With the 2020 college football season hanging in the balance, players have taken the opportunity to voice their opinions both for and against playing out the season.
On Saturday afternoon the MAC Conference announced that it would be canceling their season and shooting for a spring schedule. It was not the first conference to announce a delay as D2 and D3 along with UCONN had also done the same, but the MAC was different. It forced a Sunday emergency meeting of the Power Five schools to discuss possibly delaying the fall football schedule.
At first reaction, I admit that I was disappointed that football may not be returning for the fall. I can’t remember a time that college football was not a major of my life in this part of the year. The trouble however is that I forgot the most important part of the equation which is of course the student-athlete.
Two camps have seemingly emerged so far with the “Let Us Play” movement being a loud one. Jordan Yates was one of the higher voices from Georgia Tech in the play it out camp saying in a series of tweets that Yates to me makes a strong point that athletes are already inside of the bubble and have been required to follow strict guidelines regarding health and safety and that athletes would be more likely to become infected if they were sent back home.
Right now, us college football players are probably in the safest environments possible during this pandemic. We’re around a world class medical staff and have a strict protocol to ensure that we are as safe as possible. Cancelling the season removes us from this climate...
— Jordan Yates (@jor_yates) August 9, 2020
Yates followed that tweet with the following;
..putting us at an even higher risk to contract the virus and spread it to others. As we’ve seen in the media, people who don’t have a bigger picture to focus on do not follow the proper protocol and removing the season will cause many college football players to do the same.
— Jordan Yates (@jor_yates) August 10, 2020
The other side of the coin was voiced by veteran Tariq Carpenter who tweeted this;
it ain’t hard at all.. don’t understand whats the rush of playing in a global pandemic. trying to figure out why this country ain’t been shut down yet. also how is playing a contact sport safer for us. https://t.co/S9C7UYQL3G
— Tariq Carpenter (@tariqcarpenter2) August 10, 2020
His basic premise seemed to be the same as Yates on staying on campus but waiting until it was safer to play the season. Other players across D1 advocated for an opt-out system like the professionals have in place allowing those that are willing to take the risk to play and allowing others to sit. This of course would turn into a bigger discussion about what to do with scholarships and eligibility, but those questions would have to be answered by someone smarter than me.
No matter what happens in the coming days with the season being played or not there is very little doubt that the 2020 football season is going to be a different one for college football fans and players alike.