If you’ve taken a look around the world of college football lately you haven’t gotten a ton of good news in regards to the 2020 season. Sure, Notre Dame and Michigan both came back with no positive tests recently, but places like Ohio State and North Carolina along with plenty of others have seen positive tests sky-rocket.
Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick has seen it to, saying Thursday that the chances of the season starting on time have taken a big hit recently.
Swarbrick spoke with ESPN’s Heather Dench and although he’s not punting on a week one start at Navy, he doesn’t seem to be packing his bags to attend, either.
“It has grown more pessimistic over the past two weeks, but I’m not to a point to say we shouldn’t continue to plan for the potential to open on time,” said Swarbrick. “I just think it’s less likely. We have to shift our allocations a little bit — a little more time on planning the alternatives, and a little less time on planning routine go forward.”
I’m with Swarbrick on this one. As good of news as it was to see no positive tests were had by Notre Dame’s football team earlier this week, that’s not the case elsewhere as cases continue to soar on many campuses.
Swarbrick also spoke about the great job Notre Dame’s football team has done following guidelines in order to prevent any potential outbreak of COVID-19 in their locker room.
“It’s so much about the guys and talking with [them], making sure there’s an understanding, appealing to them to do all they can to protect their season”
They understand there’s only two to an elevator in the hotel. They understand they’re not to congregate in rooms. And they’re just doing it.”
The news out of Notre Dame was good to see earlier this week but across much of the rest of the nation things were a bit sour. Swarbrick is reading the same news reports we all seem to be and appears to be thinking very realistically about all of this.
Here’s to hoping somehow that game at Navy does end up taking place on Labor Day weekend.