What does a return to collegiate sports look like?
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00:00 Ten commissioners of the College Sports Football Bowl subdivision are in daily deliberations
00:09 about how to save the 2020 football season amidst the pandemic.
00:14 Joining me now to discuss this is SI's writer, Ross Dellinger.
00:18 Ross, it's been two months since the coronavirus shut down the sports world.
00:24 There is so much that is still unknown at this time.
00:27 Can you give us some insight, though, on where college football stands as of now?
00:31 Yeah, we don't know a lot.
00:33 We don't know when the season's going to kick off.
00:35 We don't know even when football practice will begin.
00:39 But we're getting closer and closer to those decisions happening as we get into June.
00:44 In fact, we're getting days away from a decision to potentially open up campuses to players
00:51 in June to go back, lift weights, in a voluntary nature.
00:55 And then after that decision, we'll have probably some kind of date to begin a six-week training
01:02 camp of some sort in mid-July.
01:04 So the teams, basically, they have to start in mid to late July.
01:08 They have to start practicing because they're going to need six weeks, it's been determined,
01:14 until they kick off.
01:15 So we're in that space where in the next five to seven weeks, a decision is going to have
01:21 to be made on whether we can kick off on time or not.
01:26 But in the meantime, we're going to have a decision here soon in the next few days on
01:30 allowing players potentially to return to campus in June, and then again after that,
01:36 hopefully getting a date for some kind of training camp to begin in July.
01:41 So let's say if everyone doesn't start on time, what are those return to play plans
01:45 and the contingency plans they're working on putting in place?
01:48 Yeah, you know, everybody's not going to start on time.
01:51 The conference commissioners are pretty clear that all the 130 FBS teams will not start
01:57 on time because the virus has affected states differently, cities differently, schools differently.
02:04 And there will be varying states that reopen at different times and have varying different
02:10 laws.
02:11 So some players might not be able to return to campus in June.
02:16 Some players might not, some schools might not be able to start training camp in mid-July
02:20 or play the season at all.
02:23 That's the expectation.
02:24 So as you get back to your question, you mentioned, you know, what happens then.
02:30 There's even talk that within a conference, you could have two schools play each other
02:34 twice in a year.
02:37 Maybe you have a shortened season of some kind.
02:39 Maybe you play just seven games or eight games or nine games.
02:42 Well, we're all hoping for a 2020 football season, but we'll have to wait to see how
02:46 this plays out.
02:47 Ross, thank you so much for your insight.
02:49 Appreciate it.
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