Monday Morning Quarterback: Over/under on 50% of FBS college football teams play this year?
We all want college football to happen this year, but the headwinds are strong. The sheer amount of the unknown, the many scenarios that could happen, the large number of details, and the cost of those details are complex and significant.
We know from Sports Illustrated this week that on a call with the White House reopening task force, NCAA president Mark Emmert said officials were preparing as if every team won’t play football this year. Emmert has nowhere near the power or resources that a Roger Goodell or Adam Silver has to make a season happen. It is at the conference level where the decision-making power is on things like players, staffs, scheduling and facilities.
While the NCAA has a basic plan for how the season will transpire, expected to be approved this week, the details are left to the conferences and the teams themselves. Testing is an example – costs, disclosures of testing status, and the legalities for HIPPA are something currently left to the teams. Scheduling, travel, stadium management, quarantine protocol and much more are up to the conferences and teams themselves to work out.
There are lots of moving parts and details in a fairly short period of time for the NCAA plan to happen. Costs, outbreaks and hot zones, and all the other complexities that we are all dealing with will come into play. What do you think, will more than 50% of the 130 FBS schools play in the 2020 season?