NOT A DRILL: Kirk Herbstreit "Will Be Shocked" If We Have Football This Year

https://theresurgent.com/2020/03/27/not-a-drill-kirk-herbstreit-will-be-shocked-if-we-have-football-this-year/

I was fine when the NBA season was postponed and even grateful when MLB was delayed (waste of a sport) but this is too far. ESPN analyst and SEC hater, Kirk Herbstreit, predicts that College Football and the NFL likely won't happen this year.

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"I'll be shocked if we have NFL football this fall, if we have college football. I'll be so surprised if that happens,"

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Quote:

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Just because, from what I understand, people that I listen to, you're 12 to 18 months from a [COVID-19] vaccine. I don't know how you let these guys go into locker rooms and let stadiums be filled up and how you can play ball. I just don't know how you can do it with the optics of it.

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Look, as a lifelong Tennessee fan, this is all probably for the best. Year after year of perpetual sucking and gut-wrenching losses can't be good for my mental health or my liver. After losing to BYU and a school that shall not be named, this proposal floated by the fan base may inadvertently be coming to life.

While I am grateful we do not have to deal with the insufferableness of March Madness or baseballs 984 regular-season games, this is all very sad. One good sign? The NFL draft is not being postponed YET.

Good news. This means football probably starts on schedule.

I will be shocked too.

Everyone may want to be prepared that this is a very realistic prospect.

Honestly, with what has happened to major league and big time college sports, there's not much I really would miss all that much. I would love to see a return to a more purer form, less hype and fake drama, less reality show, less politics. Make the Olympics an amateur event again with track and field as the main event. Make sports great again, not just the great big bad theater it has become.

Modern sports be like:

Hey Herbie,

Not so fast - Jerkstreet. If we are all still locked up come August - there are likely other things going on.

Our current situation is unique thus any opinion expressed by anyone at this date is a guess,nothing more.

Thank goodness that noted epidemiologist, Kirk Herbstreit, is on the case to use his vast scientific education and professional scientific experience to tell us how this will all work out.

Whew!

Herbstreit may not be a scientist but he probably knows something about college football, practice schedules, how much work goes into making a winning team, and so on. On the ODB podcast, they predicted the season would be cancelled if the crisis is not over by mid-May. That might be a bit too optimistic. By the way, ODB's podcast includes Elliot Coffey who played on RGIII's Heisman team.

We may not like the idea, but we have to accept the possibility and it helps to be prepared. Also, we need to keep it all in perspective: as much as we love Baylor football, MBB, WBB, etc, there are more important things than sports--even the coaches and players acknowledge that.

I was in part reacting to Kirk's use of the work shocked.I think that is a bit strong.If he had said pleasantly surprised I would not have commented.I realize that fall college sports are threatened.This is true despite the fact that D-1 schools will pull out all of the stops to have a football season even if prep time is less than ideal.The financial model depends upon football.Our deficit in athletics will surge from big to huge without football.Let us hope and pray that current initiatives cause the curve to flatten and that research efforts become game changers.

I could see a scenario where they knock off the first three games or so, favoring conference match-ups. It doesn't take a ton of imagination or cognition. Derp Turdstreak doesn't seem adept in that department. Delaying the season a month or so if necessary is certainly a win vs cancelling the entire season.

Realistically, this crisis is going to last several more weeks MINIMUM! It is quite possible that it could go on for months. We must be prepared: there will probably not be a 2020 football season.

Here is an interesting article about the nation's prospects:

https://theresurgent.com/2020/03/29/fauci-100000-or-more-deaths-what-will-it-take-to-convince-you/

It includes this link to the John Hopkins COVID-19 tracker:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

This is a global crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before. The national & global economies have already taken a huge hit. More importantly, thousands have already died. Both catastrophes will likely get worse before they get better. Look at Italy (ignore the numbers from China--their corrupt & incompetent government lies about everything). Given these grim circumstances, football may be the least of our worries come August. I really hope I'm wrong but there are a lot of things far more important than football.

historian said:

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Realistically, this crisis is going to last several more weeks MINIMUM! It is quite possible that it could go on for months. We must be prepared: there will probably not be a 2020 football season.

Here is an interesting article about the nation's prospects:

https://theresurgent.com/2020/03/29/fauci-100000-or-more-deaths-what-will-it-take-to-convince-you/

It includes this link to the John Hopkins COVID-19 tracker:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

This is a global crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before. The national & global economies have already taken a huge hit. More importantly, thousands have already died. Both catastrophes will likely get worse before they get better. Look at Italy (ignore the numbers from China--their corrupt & incompetent government lies about everything). Given these grim circumstances, football may be the least of our worries come August. I really hope I'm wrong but there are a lot of things far more important than football.

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I wonder where all the people went that were posting on here that this was just the common cold or flu and that canceling sports was over reaction. Can you imagine the spread if games with 20k-50k people were attending events regularly.

My initial view is that it was an overreaction. I never thought it was merely the cold or flu but I also never thought it would get as bad as it is now. Then again, 100 years ago the misnamed Spanish flu pandemic killed millions--more than WWI.

I have a dream. Americans finally figure out that doctors, nurses, and first responders should be paid the big bucks and professional athletes making mega-millions to play a kid's game are really not that important!

The bright side of this prospect is that it will just put a pause until 21 for football. My assumption is it is under control by then.

What I mean is that without a season no one will be fired anywhere, and hence no one will be shopping for a new HC. So HC candidates elsewhere on our staff such as Fedora, will still be on staff for 21. God forbid a tragedy occur for a HC elsewhere etc. In otherwords we should have the current staff for the 21 season when things resume. I have no idea what will happen to the actual student athletes' eligibility etc. however, especially with new student athletes coming on board everywhere even if there is not a 20 season.

Of course I'm also assuming possibly inappropriately that when college football returns after a potential pause, it is still the big business it had evolved into up until "everything went to shxt" to borrow from Walking Dead vernacular.

I think when football (& other sports) resume, they will likely be more popular than ever. I mean how much TV binge watching can people handle before they want to get out and do something real--and often unpredictable?

Same thing I was thinking. People are ready for live sporting events more than ever.

Why cancel in Mid May? Do you really need all those months for the fall season? I think the NCAA needs to adjust their practice restrictions so the season starts on time.

What hasn't been clear is WHAT is the measure being used for everyone to start going back into public. Do we need to have zero cases? That's unrealistic.

As of right now, the data shows that almost 99 percent of the deaths related to this virus , those individuals had some prexisting condition.

So, if you have high blood pressure or lung issues / stay inside. Period. Don't make the 99.9999999 percent suffer at the same time.

I don't know what the criteria is for ending the quarantine but I suspect it is clear indication that things have been brought under control: the death numbers declining for several days in a row, no new cases, a readily available vaccine, etc. It's mostly common sense.

There will be no football season unless there were a reasonable certainty that a crowd of 40k-100k would not include carriers of the disease. It would be irresponsible for the NCAA & the schools hosting. They and their lawyers will not allow it.

Too many people are at risk and if everyone is out in public, it is too easy to transmit the virus without knowing. Besides, who wants to risk infecting their friends, family members, co-workers, neighbors, etc? How many acquaintances do each of us have who are in an at risk group. All of us know somebody and there likely people we don't know in one of those groups (they may not even know themselves). Think of Lauren Cox and her family. Would any of us want to do anything that might result in the death of someone else?

KSU AD begs to differ with Herbstreit:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/coronavirus-kansas-state-ad-not-thrilled-with-kirk-herbstreit-saying-hed-be-shocked-if-football-happens/ar-BB11Yuwz?ocid=spartandhp

Another reason to doubt we will have a football season in 2020:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-sports-grim-outlook-for-professional-sports-returning-anytime-soon/

This is talking about NFL, not college football and the hypothetical sequestration, and logistics nightmare, left out the media people. But if it were college--even if only P5--the problems would be multiplied many times over.

I really hope we have a solution much sooner and we can all get on with our lives--and a normal football season. But I don't really expect that will happen soon.

IMHO we will be "back to work" in August but large public gatherings like concerts and sports events will still not be taking place to avoid an autumn/winter surge of the virus. We'll see... I hope to be wrong about this and we are back fully to normal by then.

We need one or more of these things to get back to normal:

Vaccine-Probably more than a year and a half as NO vaccine has been cleared for regular use in less than 5.

Treatment to prevent the severe symptoms and death- There are some promising things such as blood plasma replacement from a recovered patient and the use of that Malaria drug.... but neither is proven. But lots of people are working on both promising treatments and vaccines.

Enough people have immunity due to previous exposure that the virus will not be spreading from one person to everyone they come in contact with because a high enough percentage exposed are immune, so don't catch it and spread it to another. This slows the exponential spread we are seeing now. Herd immunity.

The virus dies out due to weather/climate.... not expected to happen.

Eventually we may find that certain people have natural immunity. Type O blood types seem to have less severe symptoms. People with certain genes seem to have fewer problems. If you are type O, don't take some guy on the internet's word for it

Whatever combination of the above occurs that brings the spread and current infections down to what we see from other diseases will lead to things becoming normal.

In theory stay at home orders and social distancing should reduce the spread, but until the above things happen, once people start contacting each other again, it will start back up. Each of these though will start to be introduced and gradually the risk will be reduced.

Trump today told Professional League Commissioners that he expects the NFL could start in September. I doubt it, but there is that.

He also said that the economy would be roaring by Resurrection Sunday (aka Easter) until he extended the ShiP protocols to the end of the month. He honestly does not know and neither do all the scientists advising him. While it's still spreading & growing we can only guess as to how long it might last. When the numbers start going down--and continue for several days (probably 2 weeks or more) we will have a better idea.

This country is going to look like Westeros if the virus is still so bad we can't have football in 5 months.

Before or after the dragons--not that it matters?!

Even if the virus is contained in the next few weeks (hopefully, not sure how likely), it will take time to put everything back into place. Can they have a regular season at the regular time without any Spring practice or with limited Fall practice? I don't know.