The New York Times - USA (2020-08-06)

SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020B7

Y

Exactly one month before most of the
college football world once expected to
start a new season, Wednesday showed
just how difficult it will be to stage au-
tumn sports during the coronavirus pan-
demic.
The University of Connecticut can-
celed its football season. More college
athletes around the country opted out
from playing. Even the publication of the
Big Ten football schedule on Wednesday
came with the dispiriting qualifier that
not one game might actually be played,
and Maryland said it expected to begin
its season without fans at Maryland Sta-
dium.
Then the National Collegiate Athletic
Association’s Divisions II and III can-
celed championships in fall sports. Lou-
isville, which plays in Division I, said it
had suspended athletic activities in field
hockey, volleyball and men’s and wom-
en’s soccer after 29 players tested pos-
itive for the virus. And the College Foot-
ball Playoff said it would delay the re-
lease of its all-important final rankings
until close to Christmas.
Taken together, Wednesday’s an-
nouncements again starkly demonstrat-
ed the newly persistent precariousness
of college sports, an industry that has
seen its plans — and its revised plans —
upended throughout the pandemic.
“It’s fluid,” Kevin Warren, the Big Ten
commissioner, said in an interview on
Wednesday. “It changes by the day.
There’s no guarantee that we’re going to
have sports in the fall.”
“We are,” he added, “absolutely living
in an uncertain time.”
UConn put an end to some of its uncer-
tainty by becoming the first Football
Bowl Subdivision school to abandon its
football season fully. Although the deci-
sion came after a third of the university’s
expected games had been canceled be-
cause of the scheduling policies of as-
sorted leagues, the school, an independ-
ent in football, said health concerns were
too grave to proceed with a season in any
form.
The Ivy League, as well as many his-
torically Black colleges and universities,

reached similar conclusions earlier this

summer.

“The safety challenges created by

Covid-19 place our football student-ath-

letes at an unacceptable level of risk,”

David Benedict, the athletic director at

Connecticut, where the football team

posted a 2-10 record last season, said in a

statement. “The necessary measures

needed to mitigate risk of football stu-

dent-athletes contracting the coro-

navirus are not conducive to delivering

an optimal experience for our team.”

UConn officials said the team’s football

players drove the decision. In a state-

ment released through the university,

the players said they did so in part be-

cause “not enough is known about the

potential long-term effects of contract-

ing” the virus.

“We came to campus in the beginning

of July knowing there would be chal-

lenges presented by the pandemic, but it

is apparent to us now that these chal-

lenges are impossible to overcome,” the

players said.

Although the team did not have any

athletes who had recently tested positive

for the virus or been in quarantine, Con-

necticut has gone through periods when

it was down at least 10 men because of

symptoms or possible exposure to in-

fected people.

UConn’s athletic program has strug-

gled financially, and the football team

posted a deficit of more than $13 million

last year. University officials insisted,

though, that any financial effects of skip-

ping the season had not been decisive.

Speaking on a conference call with re-

porters on the day his team was sup-

posed to begin practice, Randy Edsall,

UConn’s coach, said, “These young

men’s lives are more important than

money.”

But billions of dollars are at stake

across college sports this fall. Although

the industry’s top executives have

pledged to prioritize health and safety,

they have also found themselves weigh-

ing how to balance lucrative competi-

tions with the virus’s largely unchecked

rampage across America.

They are also increasingly facing

alarmed athletes. Some players, embold-

ened by this year’s wave of student activ-

ism across college sports, have voiced

concerns about taking the field and

threatened boycotts if certain demands

are not met.

But big-time college football is a large-

ly decentralized sport, with the N.C.A.A.

having only limited authority, and re-

sponses to the pandemic are fragmented

on everything from testing protocols to

start dates.

Some conferences, like the Southeast-

ern, shrank schedules and pushed the

first games of their football seasons

deeper into September, a decision that

some university officials said would al-

low them to assess the pandemic’s

course once more students returned to

campuses.

The Big Ten said on Wednesday that it

would attempt to start its conference-

only slate on Sept. 3, when Ohio State is

to play at Illinois. Under the conference’s

current plan, the regular season will end

on Nov. 21, one week earlier than origi-

nally intended, and the league’s champi-

onship game will be held, as long sched-

uled, on Dec. 5 in Indianapolis.

Still, the jigsaw puzzle that is a confer-

ence football schedule is far more pliable

than normal. The start of the Big Ten’s

season could be moved to three other

weekends in September, and the title

game could be played as late as Dec. 19.

Indeed, the league pointedly noted in a

statement that “issuing a schedule does

not guarantee that competition will oc-

cur” and that it was prepared to cancel

games.

“While this seems like a step in the

right direction to the return of collegiate

athletics, I can’t help but feel conflicted

knowing that even in the best-case sce-

nario, our return to football will be noth-

ing like the experience we all love,”

Barry Alvarez, the athletic director at

Wisconsin, said in a letter to football sea-

son-ticket holders on Wednesday, when

he said it would “not be appropriate for

thousands of fans to gather in Camp Ran-

dall on Saturdays this fall.”

The missive itself, a plea to donate to

Wisconsin, was a reminder of the pan-

demic’s growing financial toll. The ath-

letic department, Alvarez said, was fac-

ing a revenue loss of at least $60 million,

a figure that could rise as high as $100

million depending on how the football

season evolved. Other universities ex-

pect to lose tens of millions of dollars. In

the end, the repercussions could be most

acutely felt in sports without large televi-

sion contracts or games that draw more

than 80,000 spectators.

Many of those sports could be greatly

diminished this fall, and the N.C.A.A.

said championships would be canceled if

at least half of a sport’s teams chose not

to compete.

The association, battered for months

over what critics condemned as a hands-

off approach to fall sports, also said it

would create ways for students and par-

ents to report schools that did not follow

appropriate safety guidelines, and it

banned its member colleges and univer-

sities from tying participation in sports

to a student’s signature on a coro-

navirus-specific waiver.

Although college sports leaders had

until Aug. 21 to reach decisions about

N.C.A.A.-sanctioned championships in

sports like cross-country and soccer, Di-

vision III, a nonscholarship level that

consists of about 450 schools, made its

choice less than three hours after the as-

sociation announced this month’s dead-

line. The N.C.A.A. cited the “pandemic

and related administrative and financial

challenges” and added that it was “logis-

tically untenable and financially prohibi-

tive” to move the fall championships to

the spring. By the end of the day, Division

II, a level that awards some schol-

arships, had canceled its seven champi-

onships.

Officials who help lead Division I —

but do not have any control over the Col-

lege Football Playoff — are scheduled to

meet next week.

Officials of the Playoff said Wednes-

day that they would not issue final rank-

ings, which determine the matchups for

semifinal games, until Dec. 20, two

weeks after they were expected, because

of delayed conference championship

events.

The schedule for the playoff games

themselves was left unchanged, with the

semifinals set for Jan. 1 in New Orleans

and Pasadena, Calif. The championship

matchup is planned for the Miami area

on Jan. 11.

For College Football, Kickoff Is Still Very Much Up in the Air

By ALAN BLINDER

and BILLY WITZ

Kevin Mensah of Connecticut eluding East Carolina tacklers last year. UConn

canceled its 2020 season, the first Football Bowl Subdivision school to do so.

STEPHEN DUNN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEN SOLOMON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Aaron Judge taking a lead in the first inning of a doubleheader in Philadelphia. In this

strange season, the Yankees were technically the home team, but wore their road uniforms.

THE YEAR OF PLAYING DANGEROUSLY