It’s beginning to look more and more like we’ll have college football this fall. What that looks like in each city, state, and campus remains to be seen as things open up like patchwork, but the signs are looking good.
First, there was the news that Ohio State was ready to welcome football players to campus on June 8, then the NCAA D-1 Committee voted to allow voluntary on-campus workouts as of June 1. Then, Wednesday, Ohio State announced plans to have in-person learning on campus this fall.
You can now add one more signpost that says college football is likely to happen — at least at Ohio State.
While speaking at a Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday, OSU president Michael Drake said that things are moving forward towards having college football on campus this fall.
“Regarding football, our hope and intention is to safely have a football season, with an audience spaced out in our stadium, but we haven’t made any final decisions,” Drake said.
This comes just a couple of weeks after athletic director Gene Smith said Ohio State is fortunate with its setup in regards to the stadium.
“Obviously, we’re fortunate 100,000 seats in the stadium,” Smith reiterated. “So, could we implement the current CDC guidelines, the state guidelines around physical distancing, mask requirements, and all those types of things in an outdoor environment and have obviously significantly less fans than what we are used to? I think it’s possible. I just feel like we have the talent, skill, and space capacity to provide an opportunity for a certain number of fans to have access to our particular stadium. Of course, that wouldn’t be true across the country because of capacity. But I think we can get there.”
Smith also said he is getting more comfortable with the idea of holding games without fans if need be. He had originally had a hard time envisioning allowing athletes on campus if it wasn’t safe enough to have students on campus.
That too may be a moot point, after Drake’s announcement for classes this autumn. Yet another nod to things getting back to closer to normal.
As the major sports become to come to the table with return-to-play plans, and with all of these comments and actions beginning to align, things are looking good for Ohio State to kick off its college football season on September 5 against Bowling Green.
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