Playing, coaching during pandemic terribly difficult
Programs expected, disruptions; pushing forward only option
College football began Saturday with another postponement, the 18th of the week, and a dispute between Clemson and Florida State.
Clemson wanted to play, even though it brought a player to Tallahassee, Florida, who tested positive on Friday night. Florida State medical officials said no, and the Tigers went home mad.
Right is hardly worth arguing. Both schools reasonably can claim appropriately following protocols and decisions approved by experts.
“We listened to our medical folks and their assessment of the risk and we decided it wasn’t safe to play today,” Florida State athletic director David Coburn said.
This is the season college football signed up for when conferences decided to play through a pandemic that is raging worse than it has all year.
Complain about contact tracing putting healthy athletes in quarantine. Complain about false positives causing players to miss games, causing teams to call games. Complain about conferences not allowing teams to schedule makeup games on short notice. Complain about one team deciding it won’t play while another team believes there is no reason not to play.
It’s all frustrating and especially disappointing for players, who are being asked to follow a litany of rules that make life anything but normal so they can have a chance to compete.
It is also all very predictable, and everybody making decisions about whether to play gave fair warning this was coming.
“We will have disruptions during the season,” Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said in May. “I fully expect that we’ll have an outbreak on Wednesday afternoon and games may need to be canceled on Saturday. We’ll need to understand shutdown procedures and how we go about quarantining when the need arises.”
No. 4 Clemson at Florida State was the 18th game called out of 62 scheduled for this week. That’s 29 percent. Last week 25 percent (15 of 59) of the games were canceled or postponed.
Louisiana-lafayette coach Billy Napier became the 17th to publicly acknowledge testing positive for COVID-19. The 24th-ranked Ragin’ Cajuns had their game called off this weekend and returned to practice Saturday, without their coach.
College football can’t control the pandemic. Nothing seems to be controlling the pandemic. So college football will continue to push through, hoping for the best and trying to complete the season before it turns into a farce.
Last word
The College Football Playoff rankings debut Tuesday. Generally, the first rankings create a fair amount of noise. Plenty of teams have started at or near the top four and were nowhere to be found by the time the final and only rankings that matter come out in December.
There is a little more intrigue in these rankings because this season is so weird. No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 4 Clemson have each played eight games. No. 1 Alabama seven. No. 5 Texas A&M six. No. 3 Ohio State four. No. 11 Oregon three.
How will the committee sort through that?
Even more interesting will be how the committee judges No. 7 Cincinnati, No. 8 Brigham Young and some of the other unbeatens outside the Power Five.
If those teams have any shot of cracking the top four, and realistically only the Bearcats have a case, where they start matters.
Cincinnati played maybe its toughest opponent of the season and came away with a victory against Central Florida on Saturday.
The Bearcats still have some games left in the American Athletic Conference to further impress the committee. If all goes well, Cincinnati and No. 25 Tulsa could play two straight weeks to end the season.
BYU had a glorified scrimmage against North Alabama and has just one game left against San Diego State on Dec. 12. The Cougars are trying to add games, and college football fans could not help but notice that Cincinnati and BYU are both off Dec. 5 after some schedule shuffling by the American.
As great as it would be for fans, the chances Cincinnati would schedule a game against BYU ahead of its regular-season finale at Tulsa — which will likely lead to an AAC championship game against Tulsa — seems unlikely.
The Bearcats need to prioritize winning their conference, which might not get them in the playoff but would definitely get them a New Year’s Six bowl bid.
Even BYU might be best served finishing 10-0 and hoping that’s good enough to get a Fiesta Bowl bid. Though the Cougars have a tougher path to one of those big games as an independent.
What could make Cincinnati and BYU decide to get together? If the rankings come out Tuesday and Cincinnati and BYU are both ranked in about the same spots they are by the AP, maybe they’ll see a game against each other as a way of cracking the top four.