Let’s start with regular football takes, then I’ll turn to whether we’ll have a season.

Football:

I’ve been super impressed by Dave Aranda’s recruiting. Matt Rhule wisely tried to get the best athletes and develop them. Aranda is following that blueprint and landing guys that are ranked, on average, a bit higher than Rhule’s classes.

I think Aranda was the right hire. I’m still glad Baylor did not end up with Justin Fuente. But we might as well talk about whether we’ll have a season.

Spring Football:

Whether we have a fall season or a spring season, or no season, requires weighing a few things. First, how bad are the outbreaks in the next few week? Can teams—even those with quite high positive numbers now—keep their guys isolated and virus-free to start practicing? Games start in eight weeks, so there’s not a ton of leeway to play games on time with further delays.

Second, if we delayed until the spring, would things be better? Dr. Fauci thinks we’ll have a vaccine by early 2021. But if the vaccine is ready in late February, it’s a lot different than it being ready in late November.

My feeling is that spring football is getting hammered too much. I think the right approach is to continue planning for football in the fall. But if you’re optimistic about a vaccine for 2021, then you can still play spring football.

The attacks on spring football are persuasive in a normal atmosphere, but they’re not fatal. If we move the season to January, a few guys will go pro and skip the season. Okay. Better to have a full season than nothing, and it’d be pretty funny to watch Clemson fans and Alabama fans complain about going 8-4.

Some complain that we can’t have guys play so many games in 2021. But we take ludicrously long breaks between the end of the regular season and the playoff. One solution would be to push the 2021 season back five weeks and finish the 2022 season toward the end of February. Then the 2022 season could start on time.

I would like to see football in the fall if possible. Maybe the trajectory of the virus changes in the next few weeks. But I think spring football is becoming a lot more likely.

Basketball:

I’m fairly optimistic we’ll have a college basketball season. May Madness instead of March Madness wouldn’t be too tough. With the NBA season getting pushed back in 2021-2022, college basketball can push their season back. The college game also has a ton of worthless non-conference games that can be eliminated, which makes cutting the schedule fairly easy.