While the Big Ten and PAC-12 push their season to the spring, there are a lot of unanswered questions about how that is going to look and what it is going to look like. However, the way I see it, there's one question that isn't getting nearly enough attention.
Already players have opted out of playing and practicing this fall due to COVID concerns, but does anyone really expect the top players in college football to play this spring knowing that they're putting their health on the line right around the time of the NFL Combine and Draft? To be fair, there has been some minimal chatter of the timeline changing for those events, but nothing substantial has been decided on that front yet.
We have seen a similar precedence set on this over the last several years. Remember how top college players have decided to opt out of bowl games so they didn't risk injuries heading into the NFL Combine and Draft? In most cases, that bowl game was MONTHS ahead of Combine and Draft time, so why would it be any different playing an abbreviated season in the fall?
Answer: It probably won't be any different in the eyes of those top players. We'll almost certainly see Big Ten and PAC-12 players opt out of their spring season if they feel like it could hurt their draft potential. Honestly, no one can blame them.
Nick Saban touched on this topic recently by asking what college football may look like without some of its best upperclassmen participating.
"I think one of the real consequences of this is, if you're a junior or a senior and you have an NFL Grade, are you going to play in the spring? Or is that going to become sort of a JV season with a lot of these juniors and seniors opting out?" Saban wondered out loud this morning.
While I think that may be a bit harsh for rosters like Alabama and others loaded with talent, it's certainly an interesting question. The limitations and pulling the plug on spring ball and not being able to be in a weight room as a team like football programs are traditionally used to was almost certainly going to affect the on-field product and how coaches approach teaching the game, so taking some of the top players in college football out of the equation...I can see Saban's logic here.
In the short term, a "JV season" as Saban puts it, might not look great, but on the positive side of things, the opportunity to get some young guys some meaningful playing time could pay nice future dividends for some programs.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.