Debate continues as another conference pulls the plug on fall college football
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Players have to consider all the risks. Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports writes, “Good for the players speaking their mind, but any argument over what appears to be a forthcoming decision not to play college sports this fall isn’t about desire. Anything short of a players association to negotiate such things renders that argument moot. This is about common sense.”
College football is going, but not quite gone. Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes, “To reiterate: The belief here remains that there’ll be no college football this fall. On Sunday, this correspondent asked a leading figure in the industry to handicap the odds of there being a season. The response: 25-75 against, even bleaker than that person’s 40-60 assessment late last month. But 25-75, we note, isn’t 0-100.”
Mountain West postpones fall football. Brandon Judd of the Desert News reports on the decision. “Since the start of the pandemic, our membership and staff have been working diligently to prepare for a fall sports season,” MW Commissioner Craig Thompson said in a statement. “We were hopeful we could carefully and responsibly conduct competition as originally scheduled with essential protocols in place. However, numerous external factors and unknowns outside our control made this difficult decision necessary.”
There is a rationale for trying to play. Mark Story of the Herald-Leader writes, “In many walks of life, a trial-and-error approach is going to be required to figure out what can and cannot be sustained in a coronavirus world. For that reason, I hope at least one major conference tries to play football this fall. Just to see if it can be done safely.”
Leaders getting it all wrong. Dan Wolken of USA Today writes, “If any other multi-billion dollar business in America were run as poorly as college sports, it would be ripe for a hostile takeover. If any other company’s leadership was as divided, absent and frozen in the face of big decisions as what we’ve seen over the past few days in college football, its stock price would’ve sunk so low it would be in danger of getting tossed from the NASDAQ.”
College football drama intensifies. Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated writes, “This was an alliance that had to conflict many college football fans, and more than a few coaches and administrators. The #WeAreUnited group took on a lot of resistance, being labeled troublemakers and opportunists from defenders of the status quo. The #WeWantToPlay group was championed by some of the critics of the former group because, well, fans want football. But they also want compliant, quiet college football players, which made that a tough line to walk.”
Just end the charade. Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes, “These players aren’t merely a means to keep us entertained between Labor Day and New Year’s. They aren’t just cogs in a big corporate wheel that will chew them up and spit them out and occasionally pay them with diplomas. They’re somebody’s children.”
College sports built on fragile economic foundation. Pat Dooley of the Gainesville Sun writes, “At about 8 p.m. Saturday, it looked as if (according to my cell phone) college football season would be canceled for the fall. At 9 p.m., it felt like it might be postponed. At 10, it was done, at 11 it was iffy, at midnight it was back on. This is the world we live in today where the stories change hourly and may or may not be true. It’s almost like a coaching search where our jobs are to check out fires and put out some and fan the flames of others. Except lives are at stake here.”
Satterfield laments lack of leadership. Jerry Tipton of the Herald-Leader reports on Louisville football coach Scott Satterfield. “Satterfield suggested his players shed tears of frustration. Optimism about playing shares a car with pessimism on this roller coaster of a preseason set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic. This came to a head after what the coach called “a great practice” on Saturday. Then U of L and the rest of the college athletics world learned that the Mid-American Conference had announced its teams would not play football this year.”
Let’s quit acting like preserving football is about the players. Shawn Windsor of the Detroit Free Press writes, “The silence wasn’t about a lack of relevancy. And I doubt any of these coaches meant disrespect to the Toledos and Central Michigans of the world when they didn’t stand up for those schools’ programs. But their lack of lobbying reminds us how narrowly so many view the scope of college football, and which conferences actually matter.”
What would no Big Ten mean for the SEC? Blake Toppmeyer of the Knoxville News Sentinel writes, “In times like these, the SEC likes to get chesty and let the sports world know that the actions of another conference don’t affect the mighty SEC. We saw that after the Big Ten became the first FBS conference to announce a move to a conference-only schedule in July. Days later, (Greg) Sankey said on ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ that the Big Ten’s decision had limited bearing on his league.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 7:14 AM.
