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2020 CU football season POSTPONED until Nov 6th?

between the howell op ed suggesting we are nearing the cancellation and now this ESPN rumor...


have to figure it is pretty likely the p12 and b10 cancel, at least for the fall.

it is a bigger problem than sports. as soon as all those thousands of students head back to school via trains, planes, and automobiles, the mobility of infection will go through the roof. and, then, when they start getting the virus and schools are forced to close, the students are going to disperse to all over via trains, planes, and automobiles, taking the infection with them.

the responsible thing to do is start everywhere via remote learning at every level. and then see if we can get some containment. that can lead to how one has a sports calendar.

we haven't done enough to earn college sports in terms of containment, and the student-athletes playing the game are being asked to do too much for not nearly enough.

this isn't ok.


This doesn't have anything to do with containment or whether or not playing this fall is the right thing to do. I think you're giving any university president or conference commissioner who spews bull**** along those lines too much credit. The whole discussion of when do we play football is all about money. Let's get that straight right now. The MAC (and we can probably lump at least the Sun Belt and Conference USA into this conversation as well) makes their football money in two main ways.

1) Fan attendance. I feel like I can say that that would not have happened in the MAC had they tried to play this fall and be nearly certain about it.
2) Paycheck out of conference games. The only two P5 leagues who are allowing any sort of out of conference play are the ACC (one game per school that must take place in that school's home state) and the Big 12 (one game per school). Let's use Kent State as an example given the link I posted here talks about them directly. They played Arizona State, Auburn, and Wisconsin last year, and made $3.7 million for those games. They were scheduled to play Penn State, Kentucky, and Alabama this year, and that would have netted them $5m.

By attempting to move a season to the spring, the MAC can at least try to make some money off fan attendance.

As far as bubbles in college sports-Where do you put them? Can you find 5-6 IMG Academy or Disney World type setups in different parts of the country where you're not having to force kids to play on a Saturday and then turn around and play the following Wednesday or Thursday night?

Regardless of whatever CFB does, I will say this: I don't see how the NFL doesn't play this fall without fans.
 
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I get what Lawrence is saying, but at the same time, the argument he and others are making is that kids will only do the things necessary to keep themselves safe if the coaches and staff are forcing them to do it. The fly in that ointment is that we are already seeing examples where programs are not being forthright on that, so the argument is really a specious one, at best.
Also a huge difference if an individual makes their own decision resulting in infection compared to a situation where a team of guys are participating in a risky behavior while under the influence and supervision of coaches and team staff.

Particularly true when that risk can be avoided or greatly reduced simply by delaying the participation by a few months.
 
It doesn't make much sense to me to suggest that young adults who will screw up at home won't screw up when around a bunch of other young adults with whom to screw up.

I read it more as saying many of his teammates are safer (from Covid 19 and other things) in the small college town of Clemson, SC than, say, New Orleans. And if they do get sick, they will get top notch care in Clemson. In New Orleans, maybe not when you’re on your own.
 
I read it more as saying many of his teammates are safer (from Covid 19 and other things) in the small college town of Clemson, SC than, say, New Orleans. And if they do get sick, they will get top notch care in Clemson. In New Orleans, maybe not when you’re on your own.
The care part is probably true for a lot of players. But with people coming into Clemson from all over the country, some will bring the virus with them. Not sure that's safer than being at home with people you know and trust.
 
In my opinion, it is very important to transition to thinking about acceptable risk explicitly in regards to COVID-19; and the comparison to CTE is a reasonable and potentially useful comparative tool. I do take issue with your method, namely no citation of your numbers and no apparent consideration of the uncertainty of those estimates.

You've done a back of the envelope calculation with numerous assumptions and estimated parameters that provide zero context about any uncertainty about those assumptions and estimates.

Even if the inputs (lacking citations) are the appropriate estimates based on current available evidence, your conclusion ignores the underlying uncertainty. You could be talking about a most likely 1/50 chance that one player dies, while ignoring a very appreciable chance that tens or hundreds of players could die.

If I'm able to find time, I may work up a more data driven counter argument, for now I can provide one anecdote that should illustrate a glaring limitation of you estimates.

You work from a 15% prevalence rate, in the MLB we have 2 teams that have already experienced outbreaks among their 30 player rosters just two weeks into the season. The Cardinals, so far, have 9 players who tested positive (30% of the roster), and the Marlins had 18 players test positive (60%). There is clear evidence that at least in those cases, a group of young athletes sharing locker rooms, practicing and playing together, can experience an outbreak that is far more widespread than your stated estimate. This alone would multiply your estimate by at least a factor of 2 or 4; now imagine if we bump the extremely low stated fatality rate up to as still extremely low rate of 0.001%, in combination we're now multiplying your estimate by a factor of 20 or 40.

These are small adjustments to your assumptions and drastically change the outcome; any good model would include sensitivity analysis and a discussion of uncertainty of parameter estimates.

I pulled all the data directly from the CDC and John Hopkins dashboards:



I thought I made this clear, but now have a better appreciation of what I’m up against. I used the data at hand and will concede that my estimates could be way off. Even if SARS-CoV2 is 50X more dangerous than the data suggest that means 1 player is likely to die.

I’m not saying that’s acceptable, but I tried to be conservative (I think it’s likely >10% of CFB players will suffer serious brain injuries) and the risk from CTE is still THOUSANDS of times higher. Inform the players of the risk, have them sign a waiver, and build them a statue if they kick the bucket (just kidding don’t freak out).

But your math/reasoning still sucks. Ever heard of sampling error? I used the data from 328M people (5M confirmed cases) and you tried to argue that because 27/882 MLB players (3%) tested positive that my estimates were off. Shut some teams down if you have to, but the numbers don’t lie. If only 3% of CFB test positive then I overestimated the danger.
 
Yeah its Trump's fault 5 Democrat governors ordered nursing homes to take COVID positive patients.

:unsure: Does this seem to be driving the infection rate currently? It seems obvious that if the rest of the country shut down as tightly as NY and Europe did in the spring, we'd be getting fall camp reports right now.

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SIAP

The Pac-12 is planning a mammoth loan program that would provide an escape hatch for cash-strapped athletic departments in the event the football season is canceled because of coronavirus, according to internal documents and conference sources.

Football accounts for the majority of each department’s revenue, generating in excess of $50 million dollars in ticket sales and media rights alone.

The loan program would be large enough to cover that loss for each school, if needed:

According to a series of emails obtained by the Hotline through public records requests, the loan would provide a maximum of $83 million for each university at a rate of 3.75 percent over 10 years.

Maybe even more significantly, the article also discusses that recently there was discussion about a Pac12 GoR that USC and UCLA wouldn't sign onto.

mercury news link
 
This is what I've been saying since April, except it isnt just a player, but "what if a player/coach/staff member/or family member of any of these people dies"


For some reason I don’t see this as the massive own that bomani thinks it is. There is a risk these players and coaches are taking on. It requires a lot of discipline in order to prevent but college football players always have a risk of having serious damage and or dying. It’s not really anything new.
 
That bluff by the SEC will not last long.
I mean you are probably right. The SEC above all other conferences is not going to want to admit players are employees. They like the system exactly as it is right now. Forcing "amateurs" to play football through a pandemic with no plan is... not going to work.
 
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