College football’s 2020 bleakness continues to grow

The bleakness surrounding college football taking place in 2020 is swelling at an incredible rate this Saturday afternoon.

I hate having to type this as the news and reports that have come out in the last 24 hours paint a very somber picture for the chances of college football actually being played this fall.

NCAA President Mark Emmert gave a grim outlook on college football Friday night.

On Saturday morning the MAC announced they were cancelling all fall sports, including football for the fall.

And now we’ve got countless different college football and athletic reporters passing information along from their unique sources just how bleak the season starting in just a month appears to be.

This from Brett McMurphy of Stadium, who has broken several big-time college football stories before:

Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated has heard similar things as McMurphy:

Ross Dellinger of Sports Illustrated has followed up with his sources in regards to the information Forde provided and he’s hearing more of the same:

I could put tweets up here all day but I’m not sure that would do anybody any good.

College football seems to be hanging by it’s last strand of having even the most remote of chances of being played this fall.

By no means are any of these reports official yet, but it’s certainly starting to feel like a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ they are.

NCAA: Uniformed Start to College Football Season Unlikely

On Friday night NCAA President Mark Emmert stated the unlikelihood of there being a uniformed start to college football in 2020.

NCAA President Mark Emmert spent a good portion of his Friday night discussing the outlook of the 2020 college football season as he and NCAA Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Brian Hainline appeared together for an interview that aired on the NCAA’s official Twitter account.

You can watch that video in full here and/or read the cliff-notes below.

The Highlights:

  • Emmert says it’s unlikely all schools will be ready to resume athletics at the same time
  • Emmert states the goal is for all teams to have an equal amount of preparation time before the season starts, something that could be thrown off by the variance of when each specific school opens
  • On the college football season potentially lacking a uniformed start date Emmert said: “I think we should assume thatโ€™s going to be the case”
  • Hainline stated there will be no national time when everyone can start pre-season activities
  • Emmert also made it crystal-clear that NCAA athletic events won’t be taking place on campus until students return to campus as well: โ€œIf you donโ€™t have students on campus, you donโ€™t have student-athletes on campus,โ€ he said. โ€œThat doesnโ€™t mean it has to be up and running in the full normal model, but youโ€™ve got to treat the health and well-being of the athletes at least as much as the regular students. So if a school doesnโ€™t reopen, then theyโ€™re not going to be playing sports. Itโ€™s really that simple.โ€