Students returning to campus will decide fate of college football

Students are back on campus. Almost immediately, UNC and Notre Dame have stopped in-person classes. Are we actually going to play college football?

The week following the announcement of the Big Ten and Pac-12 postponing all fall sports until the spring, the other three power conferences have seemed to be set to move forward with their seasons. The SEC has gone ahead and released their full schedule in a made-for-TV special supposed to reassure everybody that the season will go ahead as planned.

Meanwhile, last week the ACC consulted their top medical advisor, Dr. Cameron Wolfe, who is also an infectious disease specialist, to determine the feasibility of a football season.

According to Wolfe in Sports Business Daily,

"“…I do believe you can sufficiently mitigate the risk of bringing COVID onto the football field or into the training room at a level that’s no different than living as a student on campus.”"

Sounds good.

However, the most important part of this statement is at the end regarding the students on campus. Which leads to the news developing right now. So far, most infections have been off-campus. This continued last Saturday, when nine members of the Oklahoma Sooners tested positive for COVID-19, which was determined to be community spread.

This is to be expected, but the real test that has been brewing across this nation is how schools will handle the return of large numbers of students back on campus and to their towns. Among those in favor of returning are some of the game’s biggest names. In a series of tweets, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence has said that,

"“People are at just as much, if not more risk, if we don’t play. Players will all be sent home to their own communities where social distancing is highly unlikely and medical care and expenses will be placed on the families if they were to contract COVID-19. He also added, “We are more likely to get the virus in everyday life than playing football.”"

Nick Saban has echoed the same sentiment telling ESPN,

"“Look, players are a lot safer with us than they are running around at home. We have around a two percent positive ratio on our team since the Fourth of July. It’s a lot higher than that in society.”"

While in theory what they are saying seems true, what they are specifically referring to are the football programs and facilities. The part that isn’t mentioned is the campus itself and the surrounding community. This is the greatest threat to the sport.

On Monday, the University of North Carolina decided to move all undergraduate learning online just a week after classes began following a sharp rise in novel coronavirus cases at Chapel Hill. On Tuesday, Notre Dame moved classes online for the next two weeks after more students tested positive on their campus. It seems inevitable that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

We have now approached zero hour for many schools around the country. So far, the protocols and procedures across many levels of education make sense. These are determined by individual institutions, but broad requirements such as masks, sanitizer, spaced seating, intense cleaning and partially online classes sound good in practice. There is a plan. School must go on — for as long as it can last.

The fact remains that campuses and their surrounding communities contain large groups of people in common areas. Also, human behavior is not going to always follow reason. Already, parties are taking place near universities, so perhaps it is not surprising that college-aged students led the summer surge in COVID-19 cases. What about October and November when the traditional cold and flu season arrives?

On the other hand, many people, including college students themselves, assert that the vast majority of young people will not be affected by the virus even if they show symptoms, and the odds of someone in their age range dying, especially a football player, is incredibly small, at least according to the CDC. Just because people occasionally die in automobile accidents does not mean we should ban all automobiles, right?

However, the point of all of this is not just to prevent one college student from possibly becoming critically ill, it is also to prevent an outbreak that can spread. While the vaguely distant threat of litigation also looms over college administrations, the main issue really has been trying to contain the fire before it burns out of control. That is why UNC went to remote learning after the COVID-19 positivity rate rose from 2.8 percent to 13.6 percent of students tested.

So what does this all mean for college football?  Unlike the rest of the student body, players already live in a semi-permeable bubble of similar living arrangements, facilities and consistent access to testing. Many are already taking online classes. They might stay safe.

That said, even if players test positive, teams will try to continue on the best they can. If necessary, they can postpone games and try to reschedule.

A real test will come if schools are forced to postpone or cancel in-person classes. Even then, it’s possible that teams could still play. An argument could be made that as long as there are no positives, it should be safe. In a telling moment, so far, UNC is still planning to play this fall (students are still allowed on campus even though some have left). However, playing under these circumstances would effectively throw the last feigned vestiges of amateurism and the term “student-athlete” right out the window. Stunningly, this seems to be the case.

Ironically, Tar Heel head coach Mack Brown has said,

"“Even with not going to classrooms, that helps us create a better seal around our program and a better bubble.”"

Perhaps we are now witnessing the precedent being set that will ensure that college football will happen this year. How do we avoid an outbreak among returning students and still play sports. Even if things get bad, just cancel classes. Just please make sure to keep at least some students on campus.

I’ve debated whether opening schools and playing football is the right thing to do, and actually, I’m still not sure. The effectiveness of remote learning in 2020 is still up for debate, but what is certain among the sport’s stakeholders is that you can’t play football online.