It is currently unclear how the 2020 college football season will operate amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, but ESPN’s Paul Finebaum recently suggested that the season will not start on time.
“I don’t think we’re going to start on time,” Finebaum said while appearing on ESPN’s Get Up. “I think the odds of starting September 5 are very, very slim.”
Finebaum’s comments come shortly after California State University System’s Chancellor Timothy White announced that the 23 campuses in the system will remain largely virtual for the fall semester. The announcement led to a number of speculations regarding the 2020 college football season, as the announcement could prohibit student-athletes from being on campus, potentially delaying the season.
While appearing on Get Up, Finebaum suggested that the decision by White was a “dangerous,” sign for the start of the college football season.
Despite Finebaum’s opinion on the start of the season and the decision by White in California, NCAA President Mark Emmert recently stated that the organization will not mandate a uniform return to college sports for all institutions of higher learning.
“Normally, there’s an agreed-upon start date for every sport, every season,” Emmert told ESPN. “But under these circumstances, now that’s all been derailed by the pandemic. It won’t be the conferences that can do that either. It will be local and state health officials that say whether or not you can open and play football with fans.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, recently suggested that sports could come back, but fans will need to be prohibited from attending games.
“There’s a way of doing that,” Fauci said during a recent interview, in regard to sports returning this summer. “Nobody comes to the stadium. Put [the players] in big hotels, wherever you want to play, keep them very well surveilled. Have them tested every single week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family and just let them play the season out.”
At least in Michigan, stadiums will not fill to capacity later this year. That policy, announced by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, would include football stadiums at the University of Michigan and Michigan State, among other schools.
“We also have to measure (peoples’) expectations and say life’s going to be different. We’re not going to be filling stadiums in the fall,” Whitmer said.
Notre Dame’s Athletic Director Jack Swarbick made similar comments, stating, “we haven’t gotten to the question of how big that audience is, but we won’t be at capacity.”
“We’ll do something less than that and we’ll be very careful about maintaining social distance, how the facility works, how you enter it and exit it,” Swarbick added during an interview, according to Rivals. “All things are to be determined and we’re working hard on [it].”
