National sports reporters have variety of opinions toward college football season
Sports personalities from different outlets have shared their thoughts on college football and if it will be played amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Iowa running back Toren Young runs the ball during the Iowa football game against Miami (Ohio) at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, August 31, 2019. The Hawkeyes defeated the Redhawks 38-14.
July 20, 2020
The twists and turns of trying to play college football amid a pandemic have amplified in the past weeks.
First, the Ivy League announced it would cancel sports through the rest of 2020. Then, the Big Ten announced it will be playing a conference-only schedule in the fall if college football can even be played. The next day, the Pac-12 followed the Big Ten’s lead.
These announcements have spurred a variety of reactions, especially from the media. With many sports media publications having intense interest in college football, here’s what national reporters think about the current situation.
The Athletic
The subscription-based sports website is known for its featured content, and its opinion pieces are no different.
Andy Staples, a senior writer at The Athletic, wrote an article about what must happen for a college football season to played in 2020. In it, he took the path of explicitly not looking at the situation through a political lens.
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Instead, Staples focused on reasons why optimism for playing in the fall has plummeted, such as cases spiking. He also broke down aspects of financial uncertainty among athletics departments.
Staples addressed the idea of playing in the spring and that deciding when to move the season back, if it came to that, can be risky.
The best hope in his mind for college football to be in the fall would be to limit the number of people on campus. But Staples acknowledged that case numbers and school presidents deciding their risk tolerance is probably what’s going to determine a season in the fall.
Sports Illustrated
Unlike Staples, Sports Illustrated national columnist Pat Forde took a political stance in his column.
In his column, “Trump’s Fumbling of the Coronavirus Crisis Could Kill the College Football Season,” he blamed the president for the possibility that there might not be a college football season.
The veteran journalist said that Trump blew the summer and caused America to have an exponential growth in new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks.
Forde cited statements that the NCAA made in the past week, which said that some sports might not be safe in some areas and that high testing rates could end the season in some areas. He pointed out that college football can’t be in a bubble like some professional leagues.
In the last sentence, he urged people that if college football is not played to send their receipts to the White House.
ESPN
Longtime columnist Paul Finebaum is known for his radio show on the SEC Network, which is owned by ESPN. Recently, he’s been on ESPN’s Get Up, and on July 17 he had strong words for NCAA President Mark Emmert, who recently acknowledged that the NCAA might struggle to start on time in the fall.
In the clip, Finebaum said that Emmert’s statements were like a meteorologist telling people it’s raining outside, that Emmert should be fired after the storm passes, and that the NCAA is useless. Finebaum’s statements should come as no surprise considering he has had strong opinions his entire career.
