Syracuse Football: Slippery slope to play if campuses keep shutting down
By Neil Adler
Syracuse football is moving ahead, at least for now, with its fall schedule, but college-campus shutdowns could change things.
If college campuses around the country continue to move from residential experiences to online learning, that puts the prospect of Syracuse football and its peers in a tricky situation – and a moral dilemma – about pressing forward with a 2020 stanza.
Amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, several schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference, where the Orange is a member and whose fall semester began on Monday, and elsewhere nationwide have paused their athletics activities due to positive Covid-19 cases, and some are transitioning to a virtual-learning environment – at least for now.
So, naturally, that begs the question: If the general student populations at these colleges and universities have been asked by their administrators to go home and conduct their studies online, then how safe – or fair – is it to ask football players to remain on their respective campuses in hope of a fall season transpiring?
Yes, these student-athletes who suit up in football receive scholarships, and undeniably those scholarships are valuable, but otherwise players are putting their health and safety at risk, in essence, to line the pockets of the schools whose uniforms they don, in addition to university presidents, athletics directors, coaches and other stakeholders.
Save for scholarships and other potential stipends, to the best of my knowledge, the football players receive no additional compensation. That is why the NCAA and others involved in the debate over name, image and likeness rules need to get with the program and finally pass a measure that allows student-athletes in football and other sports to earn endorsement income.
Of course, if football players want to suit up, recognizing the risk in a contact sport, that’s their right, and we wish them well. Certainly, one could understand them desiring to compete and showcase their skills for possible future NFL careers.
Then again, Orange football redshirt freshman defensive lineman Cooper Dawson has elected not to play in 2020, according to Stephen Bailey of Syracuse.com, and it won’t come as a surprise to me if additional ‘Cuse football guys decide to forgo a fall term. They’ll have to decide soon, head coach Dino Babers said in Bailey’s story.
The NCAA, appropriately, is giving all fall-sports athletes an additional year of eligibility, even if some of them, such as Syracuse football players, do suit up in the coming weeks for official contests.
ACC-wide testing protocols for Covid-19 have come under scrutiny and could get ramped up, while media reports have indicated that Orange Athletics Director John Wildhack is concerned about the novel coronavirus testing process at Liberty, which is the lone non-conference opponent for Syracuse football in 2020.
It’s a dicey predicament for Syracuse football and others in the sport to play this fall if campuses continue to close.
One the one hand, if the general student population isn’t on a particular campus for in-person instruction, then that might make it easier for colleges and universities to create bubbles at least somewhat similar in nature to those employed by the NBA and the NHL at the pro level. Numerous college basketball and football coaches have echoed this sentiment of late.
Furthermore, if the big revenue-producing collegiate sports don’t have upcoming campaigns, then that will significantly strain athletics departments at Syracuse University and elsewhere, which could lead to the elimination of non-revenue, Olympic sports. That would prove terribly sad.
NCAA President Mark Emmert has said that fall sports should not occur if campuses aren’t open, at least to some degree. And NCAA leaders recently noted that they will work toward hosting “scaled back fall championships in the spring.”
However, the NCAA doesn’t control FBS football. So even though Power Five leagues like the Big Ten Conference and the Pac-12 Conference have canceled their fall football seasons, the ACC and others such as the Big 12 Conference and the Southeastern Conference are preparing for actual games in the near future.
From my perspective, if campuses are shut down due to the pandemic, which means to me that they aren’t safe for the general student population, and the NCAA has deemed it necessary to shift fall sports other than FBS football to the spring, then the optics don’t look good whatsoever to play a 2020 football campaign – nor start the 2020-21 basketball stanza on time as planned on Nov. 10.
Then again, optics don’t always seem to matter the most, or much at all. College football and basketball are big-time, multibillion-dollar businesses. Whatever ultimately happens, hopefully the health and well-being of players stay the highest priority.