If you think the life of a sportswriter is glamorous, please know that Pac-12 sportswriters spent their Friday evening or night reading the new California state guidelines for allowing public football activity — training camp and then games — to take place this fall.
Those guidelines were part of a much larger publication which provided public health and safety parameters for California-based institutions which offer higher education. Read the document for yourself if you want to. We will try to make sense of the big picture by offering some of the more relevant details connected to any attempt to initiate — and sustain — football activity at USC and in California.
Testing itself at the Power Five conference level, especially at a highly resourced school such as USC, doesn’t seem particularly daunting. USC can pull that off.
“So why are people so pessimistic about college football happening this year?”, one might ask.
That’s a reasonable question.
One answer: Look at the Miami Marlins last week and the St. Louis Cardinals this week. Two different baseball teams have been unable to play for roughly a week due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
It’s not the testing which is the barrier; it is the ability to contain the virus from spreading.
The California state guidelines for athletic events and activities offer a measure of clarity here.
For instance, if a football player (or any other athlete) gets sick, this is what schools such as USC are supposed to do in terms of enabling athletes to return to activity after a positive COVID-19 test:
“Advise sick staff and student-athletes not to return until they have met
CDC criteria to discontinue home isolation, including 24 hours with no
fever (without fever reducing medication), symptom improvement, and
10 days since symptoms first appeared or since test conducted.”
Note that a negative test on one day doesn’t guarantee freedom from the virus; a positive test could emerge a few days later. If an appreciable number of positive tests emerge three days after a given game, those athletes with the positive tests will be unavailable for at least the next game and possibly the one after that. Lack of testing has certainly been a national problem and shortcoming over the past several months, but as we turn to a possible training camp and a possible football season, the centrality of testing as a problem will give way to the larger problem of simply trying to contain the virus and minimize occasions in which athletes test positive. A large number of positive tests on a team, and/or a number of positive tests for especially important players, could shut down the season.
Testing wouldn’t be the reason for the shutdown; the large number of positive cases would be the reason.
Another excerpt from the California state guidelines — this one on how coaching staffs can conduct practices for their football teams — also illustrates how delicate a dance this will be when training camp opens (assuming we get to that point):
“Train in Cohorts. IHEs (Institutions of Higher Education) should establish cohorts as a strategy to minimize the potential spread of COVID-19. A cohort may be composed of six to 12 individuals, all members of the same team, who consistently work out and participate in activities together. Cohorts should avoid mixing with other groups.
“Keep different cohorts separate. Consider using signs, cones, or tape to
make dividing lines clear.”
Good luck with that one, Clay Helton… and Chip Kelly, and David Shaw, and Justin Wilcox, the four coaches of California-based Pac-12 football programs.
These aren’t impossible situations, but they certainly involve a lot of intricate details coaches will have to very carefully lay out. In many ways, coaches’ natural attention to finer details will be spent abiding by COVID-19 guidelines as much as it will focus on teaching actual football.
Welcome to the new normal, which is anything BUT normal.