Since the delay of this years spring and summer sports seasons and postseasons, fans have been holding on to the hope that football would proceed with as minor of alterations as possible.
At the moment, the NFL season looks to still be going forward as planned, and although there is no news surrounding any delays to the college football season, there have been some troubling occurrences over the past few weeks.
Last week there was reports that the Clemson football team had 23 players test positive for COVID-19, that goes along with defending national champion LSU Tigers who placed 30 players into quarantine following an unreleased amount of tests.
Even Alabama has had the virus find its way into the locker room as five players had tested positive for the virus as well, per BamaInsider
These are the numbers that have come in from the offseason, social distanced driven workouts, and the numbers may only increase for practices haven’t even begun which requires even more contact.
It’s these types of occurrences that have a chance to pile up and possibly cause an issue for the season.
ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum is someone who already believes it’s only a matter of time before the announcement of the season being delayed.
“College football is just an absolute hot mess right now,” said Finebaum on the ESPN program “Get Up!” on Friday. “You have so many different views and really no leader, as has been pointed out many, many times.
“Greg Sankey the SEC commissioner, joined us last night on our program and he said that conference alone has between 15 and 20 contingency plans. I mean I don’t know where you come up with all of those. But they refuse to admit that this is going be an insurmountable challenge.
“I think what Laura (Rutledge) said is really where you have to keep your eye on. By now we thought we would know everything. We don’t know anything. And I think we’re now pointing towards mid July for the next big decision and I think many people in college football privately, nobody publicly saying this, but privately are saying that the likelihood of the season being delayed is very good.”
Laura Rutledge who was also on the show revealed that there are some players at schools who are banning together to try and let their concerns be known to the NCAA.
This comes on the heels of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discussing the possibility of the NFL continuing as planned this season. He said that if there is no drop off in positive cases and if the season isn’t played in a bubble then “football may not happen this year.”
In terms of the college game there can’t be a scenario of only playing games in a bubble. There are too many schools, staff and players and not enough locations. Not to mention there would be concerns over their education if they are constricted to only taking online classes while in person classes are taking place on campus.
Regardless, there is still no word on whether there will be any sort of delay on the season. But questions are beginning to arise.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
