Listen to Billy Liucci's take on TexAgs radio from Monday, 8/10, hour 3. He sums up the decision pretty well and it's all political.

Between normal politics and the recent player demands, pulling the plug on the season is a way to remind the players who really is in charge. Still bull crap. Can't wait for Stephen McGee's reaction tomorrow.

NewOldAg said:

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Listen to Billy Liucci's take on TexAgs radio from Monday, 8/10, hour 3. He sums up the decision pretty well and it's all political.

Between normal politics and the recent player demands, pulling the plug on the season is a way to remind the players who really is in charge. Still bull crap. Can't wait for Stephen McGee's reaction tomorrow.

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Yup. Nerds vs Jocks. The age old debate. Academics want to take the power away from the athletic departments that, in their minds, has gotten too big. They want to permanently damage athletics so that they can even the playing field. Never mind the fact that athletics are the front porch and doing well athletically helps the entire university, not just sports. As Looch stated, without sports, how many alumni will return to campus each year? Very few. Meaning the connection will be lost, and with it academic funding as well. But these "brainiacs" can't see that in their ivory towers. This never was about player safety. The B1G and Pac 12 blinked. Too bad for them. If we do get a season in, they will be hurt for years to come.

Some people have to create hidden political
Subtext in every single topic these days. Just let their imaginations run wild, you can't stop it.

Liability is such a silly argument. If it's about liability, then as OP noted, it's nonsensical that you'd have kids come back to campus at all. The potential for liability for 10,000 plus is a lot more than for 100. Secondly, public universities would almost all have at least partial sovereign immunity. It's really hard to sue the state, ask Mike Leach. Thirdly, the myocharditis argument is debunked. I'm not sure what's going on here, but it sure seems political.

JesusQuintana said:

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Capitol Ag said:

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NewOldAg said:

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Listen to Billy Liucci's take on TexAgs radio from Monday, 8/10, hour 3. He sums up the decision pretty well and it's all political.

Between normal politics and the recent player demands, pulling the plug on the season is a way to remind the players who really is in charge. Still bull crap. Can't wait for Stephen McGee's reaction tomorrow.

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Yup. Nerds vs Jocks. The age old debate. Academics want to take the power away from the athletic departments that, in their minds, has gotten too big. They want to permanently damage athletics so that they can even the playing field. Never mind the fact that athletics are the front porch and doing well athletically helps the entire university, not just sports. As Looch stated, without sports, how many alumni will return to campus each year? Very few. Meaning the connection will be lost, and with it academic funding as well. But these "brainiacs" can't see that in their ivory towers. This never was about player safety. The B1G and Pac 12 blinked. Too bad for them. If we do get a season in, they will be hurt for years to come.

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I keep hearing this but can't imagine its anywhere near reality. Maybe a few schools in the PAC but to say that Ohio State, Michigan, penn state, etc. want to purposely harm their athletics departments seems insane. Michigan has a historical tradition rich program and ohio state is value at 1.5 bill...most of any program. It would be like the CEO of a fortune 500 company shutting down the most profitable division. Maybe I am just naive but it makes little to no sense to me.

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We don't know if tOSU, UM, PSU voted to wait. Plus university presidents are many time academics. But that is the story Billy is telling us and he is pretty tied into this.

Pretty interesting read from ESPN:

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29640734/how-century-old-season-teach-college-football-embrace-unexpected

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A century ago, schools responded with in-time solutions. Some cobbled together full schedules; some played partial schedules; and some stayed home. The University of Texas shut down for a month and canceled its rivalry game against Oklahoma. As John Maher and Kirk Bohls describe in their history of Longhorns football, Texas arranged two games against Radio School and one against Camp Mabry Auto Mechanics, both military installations in the Austin area, and rescheduled its SMU game for late November. All most Texas fans know is that the 1918 Longhorns went 9-0. Those who look closer will see that, a few days after Texas closed its season with a victory against Texas A&M, the flu returned to campus and took the lives of 200 people, including 17-year-old guard Joe Spence.

...

A century later, athletic administrators will incur the wrath of some portion of the public no matter what decision they make. Allow their programs to carry on, and they're subject to the charge that they're putting the financial health of their programs ahead of the health of their student-athletes. Push their fall sports into the new year, as the Big Ten, Pac-12, MAC and Mountain West have done, and they're ignoring the needs and desires of not only their football student-athletes, but of those in every sport on campus. And for what, that public will ask: "The virus hasn't even threatened [fill in your campus here]."

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Pretty crazy that students came back to campus and all sports continued, even with 200 people dying at t.u. from the Spanish Flu!

It is weird to say that dying wasnt as big a deal back then? Clark Stanley was peddling is "Snake Oil" until 1916 and penicillin wasnt even discovered for another 10 years after the Spanish flu. Getting sick and dying was just more common and accepted than it is today.

plain_o_llama said:

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Another angle is the suggestion they've known they were going to do this for a while. However, they waited until students had committed and paid to announce it. The idea being enrollments might have been off if students knew there would be no Football. Do you think that is real?

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Absolutely. They're a bunch of crooks.

I think it's mostly about the money. Some of the ADs have been pretty transparent about the money they stand to lose without fans in the stadiums, even with the TV money. There's also additional costs to do the testing and other expenses to do what is being recommended to keep the kids healthy. I think there's some hope that if they punt to the spring they can make the financial picture better.

I don't believe football will be played in the spring. If they do, then they would be endangering the health of the athletes to play again in the fall. Those who play in the spring would need to continue to play in the spring. jmho.

Urban Meyer pretty much laughed at the notion of playing in the spring....more or less said it was a stupid suggestion (not his words, but it was in his face, very dismissive)

Duncan Idaho said:

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Part of me thinks it is about breaking the union movement,

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it was an anonymous source, but one of the B1G ADs said as much to a sports reporter. They said they're much more worried about the unionization movement than they are covid.

take that for what it's worth.

Marcus Aurelius said:

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Agree with OP. Dubious decision. My dtr is a So at UGA in a sorority. Imagine the inevitable exposures. Is the Greek system being shut down? No.

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So you're wanting posters to imagine all of the exposed residents at a Deep South sorority house, of which your daughter is a member?

I mean, at the mere mention of SEC sorority house some were probably going to be doing that without you even asking, but I'm sure they will feel better now that they have your permission.

I mean, I think just from the practical stand point of IF (and I think we will be) we are still dealing with COVID, we'll be dealing with FLU too. The symptoms are pretty similar, so how are schools going to realistically navigate that during the spring?

Only way may be to start in late March early April when flu season is just about over.

I can't see spring football realistically happening.

Good article on how rational thought from an expert and looking at the big picture can save the day (and possibly college football.)

Quote:

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"When Dr. Ackerman spoke, it felt like this wave of relief," Ingram said. "He had a very calming effect, a very logical voice in the room. I thought his talking points were very well-balanced and logical in where we are with the virus, with testing and protocols."

He cautioned them to consider possible mental health ramifications of canceling a season, referencing past experiences with athletes who suffered after being medically disqualified for heart issues.

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https://www.al.com/alabamafootball/2020/08/how-a-cardiologist-may-have-saved-the-college-football-season.html?outputType=amp

To be held "liable" for something the party suing has to PROVE you are liable. How do you prove liability for a virus you could contract literally ANYWHERE?

CardiffGiant said:

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To be held "liable" for something the party suing has to PROVE you are liable. How do you prove liability for a virus you could contract literally ANYWHERE?

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Some are pointing to contact tracing. That's not what it was intended for so that would be unfortunate. I'm not sure how well that would hold up in a civil court. IMO, they could put in reasonable guidelines and have given players the options not to play with no loss of scholarship. I think it would be very hard to prove the schools acted without due care AND playing football resulted in the damages.

Beyond that, there's the question of how likely are damages to occur to begin with. Younger people are more likely to be asymptomatic and it's very uncommon they have significant complications. The ones who do generally have significant underlying conditions like morbid obesity, cancer history, etc. that don't apply to a college athlete. Even if you were scared to death of myocarditis as a program, why not just have a policy that if you test positive you sit out the year as a precaution?

This is politics, plain and simple.

Most of the universities with big college football are public institutions.

Most of the states in the BigTen and Pac12 are Democratic or Mixed (looking at Senators). Most of the states in the other 3 conferences are Republican.

Like everything else with Covid, toxic partisanship in this country is causing harmful over-reactions from both sides.

NASAg03 said:

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Definitely political. Gretchen Whitmer is actively against fall sports, and that includes University of Michigan.

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Gotta make people unhappy so they'll vote against Trump.