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NCAA's Fall Decision Could Leave College Sports At Crossroads

Power 5 football championships being played could potentially create legal problems for the conferencesGETTY IMAGES

The NCAA's decision to cancel fall championships is a "significant step toward a fall in which FBS football, the cash cow for so many Power 5 universities, is the only sport attempting to be played," according to Nicole Auerbach of THE ATHLETIC. Such a scenario "would be an optics nightmare for college sports as a whole, and it could potentially create legal problems for a model predicated on the idea that college football players are treated just like regular students and just like other college athletes." NCAA President Mark Emmert's cancellation announcement was "significant but also expected." Emory Univ. Associate Dean and NCAA COVID-19 advisory panel member Carlos del Rio said that the country "should be focused on controlling the pandemic and not whether college football can be played." Del Rio said, "I feel like the Titanic. We have hit the iceberg, and we're trying to make decisions of what time should we have the band play." He added for those still contemplating fall sports, "If you cannot do it safely, you shouldn't do it" (THEATHLETIC.com. 8/13

FRACTURE RELATIONSHIPS: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Laine Higgins notes the pandemic "has officially split the world of big-time college football in two," and the chaos "potentially sets the stage for a very strange season in which some of the nation’s top powers could vie for a national championship while the rest stew at home." It "highlights the ungoverned nature of college football, in which no one, including the NCAA, is fully in charge, leaving powerful schools and conferences to push their own agendas." Not even the "army of medical advisers hired by universities and conferences agree on what to do." What is "remarkable about the fractured state of college football is that it is the direct product of a sprawling attempt to get the best medical advice from infectious disease experts into the ears of decision makers." There is a "Covid-19 advisory panel at the NCAA level, committees or task forces within every major conference plus advisory councils for each university." There also is a "medical advisory group exclusively dedicated to counseling the Power Five conferences." Yet the "approaches the conferences are taking couldn't be more different" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8/14). 

TWO SUB-DIVISIONS, WORLDS AWAY: West Virginia AD and NCAA Football Oversight Committee Chair Shane Lyons said that some FCS schools "still plan on playing nonconference football games," but unlike in the FBS, FCS football "won't have its NCAA-sponsored championship." Asked about the optics of that discrepancy, Lyons noted that the Big 12's plan is to "test its athletes three times each week." Lyons: "There's always going to be the optics of that, but from our conference, when we went through this, we added a couple extra layers of testing as part of our requirement. And that wasn't only going to apply to football, that is going to apply to all of our fall sports. ... Are we still going to be competing in those other sports in the fall? I don't have that answer yet. As a conference we haven't discussed it" (ESPN.com, 8/13). ESPN's Paul Finebaum said, "The head of the NCAA is essentially saying you really shouldn't go on, and we can't go on because we don't have enough teams competing, and meanwhile you swivel the camera around and there is the Big 12, the ACC and the SEC marching along like they're not even hearing the rest of the country talk. It is a singularly stunning moment in the history of college sports. ... It is simply shocking how dysfunctional this sport is" (“Get Up,” ESPN, 8/14).

AAC'S FALL PLANS: The AAC has not postponed its fall sports, with Commissioner Mike Aresco saying it "would be premature to make any kind of decision at this point on such an important matter." Aresco: "We're continuing to gather information and there is more information coming out. We certainly want to know what was behind the Big Ten and Pac-12 situation because our own doctors have been tracking the heart issues and they’ve been out there, but we want to know what’s changed." Aresco said that he "met with 40 athletes from around the league Tuesday to discuss any concerns they may have about playing football in the fall." He added that many of those in attendance "asked questions about safety, and their concerns were addressed by the league’s medical advisory group." Aresco: "They seemed very satisfied that we're doing what we’re doing" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 8/13).

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