Despite the similarity in their team name, there is a big difference between Harvard Football and Alabama Football. That’s no critique of the Crimson, who play a fairly high level of FCS college football, the second tier of Division I. But it’s a whole different version of the pastime of the Crimson Tide, who annually compete for a national title and send a disproportionately high number of players to the NFL. And at the current time, there’s one additional, striking difference between the Crimson and the Crimson Tide. As of today, the Alabama Crimson Tide plan on playing a football season this fall, while the Harvard Crimson will not. That decision was made last week by the Ivy League, which cancelled all college sports competition until at least Jan 1, marking the second time this year the Ivys were the first Division I conference to close sports because of the virus – the first coming during basketball’s tournament season.
For Harvard, Yale, and the rest of the ancient eight, that doesn’t just mean no football. It’s also no cross country, soccer, volleyball, and all the other sports that contest championships in the fall. It also means winter sports, like basketball and hockey, won’t start their schedules on time – and that’s assuming a best-case scenario. By New Year’s, most college basketball teams have already played a few non-conference games and probably at least one tournament before heading into conference play in January.
That said, they won’t be alone. The Patriot League, another Division I conference of highly ranked academic schools in the Northeast, also announced they won’t play this fall. A handful of other Universities have also cancelled, including Bowdoin, Morehouse, and several Division II and Division III teams and conferences, a list that’s likely to grow by day if not the hour. Particularly for schools that don’t generate revenue off football, which is the vast majority, it’s getting harder and harder to rationalize playing the most invasive of contact sports when you can barely get six people wearing masks inside a full classroom.
What we haven’t heard yet, and what we’re all waiting on, are cancellations for football from the Power 5 Conferences. Places like the ACC and SEC and Big 12, Universities whose identity is often interwoven with their athletics program and where Saturday afternoons are something of an unofficial holiday. So far, only two of those conferences – the Big 10 and Pac 12 – have announced conference only scheduling. Meaning you won’t see USC play Notre Dame, or any of the other warm up games that serve as the season’s prelude. It also means fewer rivalry games, like Florida/Florida State, or Texas/Texas A&M. There’s a rationale behind this, including a shorter schedule and less travel, and perhaps even some notion of creating a singular safety protocol by conference, but in the end, no matter how you try to shave down the season, it’s still going to be nearly impossible to build anything approximating an actual bubble for the students who play college football this fall. Even without the added risk of 100,000 screaming and often intoxicated live fans, something even the most obtuse of southern governors is starting to understand can’t possibly happen. No matter what you attempt to do, playing college football this fall – whether Princeton or Purdue – is going to bring clear and preventable risk.
Some at the top of apex football programs have admitted as much. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has said his concerns for the football season are high to very high, although he seemed to walk that back just a bit yesterday. The University of Michigan just sent information about fall season tickets, and used the word “if” in reference to football games – not “when.” So at the very least, people in high places are aware that it’s not feasible to barrel through this sports season like Ohio State’s offensive line through Bowling Green. That said, head coach of defending champion LSU Ed Orgeron just told an audience that included Mike Pence that this country needs football, that they need to play. And that we can’t take this away from the nation. So there’s that.
In the end, I’m not sure what the chronology will be, but I’ll be shocked if all college football isn’t cancelled by the end of the month. Which obviously isn’t simply the right decision – to be clear, it’s the only decision. And one that’s disheartening even as you recognize its logic. The heart wants what the heart wants. But so does the virus. Which means this fall, expect to have a lot more free time every Saturday. And know that for the time being, Harvard Football will look a whole lot more like Alabama.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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