College commissioners say no sports until students on campus. What it means for Miami
Florida’s decision to deem professional sports as “essential business” could open a pathway for the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS or NASCAR to return to action in some capacity, but the ruling likely won’t have any bearing on college sports’ potential return.
The commissioners for the 10 major college football conferences, plus Notre Dame Fighting Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick, met with Vice President Mike Pence via teleconference Wednesday to discuss a possible return of college sports in the fall. Those 11, who comprise the College Football Playoff management committee, reportedly told the vice president a return from the COVID-19 shutdown would not be possible until students are back on campuses.
“We were able to talk about the differences between us and professional sports,” American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco told the Associated Press.
Last month, the NCAA canceled all spring sports because of the coronavirus pandemic. On April 1, the NCAA extended an ongoing dead period for recruiting through the end of May, meaning coaches can’t go out on the road to recruit or bring prospects to campus. Meanwhile, colleges are beginning to cancel in-person summer classes and weigh the possibility all in-person classes will be canceled until at least 2021. If this happens, the college football season won’t be able to go off as planned.
Currently, the season is scheduled to begin in August with preseason practices potentially beginning as early as July. While it’s still impossible to know what the virus outbreak will look like in the summer, it appears unlikely there won’t still be some sort of social-distancing measures in place when practices are scheduled to begin.
There’s still no pressing need to make a decision, but Pac-12 Conference commissioner Larry Scott told The Mercury News in San Jose last month he thinks a decision will have to be made by the end of May. As the self-imposed deadline nears, a delayed start to the 2020 football season becomes a more distinct possibility. If colleges opt to suspend in-person classes for the fall semester in 2020, it will become the only possible course of action with the season moving to the winter and spring.
One possibility is delaying the start of the season just a few weeks or months. This, however, becomes unrealistic if there are no in-person classes, in which case starting the season in 2021 will be the next option.
The Miami Hurricanes are on board with playing a spring season early in 2021. Right now, it might be the most realistic option.
