Respected ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit upset many fans and disheartened even more the other day when he actually said what many in the college football community are at least thinking:
No football this fall.
Insert sad emoji face here.
Herbstreit said that he believes football season, college and pro, will be canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a recent interview with ESPN Radio, Herbstreit said, “I’ll be shocked if we have NFL football this fall, if we have college football. I’ll be so surprised if that happens. Just because from what I understand, people that I listen to, you’re 12 to 18 months from a (coronavirus) vaccine. I don’t know how you let these guys go into locker rooms and let stadiums be filled up and how you can play ball. I just don’t know how you can do it with the optics of it.
“Next thing you know you got a locker room full of guys that are sick. And that’s on your watch? I wouldn’t want to have that. As much as I hate to say it, I think we’re scratching the surface of where this thing’s gonna go. You don’t all of the sudden come up with something in July or August and say, ‘OK, we’re good to go’ and turn ‘em loose.”
Herbstreit may, in fact, be right in the traditional sense.
Maybe we don’t have a conventional football season in the fall.
Maybe instead we have an unconventional football season in the spring.
UCF radio voice Marc Daniels, one of the smartest people I know, broached this idea to me the other day and at first I admittedly thought it was far-fetched, but the more I think about it, the more I think it could actually work.
We already know how economically devastating it would be, particularly for college athletic budgets, if there is no football season at all.
As University of Florida athletics director Scott Stricklin told me last week, “From a financial standpoint, if we’re not playing football games in the fall, it will shake the foundation of college athletics. As everyone knows, football pays for the enterprise to go forward.”
Added UCF AD Danny White: “Financially, it would be devastating. … I don’t know what would happen or how it would play out if we didn’t play football this fall.”
If you can’t play football this fall then why not play football this spring?
Could that happen?
“If that’s the only way to get in a football season, it would have to happen,” White says. “I don’t think college football can afford NOT to exhaust every single option. It would be very, very difficult for us to figure how to survive financially if we lost a season of football revenue.”
White and Stricklin and every other college administrator is hoping for the best, which would be football players back on campus this summer training, going through fall drills and then playing the normal 12-game season. However, they are all brainstorming and spit-balling ideas to come up with contingency plans.
It seems more and more likely that most college campuses throughout the state and nation won’t be physically open throughout the summer and will teach students remotely. If that’s the case, are they really going to make a special exception for 150 football players, coaches and staff members to come to campus and train?
And football’s not like golf, where Tiger Woods can go the driving range alone to work on his game. Football is physical team sport in which college players, particularly incoming freshman, must be trained properly to get acclimated to the rigors of the game.
“I’m hoping we have a window of opportunity in late June where we can get kids back on campus and get them properly prepared to play,” White says. “Football is our most violent sport and a lot of thought needs to be put into the health and safety aspect. We can’t take shortcuts with that sort of thing.”
The other main concern about getting in a “traditional” college football season is whether it will be safe in late August and early September for 100,000 fans to pack into a stadium. And let’s be honest, shall we? If you’re not going to allow fans in the stands, the financial ramifications for most college programs will still be immense.
Yes, the elite Power 5 schools cash a $30 million to $50 million check from their conference TV deals, but they still make most of their money from season-ticket sales, concessions, parking and donations for premium seating and luxury suites from those well-heeled donors who like to be treated like kings and queens at football games.
Group of 5 schools like UCF would be hit even harder if they were forced to play without fans. Without those big TV checks to subsidize their programs, the UCFs of the world are almost totally reliant on fannies in seats to stay afloat.
And, so, if it’s not safe in September or October to have a conventional football season in fan-filled stadiums then why not push the season back to November or December or even January when hopefully it would be safe.
If the XFL can play a 10-game spring season why can’t the Gators, ‘Noles and Knights? If college teams are playing spring games in March and April then why not play real games?
“If it comes to it, we’re all going to have be willing to be creative and flexible to make sure we get a season in,” White says.
Here’s hoping Kirk Herbstreit is wrong and we’re all tailgating, drinking beers together and packing into football stadiums in the fall, but if he’s right …
A spring football season is better than no football season at all.
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