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How many practices did your team get before the shutdown?
“I struggle with that concept,” Smith said, via ESPN. “When I first heard that, I said, ‘OK, that could work.’ But I figured if we don’t have fans in the stands, we’ve determined it’s not safe for them in a gathering environment. So why would it be safe for the players?”
“Either we’ve made it through this and it’s safe for people to be around or it’s not,” Kiffin said on The Paul Finebaum Show on Friday. Obviously we shouldn’t do anything until it’s completely safe.
“I don’t know how all of the sudden you’re gonna say you can start playing football games with no fans and that’s safe, but it’s not safe for fans. So I think that’s a waste of time.”
Ohio State AD Gene Smith: Playing games in stadiums without fans is still unsafe
With the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, many in the college football world have started to question what the upcoming season this fall will look like.
© AP Photo/Jay LaPrete
To be fair, there are still plenty of variables in play and several months left before the season is supposed to start. Nobody knows for sure what the sports world will look like by then.
While some have floated the idea of playing college sporting events this fall in stadiums without fans present, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said on Friday that he doesn’t understand how that would be safe.
Smith isn’t alone in this idea. Several prominent coaches, including UCLA’s Chip Kelly and Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin don’t think playing without fans present is safe, and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told Yahoo Sports this month that there won’t be any college football if students aren’t allowed to return to campus. After all, college football players are students first.
I agree, but to be honest I don't believe the CDC or the Public in general are going to feel confident and safe gathering in large groups or crowds, at least for sporting events, until an effective Vaccine is developed and tested in large scale human volunteer trials, approved by the FDA and ramped up for mass immunization of the general population. The current time frame for all of this to occur is still 12-18 months.Makes all the sense in the world to me.
If regular students can't come back to August in August then neither should the players
We are still months out from fall camp so we will have to see if the spread of this virus is slowed and what type of treatments are widely available
I agree, but to be honest I don't believe the CDC or the Public in general are going to feel confident and safe gathering in large groups or crowds, at least for sporting events, until an effective Vaccine is developed and tested in large scale human volunteer trials, approved by the FDA and ramped up for mass immunization of the general population. The current time frame for all of this to occur is still 12-18 months.
How many practices did your team get before the shutdown?