Fate of the 2020 college football season could be determined by July 1 “deadline”

Everyone wants an answer now whether we’ll get a college football season. Here’s when we should know if it’ll be canceled, delayed or run as scheduled.

Whether you’re optimistic like Dabo Swinney or pessimistic like Kirk Herbstreit, every college football fan can agree we all hope the 2020 season goes off as scheduled this fall.

College football is very much in a holding pattern as athletic directors, university presidents, coaches and players are in limbo. The COVID-19 global pandemic resulted in spring practices being canceled or ending before they could even start, campuses getting closed and the College World Series getting canceled months in advance.

During these trying times, many of us are looking for a silver lining, a glimmer of hope or a date we can put on our calendar as something to look forward to as the day the world opens up again and life returns to a bit of normalcy.

I’m not a medical expert and I haven’t consulted with Dr. Fauci on this article, but for those wondering when we’ll know if the college football season makes a formal decision, I can help there.

Week 0 is Aug. 29 so if the season is to begin on time, there will need to be at least a month of training camp for teams to get ready for the rigors of the schedule. Plus, they may need a little extra time to make up for the lost time during the spring sessions. Plus, coaches may be working double-time to catch up on all the recruiting they didn’t get to do during the extended dead period.

All that leads to coaches and players likely needing to know whether they need to be ready for business by July 1. Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly is using that as the target date whether to move forward or to continue in limbo.

“There’s going to be a date where we all, as college football administrators and coaches, come up with a date from a player safety standpoint — we have to say this is the date that we can live with to get these young men physically conditioned and ready to go into camp,” Kelly on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt. “… The realistic goal here is probably a minimum of four weeks of conditioning before you put them in camp. College football is going to be affected if we’re not playing in 90 days in terms of a conditioning element in getting these young men ready.”

The latest update from President Trump was to extend the social distancing guidelines to April 30 after initially hoping to open the country up on Easter Sunday. Different states are being affected at different rates by the spread of the coronavirus so one state may be able to loosen the social distancing guidelines in May but other states may need to extend the date until May 31.

It’s a tight window to fit in the college football season on time. I wish I could say everything will be fine by the end of April and 100 players and dozens of coaches and assorted training staff and team and university personnel can all be together on a practice field without risk.

That doesn’t even take into account whether the games will take place in front of 100,000 fans.

Maybe the season begins on time but without fans?

Maybe the season is delayed and the schedule condensed to only play conference games?

Maybe the season is split with a champion being crowned in the spring?

All options are on the table for the decision-makers in college who will decide the fate of the season.

It’s also worth considering the NCAA doesn’t have a commissioner like the professional sports. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was able to act swiftly after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. The other professional leagues quickly followed.

The NCAA didn’t act as swiftly in their response in March when conference tournaments were played, albeit without fans, before halting a game that was already in progress. It was tough to have to cancel March Madness, but the decision should have been made sooner and without so much red tape.

Will the final say come from NCAA President Mark Emmert? Will the league commissioners consult before making a decision? Will the athletic directors, university presidents and Governors weigh in?

All these decisions are compounded by the difficulty that this virus is hitting areas like New York, Illinois and California especially hard. Now it’s spreading in Florida, Louisiana and parts of the southeast.

What if it’s fine to play a game in Arkansas but it’s not safe to play in Alabama?

What if it’s safe to play in Iowa but playing in Ohio isn’t?

How will colleges manage their schedules? Is there a neutral site where games can be played?

The NBA and MLB have explored that possibility.

If there’s a good thing, it’s that we still have time.

We have a little less than three months to do our part to make sure there is a college football season.

If we listen to the medical experts, practice social distancing, stay home, don’t go to work when we’re sick and to wash our hands with soap and water, we’ll be that much closer. Let’s let the medical experts work toward a vaccine and slowing the spread and treating the symptoms and those affected by this virus.

Let’s try and have an optimistic outlook that Swinney is taking and hope we’ll get football this fall.

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