Sports have essentially been put on pause during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the MLB’s restart on July 23, it had been since mid-March since a major sports league had played a regular-season game.
College Football in the Big 12 is slated to begin on Aug. 29 when Oklahoma plays host to Missouri State and Southern Illinois travels to Kansas. Sept. 12 is the first conference matchup between Baylor and Kansas and the first full week of Big 12 games is Week 5 on Oct. 3.
What if the Big 12 followed other Power Five conferences in the Big 10 and Pac 12, canceled all of their nonconference games, and moved the entire conference into a ‘bubble’?
If the three major American sports already beginning/restarting their seasons have shown anything, the ‘bubble’ is probably a safer alternative than traveling. Even with no fans in attendance.
Four days into its restart and Major League Baseball already has a coronavirus outbreak within the Miami Marlins. According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, 11 of the 33 Marlins’ players, plus two coaches, have tested positive for the coronavirus while still playing games in Philadelphia.
Baseball decided to not adopt the ‘bubble’ method the NBA and NHL decided to use to restart their seasons. With basketball in Orlando and hockey taking place in Edmonton and Toronto, it has gone much better.
The NHL announced Monday morning of the 4,256 tests and 800 players tested, zero came back positive, keeping their bubble clean. As for the NBA, according to Shams Charania’s report on July 20, 346 people had been tested since July 13 and the ‘bubble’ in Orlando had zero positive cases.
Translate this to football and each of the 10 Big 12 teams could temporarily relocate to Arlington, Texas to save the 2020 college football season.
Of course, since this is college football, athletes must be enrolled in courses at their respective schools. Thankfully, it seems as if most universities are inevitably going online for the fall semester. The student-athletes would not be missing any of their classes, instead, doing them remotely in the ‘bubble’.
So why Arlington?
First, six of the conference’s representatives are withing a five-hour drive of the city. The state of Texas is considered the main state of the conference, as the Big 12 headquarters are only 20 minutes away in Irving.
Next, the conference could host a majority of its games in one of the nicest stadiums in the world, AT&T Stadium.
The Big 12 Championship game is already hosted at the stadium on an annual basis and the two parties have a solid relationship. Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby could find a way to strike a deal.
It would be nearly impossible to play all five conference games in one stadium on a Saturday however and would require another stadium.
Luckily Globe Life Field, a four-minute drive away, has been transformed from a baseball field into a football field. Local high schools are already scheduled to play games there.
Here is what a hypothetical game week could look like in the Big 12 ‘bubble’:
- One Friday night game at AT&T Stadium
- Three games on Saturday spanning from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. start times at AT&T Stadium
- One Saturday game at Globe Life Field
This would ensure all 10 teams play their games within the same time frame and are able to equally recover. Bye weeks could even be implemented, making sure nobody is coming off a short week.
We already know AT&T Stadium can handle multiple games in one day as the UIL hosts up to four Texas high school playoff games there a day. The stadium also has multiple locker rooms, making sure each team could distance from one another.
Nine conference games would require nine weeks minimum in the ‘bubble’. If the conference wanted to continue with the Big 12 Championship, two teams would be required to stay another week.
Teams would also need to quarantine for 10-14 days before traveling to Arlington.
On the field would be the least of the Big 12’s problems. Off the field is where the real questions would emerge.
Yes, spending nearly three months in a ‘bubble’ is a considerable amount of time away from friends and family. Especially when there is no compensation going towards the players for their services.
Looking past time spent away, housing well over 1,000 people would become the main issue when mapping the ‘bubble’ out. Does the city have the capabilities to host that many people in such a small area?
That is before taking into account rooms for meetings, film, coronavirus testing, and weights. It would take a lot for 10 schools to uplift their programs to Arlington.
Also, could the quality of life be good enough? Nobody is going to agree to live inside this ‘bubble’ without up to standard necessities such as food, entertainment, and housing.
The NBA and NHL have already proven the ‘bubble’ is the safest way to have a season midst a global pandemic. Since the Big 12 is not a professional sports league, a ‘bubble’ method for their season is highly unlikely.
However, if there is a way the conference can pull it off, they should. Staying in Arlington for nearly three months would keep coaches, trainers, and players as safe as possible.
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