ACC Discussion 2019-20

[RamblinRed]

I think there will be a partial football season but i'll be surprised if we get a full one.

The current trends in decisions being made make it more likely football is not likely to start on time.
Most importantly large gatherings will be the last things allowed as we move forward toward a new normal and the first things to go if a second wave appears.

 

[mstranahan]

large gatherings will be the last things allowed as we move forward toward a new normal and the first things to go if a second wave appears

agree 100%. I think conferences and leagues will be conservative about starting a season, fearing they’ll have to stop suddenly if there is a second wave

 

[RamblinRed]

FWIW, L'ville's AD had a PC to discuss the coaches and senior staff taking pay cuts.
He expressed hope that they would play the football season and said he wasn't in favor of playing in empty stadiums.

He did also say that he thought public health officials would make the decision, not leaders in the athletic world.

 

[MWBATL]

He did also say that he thought public health officials would make the decision, not leaders in the athletic world.

Truth be known, politicians will make the decisions. Public health officials will (as always is the case) make recommendations.

I do agree that crowd based gatherings will be the last things to resume, and further agree that universities will be amongst the last to re-convene, because they are by nature the most cautious and "woke". (That means both a good thing and a bad thing, imho.)

Nevertheless, there is a lot of revenue at stake for these folks, and there will also be a ton of pressure, since most of the rest of society will be re-opened by then and the pro sports WILL be as well...whether or not in front of live crowds remains uncertain.

I suspect that some of the "experts" will lose credibility as it becomes increasingly obvious that their estimates in this first wave were badly overblown. A field hospital went up in Seattle, saw absolutely zero patients, and is now being dismantled. The estimates that Cuomo screamed about in NY turned out to be drastically over-stated. (Trump was right, he did NOT need 30,000 ventilators.) The damage to the economy will be something that will become a bigger issue as we turn the tide on this disease.

The nature of this disease makes it extremely likely there will be another wave in the Fall. The nature of our medical professionals make it extremely likely we will have treatment protocols that render it far less deadly by then. Vaccines won't be available until next year, but if it drops down to mortality levels below that of the seasonal flu (entirely believable if the treatment protocols improve as hoped), then it will hard to maintain this level of social disruption when we haven't done it in the past for the flu.

 

[g0lftime]

An individual school could opt not to play as well. Duke basically shut down the ACC tournament when they said they were not going to play their first game. It wasn't long afterward that everything got shut down.

 

[RamblinRed]

Truth be known, politicians will make the decisions. Public health officials will (as always is the case) make recommendations.

I do agree that crowd based gatherings will be the last things to resume, and further agree that universities will be amongst the last to re-convene, because they are by nature the most cautious and "woke". (That means both a good thing and a bad thing, imho.)

Nevertheless, there is a lot of revenue at stake for these folks, and there will also be a ton of pressure, since most of the rest of society will be re-opened by then and the pro sports WILL be as well...whether or not in front of live crowds remains uncertain.

I suspect that some of the "experts" will lose credibility as it becomes increasingly obvious that their estimates in this first wave were badly overblown. A field hospital went up in Seattle, saw absolutely zero patients, and is now being dismantled. The estimates that Cuomo screamed about in NY turned out to be drastically over-stated. (Trump was right, he did NOT need 30,000 ventilators.) The damage to the economy will be something that will become a bigger issue as we turn the tide on this disease.

The nature of this disease makes it extremely likely there will be another wave in the Fall. The nature of our medical professionals make it extremely likely we will have treatment protocols that render it far less deadly by then. Vaccines won't be available until next year, but if it drops down to mortality levels below that of the seasonal flu (entirely believable if the treatment protocols improve as hoped), then it will hard to maintain this level of social disruption when we haven't done it in the past for the flu.

What this is going to lead to is a discussion (and disagreement) over how much the initial projections were too high, and how much the numbers are lower because of the mitigation measures that were taken.

I also suspect when backend analysis is done the mortality numbers are going to get revised significantly upward. The odds are high that due to lack of testing and what is being counted, that deaths are being significantly undercounted. in NYC for example compared to last year home deaths are up 450%. Some formula will ultimately be created to decide what percentange of that increase is due to COVID. Coroners in a number of states are saying that testing is largely not being done so potential COVID cases are not being tagged as such.

 

[gdamian]

Truth be known, politicians will make the decisions. Public health officials will (as always is the case) make recommendations.

I suspect that some of the "experts" will lose credibility as it becomes increasingly obvious that their estimates in this first wave were badly overblown. A field hospital went up in Seattle, saw absolutely zero patients, and is now being dismantled. The estimates that Cuomo screamed about in NY turned out to be drastically over-stated. (Trump was right, he did NOT need 30,000 ventilators.) The damage to the economy will be something that will become a bigger issue as we turn the tide on this disease.

The nature of this disease makes it extremely likely there will be another wave in the Fall. The nature of our medical professionals make it extremely likely we will have treatment protocols that render it far less deadly by then. Vaccines won't be available until next year, but if it drops down to mortality levels below that of the seasonal flu (entirely believable if the treatment protocols improve as hoped), then it will hard to maintain this level of social disruption when we haven't done it in the past for the flu.

Agree with your assessment. One unknown is international. I agree that the 1st world will likely have a protocol to mitigate the symptoms. That a protocol can be scaled and delivered to the rest of the world is more doubtful. So we are potentially looking at a much worse international (think Pakistan, India, Brazil and Bangladesh, etc) situation with the implications not clear at all.

 

[MWBATL]

What this is going to lead to is a discussion (and disagreement) over how much the initial projections were too high, and how much the numbers are lower because of the mitigation measures that were taken.

I also suspect when backend analysis is done the mortality numbers are going to get revised significantly upward. The odds are high that due to lack of testing and what is being counted, that deaths are being significantly undercounted. in NYC for example compared to last year home deaths are up 450%. Some formula will ultimately be created to decide what percentange of that increase is due to COVID. Coroners in a number of states are saying that testing is largely not being done so potential COVID cases are not being tagged as such.

I don't disagree with you.

I suspect that there will be a ton of review and finger-poinintg after this settles down a bit. Unfortunately, far too much of it will not be fact based but will be done with political axes to grind. I would VERY much like to see genuine analysis and fact-based study of what happened afterwards, to learn from it. Your comment about deaths in homes sounds like a valid thing to look into. As does the very basic question of how you count a death when a person goes into the hospital and has underlying emphysema. The Imperial College of London estimates even went so far as to state that the vast majority of deaths they expected to see the UK were people whom they expected would die anyway within the next 12 months based on their age and underlying health issues. How do you take this information into account?

I am one who doesn't believe making best guesses and mistakes in the middle of something like this is sufficient reason to crucify anyone, as long as it was done in good faith with their best judgment (even if wrong). But the politics of this whole thing is going to be ugly. I did not really mean to open that Pandora's box in this thread...we have other threads devoted to that topic, so apologies if I derailed us into that arena.

I just feel there will be lots of pressure to re-open things come Fall, which is why I believe that we will likely see a college football season.

 

[MWBATL]

Agree with your assessment. One unknown is international. I agree that the 1st world will likely have a protocol to mitigate the symptoms. That a protocol can be scaled and delivered to the rest of the world is more doubtful. So we are potentially looking at a much worse international (think Pakistan, India, Brazil and Bangladesh, etc) situation with the implications not clear at all.

Ah, yes...your point is well made. Internationally this bug can still do tremendous damage. THAT I completely agree with. Indonesia also comes ot mind as heavily populated, with very poor medical infrastructure.

Truth be told, in most of those countries we will likely never know the true impact of this virus. Heck, we will have a hard time figuring it out accurately in western societies, as @RamblinRed points out.

 

[gdamian]

I don't disagree with you.

I just feel there will be lots of pressure to re-open things come Fall, which is why I believe that we will likely see a college football season.

No doubt about pressure to reopen. We are all just speculating, so my speculating is that the pressure will build early in the summer and will be too soon and that we will be right back to lock down by late summer, early fall. Rather than distinct waves like in 1918 we may see a pattern of relaxing and then cases rebuilding because we relaxed too soon and we are not adequately testing/tracing.

 

[jbix80]

ESPN says that Vernon Carey is going pro.

 

[RamblinRed]

There will definitely be pressure. Heck, if football season isn't a close to full season the impact on college athletic budgets is going to be huge, and not a one year impact. Probably talking about what programs are you going to cut and make sure you don't fall below the 14 program min the NCAA requires and any program cuts don't run afoul of Title IX. Also would certainly impact facilities and coaching contracts over the long term.

One thing i feel pretty comfortable in predicting though - college sports will not be the first sports back. If come mid-to-late July there is no MLB, no NFL training camps, or no finishing the NBA season, then the outlook for college athletics in the fall is going to be dim. I just don't see any way Universities are going to take that risk first with student athletes before you have well paid professional athletes playing.

 

[MWBATL]

One thing i feel pretty comfortable in predicting though - college sports will not be the first sports back. If come mid-to-late July there is no MLB, no NFL training camps, or no finishing the NBA season, then the outlook for college athletics in the fall is going to be dim. I just don't see any way Universities are going to take that risk first with student athletes before you have well paid professional athletes playing.

100% agree.

 

[73CAV]

The other elephant in the room, which no one seems to want to mention is: at what point do fans feel comfortable returning to stadia and gyms? Presumably, professional wrestling will regain their fans first, but what of real sports? Secondly, when are parents going to let their sons and daughters return to participation?

 

[GT11]

I think people will be surprised. People I talk to are ready for this to be over and ready for life as was to return. Still some will stay away, but most are ready to go and live their lives.

 

[g0lftime]

40000 fans with masks on? That will be an interesting site. Can we get the right shade of gold?

 

[YlJacket]

IMHO you will see fans attending games will skew younger and older fans will tend to stay away. NBA tends to be younger while college football tends to be older.

 

[RamblinRed]

IMHO you will see fans attending games will skew younger and older fans will tend to stay away. NBA tends to be younger while college football tends to be older.

I agree with this take. I expect 50+ attendence is going to be down significantly assuming there is a season.
Under 50 probably won't be impacted nearly as much.

 

[RamblinRed]

This isn't really ACC related but will put it here.
5* Forward Isiah Todd has decided he will not attend MI this fall and will instead look at professional opportunities overseas.

 

[mstranahan]

Wow. I just saw a writeup yesterday that talked about what a great fit Michigan was for him, with Howard as coach. Wonder what happened? Academics? Can't imagine it was COVID fear as going to Europe wouldn't exactly be staying closer to home or going to an area with low COVID infection rates