The ongoing discussions around whether or not college football will play this season mirror the lockdown discussions that were being had in states across the country during this pandemic. Yet with less risk to go around, somehow college football has inspired even more hysteria.
University presidents in the Big Ten voted 12-2 to cancel the conference’s season, and they’ll likely be joined by the Pac-12. The objections of the players didn’t appear to matter. Big Ten stars joined in promoting the player-led #WeWantToPlay hashtag while parents of athletes also backed playing the season.
The bureaucrats calling the shots in college football have decided the risk of backlash is greater than the risk of the coronavirus itself. University of Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh wrote that the Wolverines had only 11 positive tests in nearly 900, none of which have been traced to football facilities and three of which were from players making their initial return to campus.
Harbaugh’s letter shows what we already know; college football teams can follow protocols and perform contact tracing to great effect while players are on-campus. Sending players off to return to their homes across the country makes them more likely to contract the virus, not less, and it also reduces their access to testing. Canceling college football is not about safety, it’s about liability.
Moreover, the universities are contradicting themselves. Ohio State voted against the football season but will still be bringing students back for on-campus instruction. The same is true for Michigan, Penn State, and others. Even a phased-in return to on-campus instruction would involve far more students than the 100 or so on football rosters. How will canceling football protect players who will end up being on campus with thousands of students anyway?
College football players have made it clear they want to play. Harbaugh has shown that adherence to protocols reduces the risk of infection for players, and we know that the death rate from the coronavirus for individuals in the 18-24 age range is nearly zero. Conferences that are planning to play, such as the SEC, have vowed to protect the scholarships of players who decide to opt-out of the season. No one is being coerced into the 2020 season.
Football doesn’t spread the virus any more than on-campus instruction or sending athletes home to their communities, especially when these teams have robust testing and tracking programs in place. There will never be a scenario where there is no risk, but college football offers less of a risk than anything the universities are already doing now.
