On Monday, Michigan State football’s players will embark on their first team sessions in the Mel Tucker era.
Finally. At least for now.
Because even …
On Monday, Michigan State football’s players will embark on their first team sessions in the Mel Tucker era.
Finally. At least for now.
Because even with a two-week period of team activity coming, uncertainty remains ahead of the Spartans and the rest of college football. And change is beginning to happen.
The Big Ten eliminated nonconference competition Thursday for all fall sports, followed by the Pac-12 on Friday. Ohio State suspended its voluntary training. The Ivy League halted its sports until the beginning of 2021. Other schools around the country already are dealing with significant coronavirus outbreaks after players’ return to campus, and other conferences beyond the West Coast and Midwest are weighing similar strategies to the Big Ten’s.
Already forced to pull the plug on the first major event in his tenure, March’s Big Ten basketball tournament, new commissioner Kevin Warren’s next decision could be even more seismic: Cancel the football season entirely.
“We may not have sports in the fall,” he said on Big Ten Network. “We may not have a college football season in the Big Ten.”
It is a stark admission of uncertainty in a sports world that often puts optimism over realism and within which coaches are used to ultimate control.
Time is waning for Warren and the other Football Bowl Subdivision commissioners to make that call, one that could have significant financial ramifications for all 14 Big Ten schools and their counterparts nationally.
The Big Ten’s current plan — only 10 games against league opponents — allows the conference to take the reins of testing. It also leaves safety risks to the whims of 18- to 23-year-olds avoiding the social scene of a typical college student.
Good luck with that.
Ultimately, programs will not try to follow the isolation measures adopted by professional leagues; because doing so would give college athletes another legal argument toward getting paid from the billions of dollars in revenue generated predominantly by football and men’s basketball.
So sticking to members-only play is about as close to a bubble environment as is possible, even though that may not be feasible to sustain during a pandemic, thanks to how the expansion era has turned previously regional conferences into alliances that sprawl halfway across the country.
The next three weeks, when teams can resume some semblance of normality, will be pivotal.
Tucker and his new coaches — who had their debut spring practices canceled in March four days before they were to begin — finally will be permitted to work hands-on, from Monday through July 23.
