Ultimately this decision is going to come down to doctors and university Presidents. They are ultimately the ones on the line.
i have no doubt the majority of SA's want to play, but it is also obvious they want to be able to do it safely. Even the #WeWanttoPlay memo includes wanting protocols that will make it safe.
Most of the sourcing of meetings have said the medical advisors have been saying it is not safe to play right now and they are starting to get concerned with myocarditis - which seems to have really spooked the Presidents.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/08/09/ncaa-cardiac-inflamation-coronavirus-myocarditis-concerns
One doctor in that article mentions he knows of roughly 10 cases so far of myocarditis in college football players from COVID- not a huge number, but it is such a serious condition that it is really weighing on the sport now. Given we don't know how many college football players have had COVID already it is hard to put that 10 in perspective, I think I saw a number of like 800 confirmed cases among college football players with it - don't know how accurate that is.
Alot of what is happening right now seems to be a move to push to the spring to give medicial experts more time to understand the effects and how dangrous it really is. At the end of the day the University Presidents are ultimately responsible for the health and welfare of all students and they are less likely to be willing to take on the risk of liability.
The pendulum keeps swinging in college football. On Saturday morning I was feeling good about having a partial season (at least getting it started), but today it seems to have swung completely the other way (especially if it is true that the B10 Presidents have already voted to move to the Spring - then what the PAC12 Presidents do tomorrow becomse critical imo. One conference cancelling fall can probably be overcome, doubt 2 can).
What this has shown overall though is the complete lack of central leadership in college football and how that is a negative in a time like this.
The other issue is this - since the spring college football has largely been operating under a plan of 'hope and prayer' - that is not really a good way to plan. They were hoping cases would continue to decline but really had no plan for what happens if it doesn't. Most of the conferences because they didn't want to think about spring football so they didn't make any plans in case it became the more likely option (The ACC is actually an exception to this, ND AD Swarbrick mentioned that Dave Clawson was tasked with coming up with a Spring Football plan and Swarbrick said he was impressed by what he saw).
Until I hear the ACC say it is cancelling fall sports i am going to hold out hope - even if right now it doesn't look good.