Don’t get too excited about a 10-game SEC football schedule

If there’s one thing the attempted returns of the NBA and MLB have shown us, it’s that sports are currently not feasible outside a bubble.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began earlier this year, many fans have expressed frustrations with members of the sports media for what having what they perceive to be a rooting interest in sports being canceled this fall.

I understand this impulse. We all want sports back. We all want our lives back the way they were before. And when you see someone express doubts about the feasibility of doing so, especially when it’s someone whose job is talking about college sports, it can be irritating. Be forewarned, this is one of those columns.

But I want to be clear: I do not want the football season to be canceled. As a journalism student set to graduate this December, the cancellation of the season would not only potentially impact my current employment. It could also impact my future stability immensely.

But there’s a difference between rooting for sports to be canceled and expressing skepticism and criticism toward the safety considerations (or lack thereof) taken by leagues. There’s a difference between hoping for this disastrous situation to perpetuate and arguing against shortsighted action that jeopardizes the longterm viability of sports.

My sympathies are with the latter when I say that I don’t expect college football to happen this fall, in any capacity.

With the SEC’s announcement on Thursday of a 10-game, conference-only football schedule, the Big 12 is the only Power 5 league yet to adjust its scheduling in a major way. Soon enough, it will follow suit.

But that won’t be enough.

If there’s one thing the attempted returns of the NBA and MLB have shown us, it’s that sports are currently not feasible if they aren’t contained within a bubble. Baseball opening day was just over a week ago, and six teams are already out of action on Friday due to exposure with COVID-positive individuals. Twenty people within the Miami Marlins organization have tested positive.

Baseball is about as socially distanced as a team sport can be, and it’s still spreading like wildfire within organizations. Just imagine, for a second, what would happen if athletics were held on a college campus.

Meanwhile, the NBA’s bubble has been a massive success story. With strict enforcement of rules, the association has had zero positive results in the last two weeks. The NHL began a similar experiment this week.

But an isolated bubble isn’t possible for baseball. And it definitely isn’t possible for football. Team size and logistical issues would keep it from materializing in the NFL, and the sheer number of teams and resource discrepancies would make it a nonstarter at the college level.

Far be it from me to underestimate the stubbornness of college athletics administrators, though. I don’t doubt that they’ll try to have a season at all costs.

The season may start, but it sure as hell won’t finish. And that would be a disaster.

The real shame is that time was never the issue here. The NCAA has had since March to see the writing on the wall and form a backup plan. That time was wasted figuring out exactly how soon it could get players back on campus.

I’m hopeful that a season can happen to some extent, even if it has to be in the spring. But each day that passes, an all-out cancelation seems more and more likely, and the tragedy is that it didn’t have to be this way.

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