Rising positive tests puts football in doubt

The number of COVID-19 cases are rising again in the United States, especially among those under the age of 35 and especially in states such as California, Arizona, Texas and Florida.

If that trend continues over the next month or so, the odds of a college football season being played in 2020 will decrease significantly.

Sandy Barbour, Penn State’s director of athletics, understands that. She and her peers are following the numbers as intently as anyone.

As of Wednesday, more than 2.6 million cases have been reported in the United States; more than 127,000 Americans have died.

“There’s no doubt there’s been a little bit of pessimism in the last couple of weeks that we really hadn’t had in four to six weeks,” she said Wednesday. “We had been ticking up on the optimism scale. It’s part of the ebb and flow of the virus.

“Obviously, my hope is that as people start looking at the masking and social distancing again and all of the precautions and maybe recommitting to the seriousness of this, that we’ll see it flatten out.”

All of us who love college football can only hope. The reality, though, is that it’s a contact sport. And with all of us being asked to stay 6 feet away from others, how can football possibly be played without spreading the coronavirus?

Sheldon Jacobson is a University of Illinois professor whose research helped design TSA PreCheck in airports. He told Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports.com this week that using data from the Centers for Disease Control, he projects a 30-50% infection rate this year for the estimated 13,000 players in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Clemson has reported that even with controlled and voluntary workouts, 30% of its football players have tested positive. Alabama, Auburn, Boise State, Kansas State, Texas and UCF are among the other schools who’ve had multiple players infected.

What would happen if — heaven forbid — a college football player died from the virus? Jacobson told Dodd that he projects between three and seven deaths from COVID-19 this fall if there’s a season.

“Whatever it is that we’re going to do, we’re going to do it only if it’s safe and healthy,” Barbour said. “Given the uncertainty, we’ve had to work on a lot of plans, a lot of different scenarios.

“If it’s healthy and safe to do it (have a college football season), we’ll obviously do it. If it’s not, we won’t.”

Barbour and other athletic directors at major colleges are dealing with potentially devastating economic consequences if there’s no football season. At Penn State and similar schools, football financially supports almost all other sports.

Anticipating a revenue shortfall, she expects to institute pay cuts within the Penn State athletic department in the coming weeks.

And then there’s the impact that football weekends have on shops, restaurants and hotels in the State College area, which is enormous. If there are no games, fewer games or games with very limited crowds, it would be crippling to those businesses.

“We know it would be a mess,” Barbour said.

The FBS season is scheduled to begin Aug. 29, and several options remain on the table. They include starting the season several weeks later, teams playing only conference games and moving the season to the spring, which Barbour said would be a “last resort.”

Opponents in non-football sports have already contacted Penn State and canceled games that were scheduled in the fall.

Barbour was pleased that none of the 102 Penn State athletes on campus who had been tested for COVID-19 was found to have the virus. She praised the university’s sports medicine team, sports performance team, its support staff and, most importantly, the athletes themselves.

But what happens when football begins full-contact practices? Or when the entire student population returns to campus in late August for in-person classes? Will COVID-19 spread quickly?

That’s why there are doubts about whether a college football season will be played this fall.

“If it’s not the right thing to do, most importantly for our students, we’re just not doing it,” Barbour said. “Yes, there would be a significant financial ramification to it. There would be a significant community — economic and morale — ramification to it.

“But none of it is worth risking the health and safety of our students and coaches, staff and community.”