There's no one in charge of college sports, the saying goes, meaning there's no one person who can point their thumb up or down in regards to a 2020 college football season. College sports -- and football in particular -- are run by the conferences, the conferences are run by the schools, the schools are run by presidents and chancellors, and the presidents and chancellors work for... a thousand different constituencies, all with their own needs and agendas.
But when the 10 FBS commissioners held a conference call with Vice President Mike Pence in mid-April, something close to a national policy cemented into place.
“Our players are students. If we’re not in college, we’re not having contests,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby recalled later to CBS Sports.
“Our message was, we need to get universities and colleges back open, that we were education-based programs, and we weren’t going to have sports until we had something closer to normal college going on.”
Now, close to a month later, the conversation has evolved into, "What does open mean, really?"
In a survey with Stadium, Bowlsby said this: “Going to class in an online sense is satisfactory. There’s room for that to happen. School has to be in session, student-athletes have to be going to class.”
American commissioner Mike Aresco took it a step farther:
“What if, with virtual (online) classes, you could protect football players, staff and others, why couldn’t they play?” Aresco said. “That’s something that needs to be discussed. I would suspect our campuses would want to play, but it would be up to the presidents and chancellors. We may not get the entire (student bodies) back.”
While professional leagues have tossed around the idea of taking over a city -- Phoenix, Vegas, Disney World -- and creating a biodome to finish out their seasons, the thinking was that was not feasible at the college level because, logistical issues aside, these are students, not professionals.
Then, one AD floated the idea to Stadium that, Hey, what if we turned each campus into its own biodome?
“Why can’t you play football on campuses that are closed?” the athletic director asked. “If classes are being offered online, there is no restriction on where you complete the course work. You would need an easily-administered COVID-19 test that is available to every athletic department. Test the student-athletes, coaches, trainers and support personnel to make sure that your cohort is free of virus. Quarantine the cohort for practice, online classes, food service and leisure time activities. This would be a very safe environment."
Again, ADs will not make these decisions, presidents will. Which means that governors and public health directors will, since those are the people that will set the tone for presidents.
But there's no question that momentum is gathering toward "opening" college campuses this fall -- whatever that means -- and if campuses are open, then it seems near certain that football will happen in the fall for whoever's ready to play.