Florida AD Scott Stricklin discusses plans for start of 2020 season
By SDS Staff
Published:
Shortly after the coronavirus led to the shutdown of NCAA spring sports and the NBA, fans began to worry about fall sports, including college football.
While there is still uncertainty about the 2020 season, college presidents, commissioners and athletic directors are offering updates. Florida’s Scott Stricklin shared this weekend that UF is still planning on a September kickoff.
“There’s probably more we don’t know right now than we do know right now, so I think it’s important when you have things you don’t know you don’t try to speculate or guess too much, because that’s not helpful and it leads to a lot of conversation that’s probably not going to be productive,” Stricklin said during a recent appearance on The Sam Pittman Show on 96.1 JAMZ in Tallahassee.
“But I can tell you our focus is we’re going to kick off Sept. 5. I hope we can do it in a way that looks like it’s always looked, but really at the end of the day it’s not up to us to decide that. It’s up to the health experts and how the virus is in our community or our state at that time.”
Stricklin says the big-picture look at the situation in the Sunshine State is encouraging.
“I will say as we sit here in early May, I feel like the state of Florida … except the three counties in South Florida, it looks like the rest of the state has done a good job of managing this up to this point,” he said. “As we begin to reopen it’s going to be important that we continue to do so in a smart way, and I think our leadership has done a good job at all levels, state and local, of helping us do that.
“That’s really important and I pay a lot of attention to that these days, because that’s going to give us the best chance to have our students on campus this fall, to have our athletes preparing for competition this fall and then eventually, hopefully, competing this fall.”
While Stricklin was optimistic, he pointed out things can change.
“But I can’t sit here and tell you with any certainty, 100% it’s going to happen,” Stricklin said. “I can tell you that we’re making plans as if it’s going to happen, and if we have to adjust and alter those plans we’ll figure out a way to do so.”
[H/T Swamp247]
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
