According to USA Today there's a decent chance we won't be enjoying college football this Fall.
In conversations with more than a dozen administrators, coaches and others intimately involved with college sports, all of whom spoke with USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity in order to provide their honest assessment, the level of uncertainty and alarm around the current situation has only grown in recent days.
Pervasive optimism that the college football season would start and finish on time has given way to nervousness as programs continue to see players with COVID-19 infections during voluntary workouts and multiple states have either slowed down or reversed some aspects of their reopening plans due to spiking case numbers. The idea of delaying college football to the spring, which was dismissed as a last resort a few months ago, is being revived in some corners as a legitimate option to buy time and give programs more tools to manage a situation that many administrators privately admit is unwieldy and uncertain. Meanwhile, some FBS conferences are actively engaged with banks on opening up lines of credit to guard against lost revenue, a key acknowledgment that schools fear a potential revenue wipeout this fall.
Ultimately, coaches and administrators still don’t know exactly what the next month will hold and whether a program can start contact practice without being overwhelmed by infections — which isn’t a very good sign on July 1 given initial expectations that the pandemic would die down in the summer and that accurate point-of-care testing would be widespread enough by now to test regularly.
NEW ORLEANS, LA - JANUARY 13: Quarterback Joe Burrow #9 of the LSU Tigers during the College Football Playoff National Championship game against the Clemson Tigers at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on January 13, 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana. LSU defeated Clemson 42 to 25. (Photo by Don Juan Moore/Getty Images)