Tuesday could be D-Day for college football as we know it
NCAA President Dr. Mark Emmert (Photo by USCGA, via Flickr)
College athletics as it currently exists could be over by the end of Tuesday when the NCAA Board of Governors meets to decide the fate of fall sports amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Nothing has been ordinary in the world since the COVID-19 pandemic began. That includes the sports landscape in this country. Professional sports leagues now play their games in stadiums and arena in front of tens of thousands of empty seats. Meanwhile, Pac-12 schools such as The University of Washington and Washington State are preparing for a football season that might not happen.
College sports have been in a kind of “make it up as we go and hope for the best” mode since the NCAA halted athletics back in March. College sports governing body hasn’t been at the forefront of any major changes or decisions to continue fall athletics so far. Sure, they have played a small part, but any major changes have come from conferences, themselves.
Tuesday may be a day of reckoning for college athletics as we now know it. The NCAA Board of Governors meets to decide the fate of fall sports including football. This is a multi-Billion dollar industry so any decision will have ramifications. In some cases, the very survival of athletic scholarships, coach’s jobs, and entire school athletic departments are at stake.
There is plenty of hostility that serves as an undercurrent to Tuesday’s meeting. Never has the divide between the haves and have-nots been so wide in college athletics. It could be a tipping point that sees the top dogs packing up their footballs and walking away from the rest of the pack. There is no law that says college football must be sanctioned by the NCAA.
Elephant in the room
Four paragraphs into this story and the safety of student-athletes hasn’t been mentioned yet. Neither have the “demands” or threat to opt-out made by Pac-12 football players, published in “The Player’s Tribune” on Sunday.
Whatever decision comes down from the NCAA, they will say something to the effect of “we did this with the health and welfare of our student-athletes as the basis of our decision.”
While that is ultimately the deciding factor, it certainly isn’t the only factor. There are four options the board has. We take a look at each option and the effects each will have on college football.
Pac-12 player group threatens to opt out, makes list of demands on injustice, safety https://t.co/jgzKeDtfJI
— bomani (@bomani_jones) August 1, 2020