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College Football Players Privately Expressing Concerns

With recent good news from the NCAA Division I Council of an approved return-to-practice plan, everything seemed to be moving along toward an on-time start to the season. And perhaps that will still be the case. But there have been several hiccups the last seven days that might be derailing those sentiments, including a number of schools confirming large quantities of positive tests in their programs.

On ESPN’s Get Up on Monday, analyst Laura Rutledge explained what she has been hearing from players across the country on the situation.

“Yeah, it has been rough over the last few days,” Rutledge said. “Part of this, from what I’m hearing, is there are many more cases that we don’t know about and that is to be expected. But I think this is more widespread and maybe there is a much larger volume of (positive) cases in college football than people realize."

“It’s interesting too when you look at the UCLA story (with players saying they don’t trust head coach Chip Kelly will adhere to proper safety protocols), I am getting much more of a sense of concern from the players that wasn’t there a couple of weeks ago. And there’s actually some players who were trying to figure out how they could write a letter to the NCAA expressing their concern. But here is the problem: They want to try and remain anonymous because they are concerned that all of a sudden a university might say, ‘Hey, if you’re that worried about this, then just don’t even play. We can go ahead and quarantine you and you don’t even have to be a part of this.' It’s this double-edged sword where they’re worried about their health but they also still really want to play football and want to be given a fair chance to compete. This will continue to be very complicated and I continue to think you’ll see a lot more schools have to enforce quarantine."

“And yet, through all of this, most of the people I talk to — ADs, coaches — still are planning on starting college football on time.”

"Script Ohio" Making CoVID-19 Adjustments

The Columbus Dispatch talked to marching band director Chris Hoch about how social distancing guidelines will affect traditions like “Script Ohio.” Hoch says the tradition will remain this football season, but Ohio could be stretched out to allow for extra space between band members or involve fewer members. The band is still waiting to see what this football season will look like before solidifying any plans.

We hope you have a great day, and remember ... time and change will surely show, how firm thy friendship OHIO!

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