You might have heard this from time to time, but America has really screwed up its response to COVID-19. You don’t have to be a member of a specific political party, or an adherent of a specific ideology or worldview, to realize this. Incompetence is a global, universal language. Everyone can see it, even if people might disagree on the details of what represents incompetence.
This next college football story should be easy for everyone to see as a demonstration of incompetence and a failure of leadership:
Sources have told @TheAthleticCFB that Oklahoma and Texas still intend to play their rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, provided it’s safe to do so. No appetite to shift to home-and-home: https://t.co/CNS4kV29gD
— Nicole Auerbach 😷 (@NicoleAuerbach) August 4, 2020
This should not be so damn difficult: In a season when there will be few to no fans at college football games — and that’s under the BEST-CASE SCENARIO of actually having a season to play! — the idea of playing NEUTRAL-SITE GAMES is ridiculous!
Come on!
This cannot be so hard to figure out: Why have two teams travel to a third — off-campus — game location? Why have twice the number of bus or plane trips (four instead of only two)? Why have two schools leave campus to play a game instead of having only one of the two leave campus? Why not have one of the two teams stay on campus, providing a far better logistical setup? Why require a third municipality — in this case, Dallas — handle logistics for a game, which adds complexity to a situation instead of reducing it?
This is just BONKERS.
This is simply not a year to play neutral-site football, folks. Is it that important to have 15,000 people in the stands (a 20-percent capacity crowd), which is a good crowd for a high-school game, measured against the potential risks? NO! It’s not a close call. Play the game on campus where a highly-resourced university (Texas or OU) can set up the game safely.
We love Texas-Oklahoma in the venerable Cotton Bowl stadium. It is one of college football’s grand and special traditions… but the whole point of having the game on the Texas State Fairgrounds is to create that wonderful clash of colors in which UT and OU fans are right next to each other on the 50-yard line.
For the Florida-Georgia game — the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party — the same basic principle applies. In that neutral-site game, the two fan bases meet not at the 50, but behind the end zones. Without the typically large crowd which makes these games special, what’s the point of having two teams travel?
Stop. Look at the big picture, in which merely PLAYING games at all would be a remarkable achievement in a pandemic.
This isn’t worth it.
There should be no neutral-site games in college football if we somehow manage to have a season.
Conference title games and bowl games should go to campus sites. Texas-Oklahoma needs to be part of this, and the same goes for Florida-Georgia and Army-Navy.
College football can’t be this stupid, can it? (Spoiler alert: This is 2020. No new low is unattainable in America.)