Each announcement of universities keeping instruction online and campus closed through the summer brings more unease about an uncomfortable topic: the viability of a college football season.
Those in charge of athletic departments, though, are still confident as of now something will happen.
An updated survey of 114 Football Bowl Subdivision athletics directors conducted by Stadium’s Brett McMurphy revealed an overwhelming feeling the 2020 college football season will be played. But there is a caveat: though 99 percent of athletics directors believe there will be a season, 75 percent of that group thinks it will be delayed.
“Given the medical and governmental leadership opinions, it is reasonable to believe some compromise to the start of the season lies ahead,” a Power Five AD told McMurphy.
Opinions on the timeline of a delay vary: 41 percent of athletics director respondents think there will be a 12-game season that starts in October or November, 20 percent see a conference-only season with a delayed start, 11 percent think a 12-game schedule will start in the winter or spring of 2021 and 3 percent think a conference-only season will start in 2021.
One Power Five athletics director told McMurphy the season being played at all would be a surprise.
Earlier in April, FBS commissioners and Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick went on a phone call with vice president Mike Pence and concluded, per CBS Sports, there will be no college football games until students are allowed to return to campus.
The other variable in starting the season on time is a proper window for strength and conditioning workouts that must precede fall camp. Swarbrick and Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly have said the team will need about a month of workouts before resuming camp, which begins in early August. That puts the window for starting workouts in early July at the latest.
“From a player safety standpoint, we have to say, ‘This is the date we can live with to get these young men physically conditioned and ready to go into camp,’” Kelly said in March.
Notre Dame has moved all classes online through July 6. A decision on the second half of the summer term will come on May 15.
Swarbrick and Kelly have also pushed back against the notion that college football could go on without fans all season.
“I don’t know how we reopen our campuses, put students back in dorms and in dining halls, and then say, we can’t be in a football stadium together,” Swarbrick said on NBCSports’ Lunch Talk Live. “That doesn’t feel compatible to me. Beyond the fact, I think college football needs the marching band and the cheerleaders and the fans and everything. That’s essential to the experience.
“This is more about we have to be consistent in our approach. I’m not sure how you say we’re okay with the students engaging on the field, but not fans in the stands. Now might therapy approaches to fans in the stands that are a little different, that helps ensure safety? Absolutely, but I can’t see playing empty stadiums.”
Notre Dame is scheduled to open its season a week earlier than most – Aug. 29 versus Navy in Dublin, Ireland. There has been no final decision on moving the game, but one hurdle presented itself Tuesday when Ireland’s government banned mass gatherings until at least August and ruled there would be no gatherings of at least 5,000 people through August.
Delaying the season or shrinking it to conference-only games brings residual effects that will need to be sorted through. In Notre Dame’s case, it does not have conference games. Could it work itself into the ACC for a year?
If the season is not started until 2021, it is likely to bump up against other sports and major events like the NCAA Tournament and NBA and NHL playoffs. Television networks would need to clear space committed to other events. The NFL Draft is scheduled for late April, when a college football season of any length would likely still be ongoing.
Furthermore, the safety of having a season in the spring and reconvening for a normal 2021 season that fall would need to be assessed.
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