NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline: 'We're not in a place today where we can safely play sports'

The Big Ten and Pac-12 have already canceled fall sports, with the potential to play football (and potentially other sports) in the spring.

However, the Big 12, ACC and SEC are still pressing forward with plans to play this fall, though the NCAA recently announced it wouldn’t hold any fall championships.

That doesn’t affect the FBS football postseason, of course, but the NCAA is making it pretty clear where it stands on the 3 conferences continuing to prepare for the season. On CNN on Saturday night, NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline said there’s no way we can safely play sports without better testing in the U.S.:

It came at 12:30 am ET on a Saturday night, but NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline pretty blunt on CNN

"Right now, if testing in the US stays the way it is, there’s no way we can go forward with sports"

Later: "We’re not in a place today where we can safely play sports."

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 16, 2020

It sure does seem like the NCAA, while powerless to prevent the SEC and peers from pressing forward, is trying to guilt them as hard as possible.

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 16, 2020

The Pac-12 has revealed its medical reports, but many are questioning the medical advice the Big Ten received. Plenty of others are questioning why the SEC and others are continuing to play.

There’s still a long way to go before Sept. 26, so we’ll see what happens as the debate continues.