Ross Dellenger delves into the trials and tribulations that College Football and the NCAA face as the start of the next season comes closer.
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00:00Ten commissioners of the college sports football bowl subdivision are in daily deliberations
00:09about how to save the 2020 football season amidst the pandemic.
00:14Joining me now to discuss this is SI's writer, Ross Dellinger.
00:18Ross, it's been two months since the coronavirus shut down the sports world.
00:24There is so much that is still unknown at this time.
00:27Can you give us some insight, though, on where college football stands as of now?
00:31Yeah, we don't know a lot.
00:33We don't know when the season's going to kick off.
00:35We don't know even when football practice will begin.
00:39But we're getting closer and closer to those decisions happening as we get into June.
00:44In fact, we're getting days away from a decision to potentially open up campuses to players
00:51in June to go back, lift weights in a voluntary nature.
00:55And then after that decision, we'll have probably some kind of date to begin a six-week
01:02training camp of some sort in mid-July.
01:04So the teams, basically, they have to start in mid to late July, they have to start practicing
01:10because they're going to need six weeks, it's been determined, until they kick off.
01:15So we're in that space where in the next five to seven weeks, a decision is going to have
01:21to be made on whether we can kick off on time or not.
01:26But in the meantime, we're going to have a decision here soon in the next few days on
01:30allowing players potentially to return to campus in June, and then again after that,
01:36hopefully getting a date for some kind of training camp to begin in July.
01:41So let's say if everyone doesn't start on time, what are those return to play plans
01:45and the contingency plans they're working on putting in place?
01:48Yeah, you know, everybody's not going to start on time.
01:52Conference commissioners are pretty clear that all the 130 FBS teams will not start
01:57on time because the virus has affected states differently, cities differently, schools differently,
02:04and there will be varying states that reopen at different times and have varying different
02:10laws.
02:11So some players might not be able to return to campus in June.
02:16Some players might not, some schools might not be able to start training camp in mid-July
02:20or play the season at all.
02:23That's the expectation.
02:24So as you get back to your question, you mentioned, you know, what happens then, there's even
02:30talk that within a conference, you could have two schools play each other twice in a year.
02:37Maybe you have a shortened season of some kind.
02:39Maybe you play just seven games or eight games or nine games.
02:43Well, we're all hoping for a 2020 football season, but we'll have to wait to see how
02:46this plays out.
02:47Ross, thank you so much for your insight.
02:49Appreciate it.