COVID-19 and the College Football Debate

COVID-19 and the College Football Debate
(Thomas Carter via AP)

Why should we have to go to class if we come here to play FOOTBALL,
we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.
~Ohio State University football quarterback Cardale Jones, October 2012 tweet

Last week, the question of whether or not the American college football season would start on time in the early fall got complicated. Some schools (with enrollments of up to about 50,000 students in total) had already opened for voluntary workouts. Now, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has approved a six-week plan that would allow student athletes to return to campus for pre-season workouts, and so testing for COVID-19 has begun. The results so far have been stark.

Clemson University had 23 players test positive. There were 13 players with COVID-19 at the University of Texas in Austin. Ten athletes at Iowa State tested positive. The University of Alabama had eight, as did Kansas State University. University of Houston had six, Texas A&M had five, and Mississippi State had four. The list went on and on with more schools reporting positive tests, and the numbers are likely bigger than reported, because the NCAA hasn’t made reporting COVID-19 positives among their student athletes mandatory due to concerns about student privacy. According to Sports Illustrated, at least 30 players from reigning national champion Louisiana State University have been isolated because they either tested positive for COVID-19, or were found to have had contact with those who did.

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