Dartmouth head coach Buddy Teevens is featured prominently in a Yahoo Sports story headlined, Why Trump and the Republicans have turned college football into a new 'Normandy.' From the story (LINK):
Some coaches recognize that not only could college football contribute to the virus’s continued spread across the United States, their own players could be at risk for little-understood health effects like myocarditis. “I’d hate to be responsible for that,” said Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens, who has been praised for making the sport safer by helping to create remote-control tackling dummies that reduce practice injuries.
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Teevens, by the way, has been billed as among the guest speakers at something called the True North Sports Coach Development Academy, "a virtual course program designed to support and assist coaches in developing their authentic philosophy, team culture, and program structure."
The online classes began yesterday and will continue for eight weeks.
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A Pac-12 football coach called recently, almost frantic. "You've got to expand rosters," he said. "Gotta have more." He was speaking of the near certainty that athletes in fall sports will be granted some kind of eligibility relief amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NCAA Division I Council is expected to formally recommend that additional year of eligibility at its Wednesday meeting. The NCAA Board of Governors could adopt the measure as early as Friday.
That Pac-12 coach was worried about his seniors being given an extra year of eligibility because his 2021 roster will eventually be populated a new recruiting class. If a significant number of would-be graduating seniors stayed for an extra year, the coach suggested he might need 100 scholarships as opposed to the limit is 85. And that roster relief may need to extend past 2021.
Green Alert Take: I've wondered about the numbers game in the Ivy League next fall.
Let's assume, just for this exercise, that of the 30 incoming freshmen recruited for football half decide to take a gap year. Barring a cutback in the next recruiting class that would mean 30 true freshmen and 15 "gap" freshmen, for 45 first-year players in 2021. Now let's assume that the Ivy League goes along with the NCAA (we'll have to see about that ;-) and half of a 30-member senior class opts to use the extra year of eligibility. If next year's true senior class has 30 players and half of this year's senior class returns that would mean 45 players in their final season. Added to 45 freshmen that would mean 90 players in just those two classes next fall. If there are 30 more in the sophomore class and 30 in the junior class that would be a whopping 150 football players.
In the real world, obviously, attrition will have knocked those numbers down. That said, this is the kind of unintended consequence the league will have to consider as it tries to develop a blueprint for how to go forward.
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The Daily Pennsylvanian has a capsule look at the school-by-school academic year 2020-21 under the headline, Here’s what the Ivy League is deciding for fall 2020. (LINK)
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The 2020 season has a little bit of a money-grab feel when you read that a school like Houston Baptist is going to play three FBS teams and Campbell two.
Green Alert Take: On second thought, with the very real possibility of limited or no ticket sales, you have to wonder how just how much of a guarantee those schools are getting. And if it's money from TV rights, just imagine how thrilled a station would be promoting a game against the Campbell Camels instead of, say, Wisconsin ;-)
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Stephen F. Austin coach Colby Carthel, who has just one confirmed game left on his schedule, isn't enthusiastic about an alternate season. He tweeted this:
Playing a college football season in the spring, followed by another college football season in the fall, makes about as much sense as eating soup with a fork.
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EXTRA POINT
I read someplace that today would have been the 99th birthday of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek. While I recognize the name I have to make a confession:
I've never watched a single episode of Star Trek.
Confession No. 2: I've also never seen any of the Star Wars movies.
