The Rest of College Football

[Dr. Strangelove]

Longtime Houston coach Bill Yeoman has died at 92. He coached the Cougars for 25 years

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29647103/hall-fame-football-coach-bill-yeoman-innovator-veer-formation-dies-92

[Jeff Buchanan]

Thinking only of themselves in a very obvious move to duck responsibility for a college athlete within the BIG 10 or PAC 12 should one of them get seriously ill from COVID by canceling fall sports, these idiots have endangered $1.2B in add revenues from the big media groups that televise them. This according to Bloomberg article (paywalled). In addition to the the hits those media groups will take, Bloomberg analysts point out that these two conferences will end up paying penalties for the cancellations. Along with that, it is predicted that cable subscriptions will fall dramatically as college sports are out hastening the trend to cord-cutting. This will result in unexpected losses to all the cable carriers that will ultimately reduce all services to maintain their margins..

I wonder if they considered how many people will lose their jobs, how the losses that the media groups and cable carriers incur in this stupidity will translate to reluctance going forward to carry the variety of college sports they did carry up until now. I doubt they did in the scramble to protect their own asses with zero concern for anyone else. Zero.

Fuck them.

[Hannibal]

There’s going to be immense pressure on the remaining conferences to cancel. Quite a few folks are rightly terrified of what a contrarian data point might demonstrate. A successful season for just one conference would be a humiliating disaster for a lot of people.

[Tom W]

I am very much looking forward to seeing that disaster play itself out.

I actually tried to watch something, anything, interesting on cable last weekend. I found a cornhole tournament- yes cornhole.. They might need to put live feeds of leaves changing color in October. It is going to be dismal.

[iam416]

I’m going to be fully on tilt if the other 3 conferences have a full season. The rage would never die.

[AlabamAlum]

FSU player bitching about Covid protocols. He doesn’t go into specifics, but because of his “I’m an introvert” line it seems to suggest that he’s just pissed that he is positive and is assuming that protocols aren’t being followed because he caught it when he just goes to “practice and home”.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tom...irus-protocols

[Jeff Buchanan]

On HS football where, in FL, at least, common sense has prevailed and the season will start practice in 10d and games in two weeks. The Florida Sports Medical Advisory Committee argued against HS football being played with a delay in starting the season until October (one option) or December (another option).

The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) Board of Directors voted today, going against the advice of their medical advisors. The board voted 11-5 to approve a proposal designated as Option 1. Under Option 1, fall sports teams may begin practices on Aug. 24. Schools and districts would have the option to opt out of the state series on Sept. 18.

The medical board's advice, which is linked below, makes for interesting reading. I suspect what you read here is very close to what the BT office was provided with, the data contained therein just different from the FL data.

What the decision to play football amounts to in my view is a contextualized read on absolute numbers. The absolute numbers for positivity rates and R(t) values, along with public health entities such as the CDC and WHO, paint a picture that it is not yet "safe" to begin football in FL. Yet, we know that the risk of serious illness in this age cohort from C-19 is very low. The Medical Advisory Board notes that but goes on to speculate about the risks for viral spread when the student athlete leaves the campus and goes home. When appropriate precautions - masking and distancing - are taken by the student athlete who may be unknowingly infected and shedding virus, when he steps outside campus confines and in the home, the risk lowers significantly just as it does in any setting outside of HS football when involved parties all mask, distance and wash hands..

While the gates to start football (and I might add in person school) contained in the Medical Board's recommendations - percent positivity less than 5% first time new cases per day over a 14 day period, a R(t) <1 for at least two weeks - may be a goal, for FL and I suspect in many places in the US, it is too rigorous a gate to meet when considering the economic and social costs of waiting interminably until such goals are reached. IOW, this is a clear risk/cost/benefit situation where the FHSAA made a reasoned decision to start HS football. Benefits to the student athlete, the school's/program's and parent's, outweighs the risks. They opted to move forward and manage outcomes rather than to try to control an essentially uncontrollable circumstance with SARS-CoV-2. One can argue that this decision flys in the face of data based risk management strategies but how good is the data? I think we know it's not very good rendering recommendations for public health strategies suspect.

The decision to start HS football in FL involves hard data, assessing it's accuracy and value and speculation about perceived risks and perceived benefits. Contextualized to be exact. It will be interesting to watch outcomes and you can bet the press will be all over the first positive with dire warnings and calls to shut football in FL down before all the children, their parents and their grandparents die.

https://www.fhsaa.org/sites/default/...gust/60-69.pdf

[THE_WIZARD_]

What a novel idea...using accurate data and not fear to make a decision...

[crashcourse]

STFU

[THE_WIZARD_]

stifle kitty kat

[THE_WIZARD_]

So supposedly the B1G fake commish claims they shutdown due to some earth shattering relevation about heart issues per the Covid virus...really? So apparently it doesn't affect Ames, IA but it does in Iowa City...and why don't you release this apparent bombshell to everyone...not just B1G Land...and if it's SOOOOOO BAD...why are intramural activities not banned in B1G Land? So much fucking hypocrisy and lunacy and politics on this absolute FUCKING BULLSHIT.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The Big front office is going to be back-peddling on this numskull decision they made for the next few weeks pulling shit out their asses to cover it. meanwhile the remaining P3 will forge ahead, do fine and laugh their asses off at the B10 and P12. Those two conferences will mightily deserve the scorn that they will get and I don't care how hard the try to cover their asses. Of course, there is a risk that the press will exaggerate the impact of the first kid that tests + for C-19, no matter how well HS or College football programs have already planned to deal with that outcome, and call for an end to HS or college football. There will be plenty of hand wringers who will support that view and, well, you know, they'll be forced to shut football down.

Here's what the Cardiac issues the Big is talking about ...... there are a bunch of published studies that surmise that young athletes who contract C-19, even though they only suffer mild symptoms and appear to fully recover, may in fact, have long term cardiac damage that predisposes them to congestive heart failure (a failed pump) but ........ no surprise, more research is needed to actually confirm this.

I've said this here before, these studies are published as pre-peer review and as such, cannot be relied upon to guide public health or medical management (standard of care) policy. Respected medical journals do report studies that are submitted to them for review but when they do this, there are big block warnings that the studies are not yet ready for prime time. Does the press care? Nope, they glom on to them because they contain the material for a story that provides "shocking" evidence that whatever return to normalcy is taken that there are huge risks that someone will die if we restart ..... name your event: movies, sports, concerts, motor cycle rallies, parties when boats raft up, protesting, going to the gym you name it.

The worst part is that there are medical professionals who should know better that buy into the conclusions of these pre-peer reviewed studies and advance them as evidence that we shouldn't be doing this or that. These recent cardiac studies involving young athletes is exactly what the medial Advisory board to the Florida HS football executive board was presented with as a reason not to play football. Fortunately someone said, "look, this shit you're trying to sell is (1) at this point in time is all speculative and (2) the other data you are making your recommendations on is universally being accepted as flawed. Thanks for your recommendations ..... now go sit down and STFU. Play ball!

Applause.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The Ohio Valley and Missouri Valley both canceled today...absolutely no FCS football

[lineygoblue]

Falling like flies ...

[CGVT]

This really isn't college football, but it is related.

If you need to scratch your football itch, ESPN has an Alabama high school game on tonight between St Paul's Episcopal School and Spanish Fort High Starts at 6:00 central.

St Paul's is a perennial state power and has put numerous players in division one programs and a few in the pros over the years. Spanish Fort is (my son's high school) an upstart, but has won three or four state championships over the past ten year.

Both teams will put about a half dozen kids in D1 programs and consistently put a handful of kids in D1 every year.

I know a lot of the kids on both teams.

Ivan Schultz C #68 of St Paul's played baseball with my son. He is the son of ex Alabama center Roger Schultz and is committed to Troy. He is a good kid and a heck of an athlete for a big kid. May be as good a baseball player as he is football.

Christian Burkhalter #4 Spanish Fort, played on my son's AAU basketball team. He is a 6'4" 230 DE. He is tough as nails, competitive as hell and is an Oregon commit.

Micah Gafney is a CB for Spanish Fort and is a Virginia commit.

It is damn good high school football and worth the watch