NCAA coronavirus advisory panel: Football season, college sports ‘will be nearly impossible to play’

NCAA coronavirus advisory panel: Football season ‘will be nearly impossible to play’

The Mid-American Conference became the first Football Bowl Subdivision conference to cancel its fall season on Saturday.

The Southeastern Conference previously announced that it will kick off the 2020 season Sept. 26. The SEC also announced that a 10-game conference-only schedule will be played and that fall training camp practices will begin Aug. 17.

On Friday, the SEC announced that its member institutions will add two cross-divisional games for the upcoming season. Tennessee added contests against Texas A&M and at Auburn.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic that caused spring football practices to be canceled in March, Amesh Adalja, M.D., senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and part of the NCAA coronavirus advisory panel, has provided updates if the feasibility of a season could be played this fall.

In June, Adalja told Vols Wire that it would be “a challenge” for a college football season to be played this fall.

Following news regarding the MAC canceling its fall football season, Adalja discussed if Power Five conferences could still play beginning next month.

“With the virus being not fully controlled in many parts of the country, and testing having long turn around times, it will be nearly impossible to play many college sports according to best practices in the pandemic era,” Adalja told Vols Wire.