and “Monday Night Football” for NFL. The network is looking internally to replace Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland, last year’s MNF broadcast team.
▪ The Dream Motor Group, a car dealership chain co-owned by Nick Saban received at least $5 million Payment Protection Plan loan. The group says the money kept 480 employees employed.
▪ Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian had successful heart surgery last week. The 46-year-old was diagnosed with a heart ailment during a physical. He is expected to make a full recovery. Alabama averaged 47.2 points per game last season.
▪ The annual “Red River Shootout” game between Oklahoma and Texas is reportedly not affected by cancellation of Texas State Fair.
▪ Five-star quarterback Caleb Williams has committed to Oklahoma. Williams is considered the top quarterback prospect for 2021.
▪ Oklahoma Coach Lincoln Riley says he prefers fall football but spring season is “very doable.”
▪ Vanderbilt has eliminated its athletic communications department. The school sent an e-mail to employees saying the department was being absorbed and positions were being eliminated.
▪ Ex-East Carolina head coach Ruffin McNeill is joining North Carolina State as special assistant to head coach.
▪ Memphis is going to wear “BLM” decals for “Black Lives Matter” on its helmets for 2020 season.
▪ Chase Goodbread of NFL.com says Georgia is Linebacker U based on its NFL Draft picks over the past 20 years.
▪ Former South Carolina running back and AD King Dixon has died at 83. Dixon played for the Gamecocks from 1956-58, then spent 22 years in the Marines before returning to the school as athletics director. He was AD when South Carolina entered the SEC in 1992.
▪ Austin Peay named Marquase Lovings as interim football coach after head coach Mark Hudspeth unexpectedly resigned this week. Austin Peay went 11-4 last season and Hudsepth was named Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year.
▪ Future Missouri quarterback Tyler Macon was a standout at the Elite 11 quarterback camp last week in Nashville.
▪ Mississippi wide receiver Isaiah Brevard has committed to Oregon. Brevard is ranked as the nation’s 25th-best wide receiver prospect for 2011 by 247Sports. ESPN has Brevard as the best prospect in Mississippi.
▪ Mississippi State commit Kadarius Calloway, flipped to Alabama on Wednesday night. Calloway is out of Philadelphia, Miss. He was also considering Louisville.
▪ Suspended LSU quarterback Peter Parrish is no longer on the team’s roster. Parrish was suspended in March for a violation of team rules. He was redshirted as a true freshman last year behind Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow.
▪ LSU has received its national championship rings. They’re big.
▪ Auburn has added a new lighting system to Jordan-Hare Stadium. It’s bright.
▪ There are reports Jeremy Banks is back working out with the Tennessee football team. A three-star running back out of Georgia, Banks was suspended fro the team after an encounter with Knoxville police.
▪ Colorado wide receiver La’Vontae Shenault was arrested on three charges, including DUI. Shenault is the brother of former Colorado wide out Laviska Shenault, who was a second-round pick of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.
▪ UNLV quarterback Armani Rogers has entered the transfer portal as a grad transfer.
▪ The BYU at Northern Illinois game scheduled for Oct. 24 has been moved from SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Ill to NIU’s Huskie Stadium.
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
