Infectious disease expert doesn't believe fans will be allowed to attend college football games this season: 'That’s just not going to happen'
If you’ve been paying attention to the news recently, which can understandably be difficult to do given our current state of affairs following the coronavirus pandemic, it appears things are on the right track throughout much of the country as many states have already begun to open back up and others are soon to follow.
Even college campuses across the nation have announced plans to welcome students back to campus in the fall and hopes are high that college football can be played as nearly the entire SEC has issued some form of a plan to return to in-person classes.
While the season now looks more likely to be played than ever since the coronavirus descended on the country, there are many unanswered questions that exist with one of the biggest being fan attendance for the upcoming college football season.
Will it be safe to have that many people on campuses across the country on game day and congregating in stadiums?
According to Dr. Jon McCullers, an associate executive dean at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Medicine and infectious disease expert, the answer is clearly no. McCullers shared his thoughts on the subject during a recent appearance on Memphis-based ESPN 92.9 FM radio program “The Geoff Calkins Show.”
“You’re not going to have spectators in Neyland Stadium this year,” McCullers said on the show. “That’s just not going to happen. Whether people want to think it is or not, it’s not going to happen. I’ll tell you that. The question is: Do we play football without spectators?
“Interestingly, I’m being told that’s going to be a conference decision and that the university presidents, who are going to have influence over the conference decision, obviously, are going to abide by what the conference decides. So UT is waiting to see what the SEC says about if there’s going to be football or not. It will be really interesting if some conferences say they are going to have football and maybe the SEC does and just plays each other, or something. The landscape is really fascinating.”
It should also be noted that Dr. McCullers is in charge of Tennessee’s task force looking into the reopening of all campuses across the state.
Thankfully we have plenty of time remaining before any final decisions have to be made but considering these comments from Dr. McCullers, while college football may be played come the fall, things may not be totally back to normal on campuses until the 2021 season.
Dont like the sound of that. Especially from a guy who is “in charge.” So you cant have fans but you can have kids on campus? I still think there a ways to have some fans…maybe not 100k and maybe not tailgating. I suggested a lottery system using only season ticket holders that are surveyed and wanting to come to games. Cut numbers in half and reseat based off some distancing. I know its not 100 percent but it is an idea. Also require masks as a possible mitigation factor. I just dont want to keep hiding from this virus. Healthy folks need to get back to living.
Problem is that numbers are still rising pretty rappidly if you take ny/nj out of the equation. I don’t know that they will have kids on campus. A dorm is very similar to a cruise ship. South Korea got it right but politicians here would rather see lower numbers that to bit the bullet and test the way we should. Turns out in the end that just makes this a longer process
I just wonder how this works financially. I have season tickets for Georgia. There was a 95% renewal rate for the season ticket holders. If they limit entry and restrict how many games we can attend, do we get refunds for the games we can’t attend? We have to pre-pay and order in March. I’m sure I speak for the others when I say we didn’t spend that money to be allowed to go to just a few. If it is limited for us, they just allow all the top tier donors to go, at the expense of the rest of us. It’s how they handle everything now related to football.
I would think refunds if you cant go to games. As far as kids on campus and dorms. Again you have to mitigate risks. This virus could be here with no vaccine for while. We need kids in school. The online system is not sustainable. Maybe kids wear masks on campus. Maybe you test weekly. Maybe you limit access to dorm and only allow kids in rooms. Limit gatherings. Maybe you have to hire extra security to monitor. Whatever it takes we need kids on campus to learn and the economy needs kids on campus.
I pray he is wrong. Considering he is in charge tho that worries the hell out of me. Just how to we have football without fans. I feel like the All Powerful dollar will win out. The cost of running a season of football from travel to equipment and money spent on injuries we just can’t have a season without fans. Financially it is not feasible.
Media rights are the biggest source of funds. Schools will make way more than enough from that to support football. It’s the sports that football supports that could have a problem.
Okay, we all want college football as it has been in the past. No substitute could replicate fully the pleasure we get from football. But stay with me for a moment, what if we cannot have football in 2020? What is the best we can do? Is there anyway to build a football type entertainment show for television that would capture some of the fun of college football?
Yes, there is such a plan, which I devised and call the “Rick plan” as I have always wanted a plan named after myself. Before you pooh pooh the plan, read and think about it. It can be tweaked in various ways but maybe it is a good starting point. I describe it next:
For the description of “the Rick plan”, let me take a hypothetical televised “event” involving UGA vs. UF. First, the network (CBS, etc.) builds a library of drives that each team has had against the other over the last, say 30, years. The libraries for each team are culled so as to have the same number of stalls, field goals, and touch downs. In other words, each time has equal statistics regarding points scored using the two culled libraries. Then the “event” begins with a simulated coin flip (or celebrity coin flip of some sort). The teams then take turns by randomly selecting from each culled library. The selected drives form the simulated game. An external to each clip, but cumulative score board is kept, which reflects total amount of time used in the drives, and a cumulative score.
Will football fans be interested? YES, at least ones like me. The event includes the chance to see great athletics, it has an unknown outcome until the game is over (which is what kills replayed games, in my opinion) and it will be a chance to bring back former football heros in a way that is meaningful and enjoyable, and of course, you can gamble on it.
Does anyone out there agree this might be a reasonable substitute if new football games cannot be played?
My dream is the SEC retools the fall camp dates, starts the season but only playing other SEC schools in an abbreviated season, no open dates, with title game. No National Championship this season.
Fans would have to sign waivers to attend in person *IF* that can be worked out, probably would be a “priority” situation with season ticket holders. 30K in Neyland with distancing might be possible, but as much as it all pains me, we might have to accept no football season. We still don’t know about if there is seasonality or not. SO many unknowns.
EXCUSE ME BROKEBACKVOL……..NO I DO WANT A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!!! You don’t because the VOLS have NO CHANCE!!!!! But UGA deserves their shot at glory!!!!!
King Negan
That’s more a nightmare. Set your goals a little higher.
THEY ARE NOT IN CHARGE OF ME!!!!!! This is all based on LIES AND MORE LIES!!!! It’s nothing but the COMMON FLU MIXED WITH A MAN-MADE VIRUS FROM CHINA!!!! They are trying to destroy the united states of America a pillar at the time BY FEAR!!!!
This is that LONG AWAITED UN TAKEOVER THAT IVE BEEN WARNING ABOUT FOR YEARS AND BEING LAUGHED AT!!!!
Personally I don’t believe the BIG MONEY PEOPLE OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL ARE GOING TO TAKE THIS MUCH LONGER!!!! The NCAA is NOT going to stay closed with EVERYTHING ELSE OPEN!!!!
Just look at what is opening up. HAIR SOLONS? Tell me how you use social distancing there??? REALLY HOW???? STORES? Well we need stores but people still go there!!!! It’s all BS!!!!
PS. MIGHT BE TIME TO MARCH AND FIX THINGS!!!! THIS IS THE UNITED STATES NOT CHINA AND NOT RUSSIA!!!! This is NOT NORTH KOREA EITHER!!!!
WE ARE STILL THE LAND OF THE FREE!!!! DON’T YOU DARE ELECT A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR FREEDOM STRIPPED!!!! ELECT TRUMP BECAUSE HE WON’T STAND FOR THIS!!!!!
TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT
KING NEGAN
you can troll with less effort
We need to find his phone and break his cap lock…
Idk where people get this idea that people can’t sit next to each other in a Stadium, but 100 kids rolling around, bleeding, spitting, sweating on each other will be totally fine? If it’s not safe enough for fans to be in the stands I don’t see how it’s going to be safe enough to play football. Period
Think a little harder. It’s a lot easier to test a few hundred participants in the game than 100k strangers. If the players don’t have the virus, they can spit all over each other and nothing related to the virus will happen.
1. check the data on testing for anti-bodies vs. testing for the virus present in the body. After reading this you will see that the virus is far less severe scientists have been thinking and far more wide-spread than we have been told.
2. if Covid 19 is typical, and the data explained by a Stanford University Doctor commonly seen on-line and noted above, then a far more extensive mix of immune people have been created even before the first vaccine can be given. So it’s becoming far more widespread….. but at the same time far less likely that a contagious person will pass the virus to someone who has no anti-bodies.
3. And we are 4 months from having all the growing immune members of the population inter-spersed.
4. Testing also has 4 more months to clear up who is healthy, who is sick, and who has recovered from Covid 19, and who had other flu, and pnemonia that might also be contagious. We don’t know this yet, but it is possible that 2020 might be the year of the smallest number of flu, common cold, and pnemonia virus cases in modern history. Why?, because we have had a world wide reaction to Covid 19 that has made by far the greater % of the population stay more virus free and less contagious with hundreds of other contagious virus forms.
5. It’s possible that this autumn could the the healthiest time ever to attend a football game, or be in any crowd. Quickly however, there will still be a
virus out there that makes a very small percentage of people very sick so those high risk people may want to avoid crowds longer and those of you who are not high risk need to stay vigilant about not barging into contagious space with anyone else, because age can be less than obvious and immune challenged people don’t have that tattooed on their foreheads.
6. This guy is above my pay-scale but I’ve worked with microscopic organisms some and people who strictly obey all the rules being learned in our society right now, are far far less likely to pass this virus back and forth. There are people who can’t or won’t learn to behave safely however and maybe those people can be screened and just not get in the gates.
There’s a lot here, but I’ll just point out one recurring issue: we don’t even know if antibodies = immunity for this virus. We don’t have to make decisions that cost many lives and dollars, so our wild speculations are relatively risk free. Hopefully the people making those decisions are a little more careful and deliberate.