Southland Conference postpones fall sports.
After much deliberation, the Southland Conference has postponed league competition in all of its fall sports with the intent of playing a football season in the spring of 2021 due to concerns over COVID-19.
The Southland will, however, allow teams to play nonconference games if they choose.
Houston Baptist, for example, plans on playing its three scheduled nonconference football games this fall, including at Texas Tech. HBU’s other nonconference opponents are North Texas and Louisiana Tech.
The Huskies also will participate in nonconference games in volleyball and women’s soccer.
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Sam Houston State will not try to play any sports in the fall, but Stephen F. Austin said it would.
HBU will play three opponents (North Texas, Texas Tech, and Louisiana Tech) who will pay them for the game. That’s one way to mitigate the financial hit for this.
West Coast Conference postpones fall sports.
Keeping in line with many other leagues around the country, the West Coast Conference, which includes BYU, announced Thursday that it has postponed all conference fall competition due to the coronavirus pandemic and is looking at ways to compete in the spring.
The decision was reached by the WCC Presidents’ Council after consulting with the league’s 10 athletic directors and commissioner Gloria Nevarez over the past several weeks.
This move impacts women’s volleyball, soccer, men’s cross-country and women’s cross-country. But it doesn’t affect men’s and women’s basketball, which is scheduled to tip off in November.
The conference “remains fully committed and continues to work closely with campus leadership on plans to ensure a safe environment to conduct the 2020-21 WCC men’s and women’s basketball seasons in the winter,” according to league officials. “The conference intends to explore various models for conducting WCC competition in the fall sports of men’s and women’s cross-country, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball in the spring of 2021. The WCC strongly supports efforts to encourage the National Collegiate Athletic Association to conduct fall NCAA championships in the spring.”
The WCC includes Gonzaga, so you can understand the desire to play basketball.
Southern Conference postpones fall sports.
VMI will not play Virginia nor any other football team this fall.
The Southern Conference announced Thursday that it is postponing its fall sports season until next spring because of the coronavirus pandemic. SoCon presidents voted on the matter Thursday afternoon.
Although SoCon games are moving to the spring, the conference is permitting its teams to still play nonleague games this fall.
But VMI decided not to exercise that option. So the Keydets will not play their scheduled game at UVa on Sept. 11.
“We made the decision, our CEOs did, regarding fall moving to spring, and we support that and believe it’s in the best interest of our cadet athletes to shift things to the [spring],” VMI athletic director Dave Diles said Thursday in a phone interview. “And therefore [VMI] didn’t feel it was the right thing to have any additional parts separated from that decision.”
VMI would have received $375K to play UVa.
Horizon League postpones fall sports.
The Horizon League has canceled sports this fall.
On Thursday afternoon, the league announced it has postponed all competition for fall sports. Among the schools in the Horizon League are Detroit Mercy and Oakland.
In total, 10 sports have been canceled, including men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s golf, baseball, softball, men’s tennis and women’s volleyball.
The league said any decision to move fall sports competition to the spring will be made at a later date. Individual schools will implement their own rules involving team workouts, in accordance with NCAA and state guidelines.
The Horizon League had previously voted to delay the start of the fall sports season until October 1.
Big Sky and Western Athletic Conferences postpone fall sports.
There won’t be any sports competitions this fall in either the Big Sky Conference or Western Athletic Conference due to health and safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Both leagues made their announcements Thursday and are looking at the possibility of moving fall competition to the spring. It impacts four Utah colleges: Weber State and Southern Utah in the Big Sky, and Utah Valley and Dixie State in the WAC.
The Big Sky had previously announced it would postpone the league’s conference competition in football this fall, and Thursday’s news confirms there won’t be any nonconference play in any sport. The decision also impacts Big Sky competition in sports like men’s and women’s cross-country, soccer and volleyball that compete for their championships in the fall, as well as those in their nonchampionship portion of the season, including men’s and women’s golf, softball, men’s and women’s tennis.
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The Big Sky punted making a decision on when the league’s winter sports — men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s indoor track and field — could start competition.
The WAC’s fall championship sports impacted include men’s and women’s cross-country, volleyball and men’s and women’s soccer. The league also said the earliest possible competition date for sports in the nonchampionship portion of their season is Jan. 1, 2021, affecting men’s and women’s golf, baseball, and softball.
The WAC will discuss winter athletics competition at a later date, while saying competition in men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s swimming and diving competition will be postponed through the end of October.
All of these conferences are FCS; the WAC used to be FBS, but dropped football after lots of schools moved to other conferences. Also, FCS school New Mexico State postponed its fall sports, becoming the third independent FCS school to do so, following the University of Connecticut and the University of Massachusetts. They all join the Big 10 and the PAC 12 in sitting it out for now, leaving the fall to the Big 12, SEC, and ACC
I don’t know what other FCS conferences there are out there, but for now at least this is what we’re going to get. I’m still quite skeptical that these three Power 5 conferences, plus the non-P5 FCS schools that are still in, can do this safely, but they’re going to try. And who knows, maybe they can. Sean Pendergast makes the case that the conferences that postponed were the foolish ones.
Regular students are coming back to campus anyway
At many of these schools, particularly in the Big Ten, regular students are actually returning to on campus classes this month. Yes, thousands of kids on campus, left to determine social distances and left for us to trust their masking policies. Football players at those schools will now be spending MORE time near the rest of those students. Also, if the Big Ten schools with student returning to campus are THAT concerned about COVID-19, to where they re canceling football, then why on earth are they bringing students back? It makes no sense.Players in the SEC, ACC, and Big XII will have better access to testing and medical care
When they ultimately nail down hard and fast protocols, it is widely assumed that the SEC, ACC, and Big XII will obviously have some sort of regular testing for COVID-19. This, along with the access to top notch medical staff and facilities, make the players at those schools the most cared-for college students anywhere when it comes to COVID-19. Between frequent testing, the structure of a football regimen, and great doctors, you could argue the safest students in the country are the football players of the SEC, ACC, and Big XII. I feel for the Big Ten and Pac-12 kids who are now left without testing, and many of them being sent back to their hometowns, where depending on their family’s healthcare coverage, it’s hit or miss as to just how protected they are from the coronavirus.Athletic departments budgets are about to be plundered, say goodbye to non-revenue sports
It would be naive to ignore the fiscal suicide being committed by the Big Ten and the Pac-12, who stand to lose tens of million of dollars by canceling the 2020 football season, basically out of fear — fear of bad press, fear of future litigation, fear of whatever. It’s why I wanted to establish first that the student-athletes in the conferences PLAYING football are actually safer from COVID-19, so my argument doesn’t appear mercenary. Big Ten schools pocket over $50 million per year from the Big Ten Network ALONE. Athletic departments stand to drown in a sea of red ink approaching nine figures. Non-revenue sports, basically everything that’s not football and basketball, that provide scholarship opportunities for literally thousands of kids, many female and minorities, are going to die under a financial guillotine when this is all said and done.Playing a spring season is actually MORE dangerous than playing in the fall
Here is perhaps the least logical part of the whole thing — the Big Ten and Pac-12 are reportedly wanting to play in the spring. So this would mean playing a football season, which I’m assuming is a minimum of eight games, starting in, say March. This would run through May. Training camp for the fall season, assuming there’s a COVID vaccine and/or therapeutic medicine, would begin in July. That’s LESS than two months between seasons. Seasons of FOOTBALL. This is beyond malpractice, and far more abusive than any sort of exposure players would have to COVID-19. It seems that everyone wanting to cancel football, stuck in their coronavirus fetal position, conveniently forget that they’ve been watching and enjoying a sport for years that includes the risk of permanent head trauma.
Maybe! I think #3 is a legitimate concern, and #4 is a concern for a different reason, which I’ve seen expressed elsewhere: You’re moving football games from October and November to January and February, which are a lot colder and have more snow. That’s not great for a variety of reasons. Multiple football programs have had COVID outbreaks among their players already, some bigger than others, and I have plenty of doubts that the coaches, ADs, and whoever else is making these decisions has any idea what they’re going to do if a team has a similar outbreak during the season. And Lord help us if they all insist on having fans in attendance. I will readily admit, moving these sports to the spring has its share of risks and downsides. But let’s not underestimate the risk of staying the course.
UH athletics will have a deficit of 60m this year (up from 48m last year). Thats net of all athletic donations and revenue from all sources. Thats around $1,800 per student.
Is their plan to:
1) Cut sports where women, LGBTs, non evangelicals, foreign born and 1st generation Texans, Mexican Americans, and AAPIs are more represented
2) Continue the process of having official chaplains and pastors assigned to UHs football, mens basketball, and baseball programs, and allow anti-Gay groups like Baseball Chapel special access to “groom” players to be anti-Gay. Which contributes at best to an unwelcoming (and at worst to a toxic) anti LGBT environment. There has never been an openly Gay male ever as a coach or player on UHs fb, mbb, or baseball teams.
3) Charge the students thousands per year for sports where they arent welcome or do not historically participate…and where they cannot even participate as fans.
4) Continue to pay coaches in salary more than scholarships for students
While UH runs one of the worst athletic deficits nationally, theyre not alone in Texas. Other Texas public universities self-reported losses last year (deficit divided by undergrad enrollment):
Texas Tech: $100. Sounds reasonable, but TTU will lose an additional $30m at least this year, so that will be $1k per student.
FBS CUSA and Sun Belt teams: These will lose around 8 to 10m in additional revenue, or around $300 per student above these per student losses from 2019.
UTSA: $650
UTEP: $985
Texas State: $767
North Texas: $878
FCS schools. If they cacncel payday games and dont get liquidated damages, add another $200 to the following totals from 2019.
Sam Houston (FCS): $685
SF Austin (FCS): $1,200
Lamar (FCS): $1,663
Prarie View (FCS): $1,500
Texas Southern (FCS): ~$1,000
Now for non-football D1 schools:
UTRGV: $570
TAMU-Corpus: $981
Texas Arlington: $440
Tarleton State: Unknown as they have decided to start D1 sports this year. Ill use the projected loss at fellow WAC member UTRGV and divide that by its enrollment to get an estimate of $1,200 in non-covid times.
Multiply these numbers by 4 to get the amount students must borrow to pay for exclusionary (if not downright discriminatory – by design) sports in order to get a degree from a Texas public university. And the number is probably FAR higher because the universities are self reporting those losses, certain transfer/facility costs may not be included, and enrollment figures may include part time students.
Its at least 3 grand per degree anywhere outside of TTU, TAMU, and UT. At UH, its approaching 5 grand before covid losses. This is a scandal even if football, mens basketball, and baseball programs weren’t fostering cultures of exclusion.
And with lower revenues for Texas Universities due to lower energy revenues..cuts will need to be made. Cutting the budgets of money losing programs driving the losses (football, mens basketball and baseball) is the way to go.
The Universities (or if they wont act, the state legislature should):
1) Limit athletic department subsidies from students to $250 per full time equivalent undergraduate student
2) Allocate that 250 equally between mens and women sports
3) Mandate that of the $125 allocated to mens sports, that scholarships and coaching positions must not discriminate against non-evangelicals (which would include mist LGBTs).
4) Ban religious grooming by programs.
Contrary to public perception, most athletic scholarships do NOT go to students from the poorest backgrounds. Travel ball, coaching, and equipment costs money. And time. These scholarships also heavily favor non-Texans and foreign students. And at UH coaching salaries are more than scholarships costs (which is another scandal).
In the next session of the legislature, expect a huge push by the GOP to bar, by law, Transgendered athletes from competing. Expect a lot of support from current and former players for that. They attempt it, also expect massive pushback on subsidies.