Alabama football head coach Nick Saban joins his players and spoken out in support of having a 2020 college football season.
Amid the rumors and reports about the season potentially being cancelled, or a drastic change in the Power Five landscape for the upcoming season due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, Saban has spoken out.
ESPN Senior Writer Chris Low reported on what the coach said to ESPN.
“I want to play, but I want to play for the players’ sake, the value they can create for themselves,” Saban told ESPN. “I know I’ll be criticized no matter what I say, that I don’t care about player safety. Look, players are a lot safer with us than they are running around at home. We have around a 2 percent positive ratio on our team since the Fourth of the July. It’s a lot higher than that in society. We act like these guys can’t get this unless they play football. They can get it anywhere, whether they’re in a bar or just hanging out.”
His argument is similar to those of college football players promoting the #WeWantToPlay movement. He claims that the players are safer under the care and supervision of the respective collegiate program.
If the statistics weren’t enough, the six-time national champion head coach raises a question that undermines the argument to cancel the 2020 college football season.
“We also test anybody that has symptoms and have an open testing site where they can go and get tested as many times as they want or any time they feel like they need to,” Saban said. “But our guys aren’t going to catch (the virus) on the football field. They’re going to catch it on campus. The argument then should probably be, ‘We shouldn’t be having school.’ That’s the argument. Why is it, ‘We shouldn’t be playing football?’ Why has that become the argument?”
Saban wasn’t alone in sharing his thoughts with ESPN. senior running back Najee Harris and senior offensive lineman Alex Leatherwood spoke on the topic as well.
Harris commends his head coach for how he’s reacted internally to the whirlwind of reports.
“Coach Saban listens to his players and wants to hear from us first,” Alabama senior running back Najee Harris told ESPN. “He told us that none of this is about him, but it’s about us. He wants to hear our concerns, and we made it clear that we want to play and feel like Alabama is doing everything they can to make sure we can play safely.”
Leatherwood offers criticism toward the media coverage. Claiming that only the negative side is being portrayed.
“There’s a lot of noise and bad stuff out there about playing football with the virus going on, but I haven’t really seen anything about what the players want,” Leatherwood told ESPN. “We’ve been grinding all summer, and you don’t want it to be all for nothing.
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