If you thought the 2020 offseason was wild, wait until you get a load of your 2021. Here are five key off-field things happening that will shape your college football life.
College Football Cavalcade: 5 Biggest Off-Field Things That Matter
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
[jwplayer 6LViAHgI]
Sorry if this take sucks, it’s not my fault …
This is the one column that doesn’t return just about everyone on both sides of the ball.
If you thought the 2020 offseason was weird, just you wait for what you’re about to get in 2021.
Will we get spring ball again? Will we be able to plan on fans being in the stands? How will the protocols continue to work?
And – oh yeah – sorry to have to go here, but when it comes to mass gatherings, no one wants to spend the next seven months having to care about the words “soft target” unless it’s referencing some mediocre receiver.
This will likely be done again later on this offseason – yeah, that whole Name Image and Likeness thing just got conveniently blown off – but for now, here are 5 big off-field things this offseason that matter.
5. Oh you COVID, you …
You best believe that we’re getting a 2021 college football season that’s going to be much better than the 2020 version.
The offseason, though …
If college football was able to play last year when everyone was guessing about the right and wrong ways to do this, there’s no chance we’re not getting at least what we had last season …
But with fans.
It was ugly at times, it was unscrupulous, it was occasionally unseemly, and it was all totally hypocritical considering the bullmess that college administrator types and athletic directors pushed, but we got our college football.
Now all these colleges want to start making money again, and that means they’re going to want fans giving them their money. Oh yeah, and they’re also going to want regular schedules and contracted games they can rely on so they can start collecting that ticket revenue as soon as humanly possible.
The desperation for some semblance of normalcy is everything for college football programs, especially for coaches who live on routine, predictability, and … The Process. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that everything snaps back right away.
Coaches want their spring ball back, they want to know what and who they’re dealing with, and they want to worry about football and not testing, protocols, and distancing. However, they might still have to still live with all of that and more for a little while longer.
Outside of a new sheriff in town up at the very top, it’s not like anything has changed or improved COVID-wise over the last few months. Maybe the vaccinations will trickle down to the fittest people in our country – 18-to-23-year-old athletes – at some point this summer, but will it happen by March?
Nah, but that doesn’t mean teams aren’t going to be practicing. It just might not be like normal again quite yet.
On the plus side, the predictions for a season aren’t dire, unlike they were last season. However, expect spring football to be weird to non-existent depending on the school.
And with that …
