College Football 2019/20

[Cal Alamein]

It seems to be a 2020 version of a Mason-Dixon Line of red states (w/ exception of a few of schools in the ACC) hell bent to play v. blue states being sensible and safe.

MWC is bailing, they include Idaho, Wyoming and Utah

Sunbelt - all red states - are open to play as are the AAC and Conference USA, mostly red states.

[ursus arctos]

Very much so and not unexpected given how many of the "at all costs" schools are public universities in states currently led by Republicans.

I am quite sure that if we were still dealing with the old ACC (but with contemporary governors and legislators), they would have come out the other way.

At least until basketball season was threatened. Then all bets would be off.

[Hot Pepsi]

I wasn't referring so much to the Big XII's foolish decision to go ahead, but the Big10's wise decision not to.
It's devastating for so many people in our community. It's been my dream that we could eventually become less-dependant on football, but not all at once.

A friend of mine who is is way into football and especially Penn State football (and prone to half-baked theories sometimes) believes that eventually, Penn State and the rest of the BigTen will more or less give up on big sports the way the Ivy League did in the last century. His idea is that these universities have enough going for them academically and can get enough well-funded students and private support to continue thriving without the marketing value of these sports, and eventually the headaches and costs associated with running a big athletics department will outweigh the benefits.* Meanwhile, schools in the deep south where football is so important and other places that, frankly, don't have as much to offer, will continue with big sports as a marketing/public relations exercise.

I don't know if and when that might happen - it's a complicated 'what if" exercise too long to get into here - but yesterday's events made me think about it because it really looks like the presidents of the Big Ten and Pac 12 took a step in that direction. Maybe they're just thinking about liability or gambling that things will be better by the spring, but it also represents them standing up to some very powerful stakeholders. That should not be overlooked. History may show this was a watershed moment for reasons well beyond the pandemic.

A lot of people are saying this wouldn't be an issue if they just paid the players. I don't get that. MLB players are, you know, paid and have a union and all that and their non-bubble approach to saving the season is still looking very shakey and almost didn't happen at all because they couldn't sort out the money. How would a decentralized "league" with over 100 teams each with at least 85 players do any better? It would just mean that they could let 19 year old boys, who are hardwired to underestimate risk, make their own decisions about safety. That's not really an improvement, is it?




But it's also depressing to see how many people still don't understand how viruses work or understand basic concepts like "excess mortality" or "public health." Or even "public" or "health." We have people like Aaron Rogers, who is actually pretty smart, saying that the solution is more vitamin D. FFS. When will it end?

The Ringer's Brian Phillips put it well, "If the United States had adopted an approach to the pandemic that was designed to eradicate the virus, rather than going the equally compelling route of adopting an approach that was designed to score maximum points in our kids’ karate teachers’ Facebook comments, the games might have started on schedule."

I recommend his piece. It's a bit wonky, but it's right. https://www.theringer.com/2020/8/11/...ed-coronavirus


I wouldn't want academics to be entirely in charge of universities. They can be a bit narrowly focused and unrealistic about important realities. Ideally it would be a mix of academics and people who've spent their careers understanding the nuts and bolts of how a university runs day to day. People who don't insist on "running it like a business" but who do understand budgets and grants and what not.




* There are a handful of Big 5-level universities that could probably drop football and, after a few years of wailing and teeth-gnashing, not suffer too much in terms of name-recognition, student interest or non-sports donations. I'd put Duke, Stanford, Vandy, Northwestern, Wake Forest, UCLA, Cal, UVa, Syracuse, Michigan, Colorado, Pitt, Washington, Illinois and maybe a few others in that category just based on my impression of the kind of campus culture they have or the kind of academic prestige they carry or both. I don't think Penn State is quite there, though I wish it were and it might be eventually. And then, of course, there are schools, in the Big 5 and out of it, that are just losing so much money on football that it's taking down the rest of their athletics department in the process while also making the place look bad - Temple, Rutgers, UConn, Umass. I don't understand their thinking at all. They tried. It didn't work. Pull the plug.

[Hot Pepsi]

MWC is bailing, they include Idaho, Wyoming and Utah

Idaho dropped down to 1AA, so they're one of those places that can't actually afford to play without fans. Not clear how they afford it with fans.

Utah is in the Pac12 now, remember, but they're off too.


Within the ACC, I imagine the presidents of the private institutions are less than thrilled about this. They don't really answer to their states' governors and, in the case of Syracuse and BC, their governors might tell them they can't play in the state. Same with Pitt. We'll see.

[Hot Pepsi]

I've noticed something...

The NCAA's top medical guy has said in a few interviews, basically, that the SEC, ACC and BigXII are not actually at all ready to play and are just hoping it somehow works out. Conditions do not meet the parameters the NCAA established for what needs to happen in order for competition to proceed this fall. Last I heard from him, he said "the path is very narrow" for anyone to play football this fall. Likewise, I heard an interview with Stanford's coach David Shaw - an impressive guy, btw - who said that he was in on all the discussions in the Pac12 and they didn't have much argument about it. It's just not safe. Too many unknowns. Etc.

The NY Times reporting on how the potential for heart damage from the virus was a major concern among the leaders of the conferences that have postponed their seasons. (It is all a bit early days on that an controversial among cardiologists, so the question is if one wants to err on the side of safety). It's behind a paywall. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/s...-football.html

But, unless I'm missing something, I've seen next to zero coverage on ESPN.com of all the voices saying that this is impossible. They have reports of all the teams that have had a bunch of positive tests and reported that a few ACC schools have already bagged in-person classes for the semester, but nothing like what the Times has or any in depth discussion with the doctors.

But they have lots of pieces on how mad fans and parents are at the Big Ten and Paul Finebaum criticizing the Big10. They gave lots of uncritical attention to NIck Saban saying that "this isn't about money, it's for the student-athletes." Jesus Fucking Christ. The balls.

It's noticeable that the Pac12 has not seen nearly as much blowback from players or coaches as the Big10. Part of that might be that the Pac12 just did a better job with communication. It's also part geography and politics. might also be that the commissioner of the Pac12 has been there for awhile and the commissioner of the Big10 is new. It's probably also worth noting that one of those men is white and one is Black. Guess which one took the most criticism for making the same decision?

Do you think, maybe, this disparity has something to do with the fact that ESPN owns the SEC Network, the ACC Network and the Big 12 network and not the Pac12 Network and BigTen Network? Am I a conspiracy nut for noticing that odd coincidence?


There's also an interesting piece in the NYT about Stanford cutting 11 sports. The main gist of the article is that this is bad for the Olympics - (but who really gives a fuck about the Olympics any more.) But the second part of it includes some analysis suggesting Stanford is just using this crisis as cover to shift more money to football and basketball and that it could actually find another $200m in the athletics budget to pay for the sports it cut, or some of them anyway. It has alums that could and would write that check today.

One of them that got cut is men's volleyball. Stanford has two national titles in men's volleyball.*

I get that football and basketball make the money, but the only semi-justification for not letting players in those sports unionize or draw a salary is that its for the greater good of more students. But if that's not true, then what's the point?

I noticed that U of Cincinnati, which just cut men's soccer citing the crisis, gave it's football staff a huge raise. Granted, Luke Fickell has been fairly successful there, but it's still UC football. I'm sure it doesn't make money. They're not going to play this fall. They just saw that Michigan State was trying to poach Fickell and decided it was a bad look to lose another coach to a bigger program. They just couldn't handle the reality that they're not a Big 5 program.



*I hope Penn State doesn't cut a bunch of non-revenue sports, but it might. In fact, men's volleyball could be one of those even though PSU has two national titles in men's volleyball just like Stanford. PSU's program has been in a slump the last few years and, anyway, it just doesn't seem to have a future as a sport in the US. Very few schools, especially outside California, sponsor it and there's no evidence that it could blow up and be a lot more popular the way lacrosse has. It's so rare that D3 and D2 teams compete with D1 teams (and often win). Likewise, I wonder if men's gymnastics could get cut, even though PSU has won titles in that too. There are only about 15 men's gymnastics teams total in D1. Fewer now that Iowa has cut it. The others that might be on the block are the ones where PSU doesn't have a great facility - tennis, swimming and golf. Baseball might be a casualty too, but for the opposite reason. It looks like the shakeup in minor league baseball could give State College a chance to have a full-season MiLB team. Maybe it would be better to just have that and give up on college baseball? There'd be lots of pearl-clutching about having a "professional team" on campus (or the edge of campus) but the hypocrisy of that sitting literallly in the shadow of a 110,000 seat football stadium is a bit much. Besides, PSU has had baseball since Monty Ward and has one Big Ten title and only a handful of NCAA tournament appearances and almost zero MLB alums. I wish they could have a good college team, but it seems like it's impossible.

Skiing might cease to be an NCAA sport, I suspect. Very few teams. But there are loads of club teams. Wouldn't that be better off just being like rugby or cycling and governing itself?

Maybe that's all ok. Maybe its' time for all of this to end and sports in the US to be more like they are in Europe with self-supporting or, at least, self-governed, clubs. Hockey in Canada and football in Europe are very exploitive of teenage players, but the US system of travel teams and all that is just as bad, so maybe just get on with it.

Money ruins everything.

[ursus arctos]

The University of Alabama's main campus in Tuscaloosa has reported over 1000.positive cases in the first eight days it has been opened.

[Cal Alamein]

474 at KU, most of those from the Greek system. Sheer idiocy if they play football and allow any sort of crowds.

https://www.newsbreak.com/kansas/law...e-for-covid-19

[Hot Pepsi]

Penn State had 30 in the first week out of about 5,000 tests. A lot more tests pending. That’s certainly manageable, at least for now.

There are calls to do a lot more testing, but it’s expensive and the turnaround times are still slow. The new spit test from Yale and Abbott’s new antigen test will help but it’s going to take a while to get that going.

Two frats got the hammer for violating the ban on events. But so far it seems under control.


Most of the people that tested positive have been given a place to self-isolate. I guess the rest live off campus anyway. They we’re going to make the Nittany Lion Inn the isolation place, since there aren’t conferences, etc, happening, but then they decided to use a dorm and temporarily turn the hotel into a dorm, so a few lucky students are getting to live in a fairly nice hotel.

[ursus arctos]

Shee-it

https://twitter.com/CovidSolidarit1/status/1301618438050381824

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah.
The issue is that nobody knows if these MRI findings are significant. Does it resolve quickly? Who knows?

The guy from Mayo that the SEC is pinning all its hopes on* pointed out that, if you did a cardiac MRI of everyone after they had a cold, you might see the same thing, but we don’t know because there’s no reason to do that study.

It comes down to one’s philosophy about uncertainty. The south seems to think that until someone can conclusively prove something is harmful, it’s safe to assume that It isn’t. The B1G and Pac10 agreed there’s too much uncertainty and therefore it’s sensible to prepare for the worst.

* One thing I’ve learned in my job is that there is no opinion too absurd that you can’t pay somebody with an PhD or MD to support it. They might not have a degree in the relevant field, but most readers/jurors won’t understand that.

[ursus arctos]

I know which way I would resolve that dilemma if it was my son playing football.

[Hot Pepsi]

Turns out the actual rate was 15%, but that's still high.

There's more data to come.

https://www.centredaily.com/sports/c...245448050.html



W&M announced it's cutting seven sports, including track, which is one of their more successful sports. I wish they'd decided that before the rebuilt the football stadium with the track around it.

It really has nothing to do with COVID-19. The budget hole had been there for decades.

I wish they'd have just given up on football the way Vermont did. Sadly, that ship sailed a long time ago.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/ricky__bryant6/status/1302073105066717185

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m not sure how students could “not report” their results. Labs are required to report it by law.

[ursus arctos]

Even if they have such a provision. "required by law" has long been a rather flexible concept in Louisiana

[Hot Pepsi]

I don’t see what’s in it for the labs to now report their findings and risk being put out of business.

Perhaps kids who have symptoms are avoiding being tested. I don’t know what LSU’s protocol is.

Tennessee has 44 players out (not all for the virus, but mostly).

This is not going to work.

[ursus arctos]

The protocol is here

https://lsu.edu/roadmap/

They don't identify the lab(s) that are doing the tests, but it looks as if most of the testing is being done on campus and that the system relies heavily on self-reporting of results and contacts.

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh, well that’s pretty fucking useless. Still, the lab has to report its results and that should be at least tracked by zip code, at least, but Louisiana might be doing its own thing. What a shitshow.

Here, there’s both random testing and symptomatic testing. Not as much random testing as anyone would like but it’s expensive and the turnaround times are still slow.

Failure to comply will get one sent away, though I’m not sure how many people actually have been so far. The local police have handed out 26 $300 fines for failure to abide by the distancing/mask rules. Every citation has been to somebody aged 19-22.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1303505146140176385

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Not sure it's worth starting a new thread for 2020/21 given it's all very hollow this year. Defences seem to be a mess generally, but it's producing some entertaining scorelines. I tried to watch a full game this weekend, being Alabama at Ole Miss, but BT/ESPN UK managed yet another cut-off - on this occasion when the score was 49-45.

[ursus arctos]

Mullets beat Mormons

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

The whole thing has a massive asterisk over it of course, but the last weekend of regular season games produced some moments.

UCLA haven't made it onto ESPN UK much this year, and when they did ESPN managed yet another cut-off, this time when it was 36-35 to USC, so I missed the rollercoaster of the last two minutes.

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1337976800886996992?s=20

[ursus arctos]

SC have been using rejected scripts from the film school as game plans all season

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

....while elsewhere LSU upset Florida, most likely costing them a play off place, the game hinging on a bizarre penalty. I believe Marco Wilson is not popular.

The game was played in fog, with the commentators unable to see what has happening on the pitch and the side-on cameras being redundant. As the commentators were trying to figure out what the penalty was given for, one said, "I can't be sure but I think I saw a cleat flying through the fog".

https://twitter.com/MSNSports/status/1337996942123536384?s=20

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

...this happened...

https://twitter.com/USATODAY/status/1337879429360521221?s=20