The ACC will delay the start of competition for all fall sports until at least Sept. 1

[mtodd30]

Good news is that we haven’t reported any cases! Our wait to start phase 1 was very helpful I think

 

[GTNavyNuke]

The increase in cases is due primarily to increase in spread, not increase in testing. On a national level the positive case % has increased from 4.4% to 4.9% in a week.........

You had me at this.

I'll keep tracking excess deaths to prior years average. They have been going down through 30 May. The facts will speak for themselves.

 

[gtstinger776]

Let’s say the season doesn’t happen, is that really bad for our program? I don’t think so. We play a tough schedule and have a really young roster. Let’s say the ncaa doesn’t grant eligibility extensions - kind of suck for some guys, but not really overall. Let’s say it does - we have a program in desperate need of S&C that much further along. Don’t get me wrong, I want to watch Yellow Jackets football this fall. But that isn’t the worst outcome for us as a program given where we are.

 

[Techster]

Good news is that we haven’t reported any cases! Our wait to start phase 1 was very helpful I think

The big test for us will be in the coming weeks as out of staters and freshmen have started reporting in Phase 2. Hopefully GT continues the trend of no news. Like I said earlier, during this time, no news is good news.

 

[LongforDodd]

Sign of the times. It may get worse before it gets better and both college and NFL football are going to be hurt financially.

My gut feeling is that the seasons will start for both college and NFL but will end in an ugly fashion.

 

[4shotB]

Moved some posts over to the politics of covid thread in the political forum.

Once again, may have missed some or moved some but (imo) arguments over the data and the responses by authorities should be held over there. Thanks for your continued support and use of this site.

 

[BuzzStone]

I am amazed that us season ticket holders have gotten no direction at all

 

[stech81]

I am amazed that us season ticket holders have gotten no direction at all

Not much they can say right now.

 

[TooTall]

I am amazed that us season ticket holders have gotten no direction at all

I've gotten several emails stating that I could pause the payments for my tickets, due to uncertainty. But I kept them going.

 

[tsrich]

You had me at this.

I'll keep tracking excess deaths to prior years average. They have been going down through 30 May. The facts will speak for themselves.

Where are you tracking this? Is it broken down by state? The huge NY spike skews national numbers.

 

[BuzzStone]

I've gotten several emails stating that I could pause the payments for my tickets, due to uncertainty. But I kept them going.

I had mine paid in full so maybe that is why I haven't heard anything.

 

[BuzzStone]

Not much they can say right now.

I would expect something along the lines of if we have fans season ticket holders will still have priority or something to that effect.

 

[orientalnc]

Something that I do not understand is why the NCAA is not trying to impose a standard for how teams treat the pandemic and what the penalties will be if teams go outside those standards. When it comes to recruiting, eligibility and almost everything else they do, it's always based on the premise that no school should have an unfair competitive advantage over their opponents.

The NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB are all negotiating within their sport to find ways that every team feels safe and that the financial rewards (or losses) are shared equitably. None of thta is happening with college football right now and apparently will not happen with basketball.

For example: Some schools will say they cannot play football without students on campus. Other will claim that have 10% of their students on campus might claim that is good enough.

Anoother example: Some schools are reporting the positive cases they find, but others are not. If GT never reports a positive case, does that mean we never had one? How does Clemson know they are lining up against a team that is covi-free if we never reported anything?

BTW, do the players not have anything to say about their own safety?

 

[RamblinRed]

SI has some great articles today about sports and COVID19.
This one in particular i found interesting - 10 things that may change permanently in sports.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/23/10-ways-sports-will-be-different
FWIW, I suspect #1 is going to cause lawsuits, especially with regards to Title IX.

This one is about the NFL and safety and recognizing that the primary idea is not to protect the players, but play the games (the author believes the games should be played, but that we need to be honest about what is going on and why)
https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/06/23/nfl-2020-season-financial-interests-health-risk

I found this part of the story interesting though
On a conference call with agents last week NFLPA Medical Director Thom Mayer discussed the disproportionate impact of the virus on African-Americans, those with high body-mass indices and sleep apnea, which, he said, describes many NFL players. Also, I read that Von Miller needed 17 days after “recovering” from the virus to resume workouts and was still suffering some lingering windedness.


I think it is important to understand that even supremely healthy people can get really knocked down by this particular disease. Miller's experience will likely be the minority, but it will happen. And it will happen to college SA's just like it will to professional ones. The PR battle that i believe college sports may have to face though is that the general public does not see college SA's the same way they see professional athletes.

Also, New York announced the measures universities will have to take to re-open with students today (starting to see more and more universities making similar announcements)
https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/g...files/Higher_Education_Summary_Guidelines.pdf

Mandatory face coverings, hygiene stations and health screenings are all included in newly-released guidelines for New York state's higher education institutions to reopen when the state reaches Phase Four.

The five-page plan released Monday included recommended best practices and mandatory steps. The mandatory requirements are broken up into five categories:

Physical distancing
Protective equipment
Hygiene
Cleaning and disinfection
Communication and screening
Institutions must require all students, employees and visitors to wear face coverings in common areas or situations where social distancing may be difficult. This does not apply to roommates, who are allowed to be within six feet of each other without a face covering.

All higher education institutions must also plan with their local health department where exposed or infected students can go to quarantine or be in isolation.

Institutions also have to provide face coverings for free to employees who interact directly with students and there have to be hygiene stations for hand washing with soap, running warm water, disposable paper towels, and an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, throughout the institution. Cleaning and disinfection requirements from the CDC and Department of Health to clean public spaces and restrooms also need to be followed.

Employees, students and scheduled visitors need to go through health screenings and schools are responsible for notifying state and local health departments of their number of confirmed positive cases. They also need to have plans in place to contact trace.

The plan also lists a wide variety of recommended practices such as considering a mix of in-person and remote learning and reconfiguring social spaces and classrooms to help maintain social distancing.

 

[RamblinRed]

If the mods need to move this one I understand.
This is an article by an epidemiologist explaining why the increase in cases is not being caused by increasing testing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...esting-doesnt-explain-rise-covid-19-cases-us/

I'll add that in some of the states with large increases in cases, testing is not increasing, it is flat (and in the case of FL, decreasing)
Anybody interested in a quick visual overview of that can look at this nice page from John Hopkins that shows each state and what has occurred with cases, testing and positive test % in 7 day averages over the last 2 weeks.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/overview

 

[TooTall]

lso, I read that Von Miller needed 17 days after “recovering” from the virus to resume workouts and was still suffering some lingering windedness.

Any professional athlete taking 3+ weeks off with no conditioning will be winded. It's why there is a training camp.

 

[FlatsLander]

I think the worst case right now is that they play the full schedule of games, just with 0 spectators. It might also be possible that this big second wave that looks to be starting nationwide will run its course by the end of August. With all the protests and with people relaxing their own personal social distancing, the virus will reach a ton more people than were reached in the "first wave" (I'd consider that to be late March-May).

 

[takethepoints]

I expect the season to start, whether it will finish will depend upon what happens in Oct/Nov in the country.
According to reports less than 50% of the SA's at Clemson and LSU are symptomatic and none have required hospitalization to this point.

Young people will get it, in general a lower percentage of them will get sick from it, end up in the hospital,and die - though at some point it could happen. I suspect is all it will take is one death of an SA and the season will be over as I think the public outcry over a young person dying in order to entertain a largely white, slightly older (41-45 mean) audience will not go over well. Also, if there is a large outbreak in the fall i suspect that would impact it, or if large clusters of cases are tied back to games.

The bigger issue overriding it is the spreading of the disease. Recent research suggests that super-spreader events are what really gets this thing going. That roughly 80% of the cases are created by less than 20% of the infected population. That suggests the easiest way to prevent spread is to reduce super-spreader events - where one person can infect a large number of other people at one time. Fans in the stands is an example of a potential super-spreader event. That is why I think the odds of fans in the stands is decreasing some (though I still think it is more likely than not) the fact that MLB is now reconsidering a bubble season is part of what is causing me to think those odds are decreasing. The other piece is the medical director for the NFLPA urging NFL players not to engage in any group activities until training camp.

The problem to overcome is keeping the more susceptible safe. That was basically the plan of Sweden's strategy which ended up failing miserably. They tried to keep it away from seniors and they were unable to. If you were to take all the adults in the US over 60 as well as all with underlying medical conditions that make them more susceptible that is over 40% of the adult population. That's just such a large percentage of the population it is hard to design a process that makes it safe to gather in large numbers.

It is probably fair to say that college football has done less to this point to protect its athletes than any other sport. Most other sports have books on how they are going to keep their athletes safe - the NBA has a 117 page safety protocol, MLB's initial safety protocol was 67 pages and MLB and the Union are still going over it for possible changes. So far the NCAA and Conferences don't have much of anything and there has been no centralized plan for every school to follow. I think this has some potential to create problems the closer we get to kickoff if it starts to get press that it doesn't appear that colleges are taking it as seriously as professional leagues in keeping their athletes safe and is asking them to sign waivers to play. That just smells of bad future PR.

if they do allow fans it will be interesting to see how many are willing to show up in person. The outcome in OK Saturday night suggests there is still alot of trepidation over gathering in large groups and that recent polls are pretty accurate in terms of percentage of people saying they are willing to attend large scale events.

Good post. I would only add that COVID-19 damages the lungs at all ages, sometimes severely. If I were a college football player, I wouldn't be that worried about being killed by the disease; it could happen, but it isn't likely. However, having my lungs damaged - for life - would get my attention, especially if I was looking at football as a career. Hence, I don't think a death would trigger a turn against the coming season. The first few intubations of football players would do the trick, especially since the players have gotten a lot more conscious of their collective interest recently.

I still put the chances of a football season for 2020 at about 50-50%.

 

[takethepoints]

Let’s say the season doesn’t happen, is that really bad for our program? I don’t think so. We play a tough schedule and have a really young roster. Let’s say the ncaa doesn’t grant eligibility extensions - kind of suck for some guys, but not really overall. Let’s say it does - we have a program in desperate need of S&C that much further along. Don’t get me wrong, I want to watch Yellow Jackets football this fall. But that isn’t the worst outcome for us as a program given where we are.

Somebody finally said it. You're right. If there is any season that Tech fans should not be particularly upset to see cancelled or curtailed, it's the Season of Doom. Another year of development would not do the program any harm at all.

 

[Techster]

SI has some great articles today about sports and COVID19.
This one in particular i found interesting - 10 things that may change permanently in sports.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/23/10-ways-sports-will-be-different
FWIW, I suspect #1 is going to cause lawsuits, especially with regards to Title IX.

This one is about the NFL and safety and recognizing that the primary idea is not to protect the players, but play the games (the author believes the games should be played, but that we need to be honest about what is going on and why)
https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/06/23/nfl-2020-season-financial-interests-health-risk

I found this part of the story interesting though
On a conference call with agents last week NFLPA Medical Director Thom Mayer discussed the disproportionate impact of the virus on African-Americans, those with high body-mass indices and sleep apnea, which, he said, describes many NFL players. Also, I read that Von Miller needed 17 days after “recovering” from the virus to resume workouts and was still suffering some lingering windedness.


I think it is important to understand that even supremely healthy people can get really knocked down by this particular disease. Miller's experience will likely be the minority, but it will happen. And it will happen to college SA's just like it will to professional ones. The PR battle that i believe college sports may have to face though is that the general public does not see college SA's the same way they see professional athletes.

Also, New York announced the measures universities will have to take to re-open with students today (starting to see more and more universities making similar announcements)
https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/g...files/Higher_Education_Summary_Guidelines.pdf

Mandatory face coverings, hygiene stations and health screenings are all included in newly-released guidelines for New York state's higher education institutions to reopen when the state reaches Phase Four.

The five-page plan released Monday included recommended best practices and mandatory steps. The mandatory requirements are broken up into five categories:

Physical distancing
Protective equipment
Hygiene
Cleaning and disinfection
Communication and screening
Institutions must require all students, employees and visitors to wear face coverings in common areas or situations where social distancing may be difficult. This does not apply to roommates, who are allowed to be within six feet of each other without a face covering.

All higher education institutions must also plan with their local health department where exposed or infected students can go to quarantine or be in isolation.

Institutions also have to provide face coverings for free to employees who interact directly with students and there have to be hygiene stations for hand washing with soap, running warm water, disposable paper towels, and an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, throughout the institution. Cleaning and disinfection requirements from the CDC and Department of Health to clean public spaces and restrooms also need to be followed.

Employees, students and scheduled visitors need to go through health screenings and schools are responsible for notifying state and local health departments of their number of confirmed positive cases. They also need to have plans in place to contact trace.

The plan also lists a wide variety of recommended practices such as considering a mix of in-person and remote learning and reconfiguring social spaces and classrooms to help maintain social distancing.

I brought up the BMI factor earlier this thread. Add to it, Black players are also more susceptible to the virus because Black people are predisposed to vitamin D deficiency due to dark skin biology. Scientist and doctors are finding more and more that vitamin D plays a key role for humans fighting the virus. As I said earlier in this thread, if you're Black OL or DL whose BMI is around or above the BMI danger zone for Covid, I'd have a really long discussion with my family and myself about the benefits versus rewards of playing sports without a vaccine.

So not only are players dealing with exposure risks due to repeated close contact and heavy breathing from sports, then you have players that play a red line BMI weight, add to that Black people biological deficiency of vitamin D. If you're a Black OL/DL, that's a LOT of risk factors you're adding to the equation. If you're a White OL/DL you're also adding a layer of risk.

I can't fathom how any parent would let their kid sign those stupid waivers knowing all of that. If everyone refuses to sign the waiver, what would colleges do? Let's be clear, colleges are looking at the revenue...everything having to do with the virus is just a hurdle for them to cash those checks.