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.
