UM AD warns of problems with games in spring
Miami athletic director Blake James went on WQAM to discuss college football news and the ACC and how difficult it would be to play games in the spring. UM president Julio Frenk spoke about virus tests.
The Atlantic Coast Conference deciding for now to proceed with a fall college football season has taken away the mess it would have to deal with if it had to postpone to the spring semester, which the Big 10 and Pac-12 announced they were doing Tuesday.
Of course, there could be more serious messes should the coronavirus become rampant on college campuses, but for now the University of Miami is confident with how its student-athletes have been handling the crisis.
UM president Julio Frenk went on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday, saying there have been “exactly zero new positive cases” among UM student-athletes “the last two tests.’’
Miami athletic director Blake James, speaking on WQAM radio Wednesday, cited spring-semester roadblocks such as players needing to train for the NFL Scouting Combine and then prepare for the late-April draft, the bitter cold for many programs that time of year, having enough time for colleges to get players in game shape and then proceeding very soon with the fall college season.
“I had the opportunity to serve on the football subcommittee,’’ James told WQAM. “We look at a ton of different models. … It just really poses a lot of challenges. You’ll have young people who see an opportunity to go on and earn a living playing a sport that they love that starts having a lot of requirements during that spring period.’’
The spring semester at UM, and most colleges, begins when students return in January from winter break, and lasts through the end of the conventional academic year, usually in May.
SPRING FOOTBALL CHALLENGES
“A home game in Minnesota in January and Feb
ruary every single week is going to get real cold,’’ James said, “and that’s coming from a kid who grew up in Minnesota. It’s something that has a lot of challenges. I hope for the young people in those programs there [that] it can work.
“They’ll have some games — I don’t know if it will be 12 games [because] your window gets very tight. You’ve got to bring the kids back to have a preseason camp and let their bodies get reconditioned to be in game shape and then go forward with the fall schedule. You’ll still have a lot of schools that want to be try to be done by the time their school year ends.
“I’m glad we’re going forward in the fall. Do I think you can make the spring schedule work with adjustments? Yes.”
James strongly believes that UM’s ACC has made the right decision in for now choosing to proceed with football — and all fall sports. He said that all 15 league athletic directors were “unanimous’’ in support of fall sports and the protocols put in place.
“You just don’t see that across the board,’’ he said.
The Southeastern Conference and Big 12, like the
ACC, are for now planning to play football and fall sports, though many programs within smaller conferences have canceled or postponed.
‘ZERO’ POSITIVE TESTS
Frenk, a public health and infectious disease expert who formerly served as the Minister of Health in Mexico, told CNBC that UM has been testing student-athletes “frequently.’’
“I can tell you the last two tests we had exactly zero new positive cases, which demonstrates that young people can be actually trusted to follow rules, contrary again to the stereotype, when there’s a very clear reward, which in this case is to play.
“I cannot tell you what the ACC will do because obviously I’m not authorized. We are in meeting and consulting, but we are mostly driven by a very thorough approach and analyzing all the options and reasking the question, ‘What is best for our students?’ ’’
UM defensive end Jaelan Phillips, a former UCLA player who transferred to UM last year and was the No. 1 recruit in the nation in the class of 2017, told reporters late Tuesday during a Zoom videoconference that he focuses “on what’s ahead” of him and tries “to take it day by day.”
“In these times, this world is so easy to get caught up in what’s going on outside of where you are that a lot of people aren’t present,’’ Phillips said. “It’s great that we’ve been able to come together and that Coach [Manny] Diaz and President Frenk have been able to have all these protocols where we’re safe.’’
James was asked by WQAM host Joe Rose how he explains medical experts all having different opinions on the coronavirus and how it will affect student-athletes.
“I’m not a medical person,’’ James said. “You have to go with the information you have and trust the experts you have in place. If the information that certain people are getting has them feeling what’s best for this situation is to go in one direction, I can only go with the information that we have.
“I trust from the doctors at Miami and throughout the ACC and the medical institutions we have, they are looking at all avenues and are really going to side on what’s best for our students. Given everything that’s out there, [the ACC] was supportive of us going forward.”
PLAYOFF/ORANGE BOWL
As for how this has all affected the College Football Playoff National Championship that South Florida is scheduled to host Jan. 11 at Hard Rock Stadium,
Orange Bowl Committee CEO Eric Poms released this statement:
“Since the pandemic first adversely impacted collegiate sports in early March, we have been in constant communication with our conference partners and the College Football Playoff regarding both the 87th Capital One Orange Bowl and the 2021 College Football Playoff National Championship. It has been and continues to be a fluid situation, and even with [Tuesday’s] announcements there remain a number of unknown variables as to what effect it will have on both college football’s regular season and subsequently its post-season for this year.
“We will stay in contact with college football leadership and continue to monitor the situation closely with community partners, including the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium as well as with civic leaders.”
James told WQAM cohost Zach Krantz that he would accept playing in a “national championship’’ game that includes fewer conferences.
“If it means we play 11 games and a bowl game, if they want to crown one of us a national champion, great,’’ James said.