Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
4th and a long shot
Is college football reaching the point to punt on its season?
It’s draining staying positive in a pandemic. Have you noticed? That’s what draws everyone to sports, too. The hope. The fun. The good stories like the Miami Marlins’ Eddy Alvarez winning an Olympic silver medal for speed skating in 2014 and getting his first major-league hit on Sunday.
Of course, Alvarez got his chance in part because 18 Marlins tested positive for the coronavirus. They couldn’t play. These 18 Marlins haven’t played for more than two weeks. When will they again? And what kind of season will they have? Who knows?
You see how exhausting it is staying positive right now?
This is a long-winded way to say it’s time for college football to punt on this season. It’s a mess. It has no leadership. Rather, it has leadership like the rest of this country — one group thinking one thing, another group doing the opposite and so there being a dozen plans instead of a coherent, cohesive one.
So, yes, it’s time for college football to suspend play — although it is just a month from the opening kickoff. Delay the season to spring, if someone can come up with a plan for then. Fast forward everything to next year if that’s the best option.
It’s difficult enough to see how the NFL, with all its money and professional organization, will pull off its season. Colleges? What many inside the game saw coming for months was the topic of an “emergency” meeting by the five biggest conferences — the Power 5, as they’re called. You’ve got to love that. Rome has been on fire for months. Smaller conferences like the Ivy League and Mid-American Conference canceled seasons. Finally, the Power 5 had an emergency meeting.
Don’t look to the NCAA for direction. Its waiting for marching orders from these lead college officials in the same manner a pro sports commissioners wait for the owners to tell them what to do. And, well, a vast majority of Big Ten presidents want to suspend the season, ESPN reported.
That tells you where this is going. Rutgers canceled its football season after having 50 players test positive. Fifty. That’s a big number. It’s not a big surprise. If baseball has problems with all the money, safety codes and rosters with one-third the number of players — who are professionals, it’s no wonder colleges will have problems.
The search for the positive here lands on the players. Last week, Pac-12 players wrote demands for safety for the season to be held. University of Central Florida players echoed the idea.
University of Miami players wrote they want to play the season, because, “So much work has been put in,’’ as tight end Brevin Jordan tweeted.
It’s hard to say college football players are empowered, but at least they’re being heard. And who doesn’t respect their wish to play the game?
Still, there’s a reason why some of the college’s best players, like Miami’s Greg Rousseau, opted out of this season to turn pro. If college football is going to make a business decision by having a season in a pandemic, shouldn’t players make business decisions, too?
College sports should have a fundamental rule: When campus is safe for students to study, it’s safe for the athletes to play. And right now the campuses aren’t open. How did the school presidents allow sports to practice this summer in that environment?
They looked the other way, pretended it wasn’t happening — or, if it was happening, it was like Taj Mahal workout facilities, the athletic dorms and all the other ways colleges spend money on players without actually paying them.
That’s another riff. This one is about punting on the college season. Some fans wonder: How can a sportswriter be against sports being played?
This sportswriter wonders: How can fans not care at all about players’ health?
This is a health issue, first and foremost.
Some have put politics, finances or their own fun ahead of that. But at some point the emergency meeting has to be about health and only health.
No, this isn’t the August anyone envisioned. The Marlins were the Typhoid Mary of baseball. The Dolphins canceled preseason, limited practices and have players hopping on and off the coronavirus list. The Heat are playing in what sounds like a hermetically sealed bubble in Orlando.
And college football?
Who knows?
Its leaders had an “emergency” meeting on Sunday. The emergency seems to be everyone knows what must be done and no one wants to say it. I’ll say it, even if its not fun, positive or why I got into sportswriting: Punt.