There are plenty of sports that have navigated this pandemic successfully. The NBA’s and NHL’s playoff bubbles were stupendous, golf and tennis have staged successful Covid-free majors, baseball trudged to the finish line with some hiccups, and the NFL looks well on their way to doing the same.
College football is another story. This isn’t working.
Miami, the No. 12 team in the country, has so many cases at key positions, the ACC had to do surgery on its schedule in order to save their upcoming games. Wake Forest-Duke was cancelled on Tuesday.
That accounts for just two of the eight cancellations this week. Add them to the 73 college football games postponed or cancelled as of last Sunday. The problem appears to be that once the virus infiltrates these programs, it’s difficult to stop the spread internally.
Syracuse and Boston College are the only two teams in the ACC without a coronavirus test thus far. Kudos. But even Dino Babers admitted he’d “like there to be an asterisk” on this season. With talk like that, you have to wonder, hypothetically, how many fans would be showing up the¬† Carrier Dome if New York State allowed it? This isn’t working.
Spare me any accusations that I don’t want college football to happen, or any other media for that matter. If anything, this is being under-covered. College football has been a disaster. Games are being cancelled, kids are getting covid. Campuses like Syracuse are shutting down.
And let’s not forget, Big Ten doctors decided the risk of Myocarditis, a serious heart condition, was enough to cancel the season. Very selfishly, I’m glad the season is happening. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be aware of what’s happening here: college football is failing spectacularly.
