While spring sports seasons have been canceled, the ongoing and unpredictable coronavirus pandemic is raising a new and palpable concern among college athletic directors, coaches and conference officials nationwide -- how will the fall sports seasons, specifically football, potentially be affected?
In a Thursday conference call with the media, Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill said that in regard to the football season, which is about five months away from kickoff, "everything is on the table."
Will the season play out as scheduled? Will it be shortened? Will it be delayed? Will fans be allowed to attend? When will teams be able to practice, and how much time will they need to prepare before the start of the season?
These are among many questions those in college athletics are beginning to ask and ones that Gill had to address on Thursday, as concern mounts over how long the coronavirus will continue to disrupt the American sports landscape. Gill said he is "hopeful" and "optimistic" that football will be able to proceed as normal in the fall, but he also didn't want to speculate.
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"We still don't know how this pandemic will run its course," Gill said. "I think the football question is an open question. I think we're looking at everything, and we're gonna work through certainly our ADs, our football coaches and our health professionals and our advisory panel to make sure we get that right from a health and safety standpoint."
During his 40-minute call with reporters, Gill said the league has formulated its own coronavirus advisory panel to help guide them in decision making as the pandemic continues to rapidly progress.
That panel includes Dr. Jeffrey Dugas, a Troy University team physician and a member of the NCAA's Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports; Brandy Clouse, a senior associate athletic director at Georgia Southern and the chair of the Sun Belt's sports medicine directors; Dr. Emilio Carranco, the chief medical officer at Texas State; and Dr. Benjamin Estrada, who is an infectious disease expert at South Alabama.
Gill said the league is currently working on developing possible return-to-play protocols, asking its football coaches for their input and coming up with models for how things could play out.
With football, there is an added layer to this quandary. Teams are normally able to conduct a three-week preseason camp in August, and there will likely have to be a similar, if not identical, period prior to any potential start date this fall.
Many teams around the country and in the Sun Belt also saw their spring camps either cut short or canceled altogether. With an abnormal mid-February start date, Arkansas State University was one of the few programs nationally that was able to complete nearly its entire camp, conducting 11 of the 15 practices the NCAA allows, including a pair of scrimmages. ASU Coach Blake Anderson told the Democrat-Gazette two weeks ago that the Red Wolves -- whose 2020 season opener at Memphis is slated for Sept. 5 -- were "extremely fortunate."
The Sun Belt, as with many other conferences nationally, has already canceled all remaining sports seasons and organized team activities for the spring term, and it's doubtful that spring football practices will be able to be made up.
As of now, Gill said the league is still planning on conducting its annual football media day in New Orleans in late July, but that is also subject to change.
Whatever ends up happening with college football, Gill said he believes there will have to be a coordinated "national solution."
"I think ... we'll come together with some ideas as FBS conferences, then we'll kind of join together, figure out what makes sense and make sure that we're all on the same page about when we start playing football, because the community is so interconnected," Gill said.
Football wasn't the only major item Gill discussed on Thursday. The issue of athletes' eligibility was also raised, as the NCAA Division I Council Coordination Committee is set to vote Monday on if winter and spring sports athletes should be granted an extra year of eligibility, although the committee has already publicly supported relief for spring athletes.
If relief is approved, the NCAA has stated that it "supports providing schools with a framework in which they have the autonomy to make their own decisions in the best interest of their campus, conference and student-athletes."
Gill said the Sun Belt and its athletic directors and school presidents are still working on finalizing their collective position on the matter, as there would be significant financial ramifications and increased team roster sizes.
"Those students have been through a lot, and so trying to provide them an opportunity to be as whole as they can with regards to their competition opportunities, I think is something that we are generally supportive of," Gill said.
"I certainly think that, financially, we're all kind of trying to figure out what this all looks like, so there certainly will be some hard decisions that we'll have to make."
Sports on 03/27/2020