Fallout Of No Fall Football For Maryland

Welp, it’s official. Actually, not quite yet, but it does appear we’re inching closer to an official announcement that the Big Ten will cancel its football season and all other sports for this upcoming Fall.

As we await for what seems like the inevitable, it’s time to stop pontificating over the prospects of Big Ten football this fall and shift our focus to the ramifications of what could be a postponed or potentially canceled college football season.

Let’s start there. If we don’t have football in the Fall, what are the chances the season gets pushed to the Spring?

My guess would be very, very unlikely.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

First, there’s the obvious issue of potentially having college football overlap with the NFL’s offseason schedule in terms of the NFL Combine and the NFL Draft.

How are draft-eligible players supposed to prepare for the NFL and attend the pre-NFL Draft events while in the midst of a college football season? Would players with the best chance of going pro even bother playing another down in college and just put all of their efforts into the pre-draft process? Seems like the smart move with a career and millions of dollars on the line in one scenario and tons of uncertainty and unchartered territory awaiting in the other.

What about students-athletes that aren’t potential pros but still have a promising career ahead of them in their field of choice? Perhaps many of which have a job lined up to start in the spring or summer having assumed they’d be playing football in the fall per usual. Should those student-athletes jeopardize their post-college life for one last chance to don their school’s uniform on the gridiron?

If these scenarios play out the way they likely would, what’s the roster attrition going to be like at Maryland and other Big Ten schools? Not to mention, if the Big Ten decides to forego football but other conferences do not, how many athletes from these Big Ten programs transfer to another conference in order to play? You add on top of that the students that will opt out of playing altogether because of health concerns, even in the spring. In this scenario, we could see Big Ten schools left with rosters cut in half and no direction.

Then there’s the logistical nightmare of playing college football in the Spring. If college football is given the go-ahead to play in the spring, that would mean other sports are allowed to pick up again as well. So what about the Winter and Spring sports that are supposed to be playing during that time?

Not only does having this many sports participating at the same time cause scheduling dilemmas when it comes to practices, games, and other events, it also makes athletic department and public relations work for each of these teams nearly impossible, as many staffers in these areas pull double-duty and oversee these functions for multiple sports throughout the year.

Finally, if Spring college football were to occur, we’d likely be looking at a condensed season just to beat the heat of the summer and to not go too far into the NFL offseason. This would make changes to all kinds of processes another logistical piece to consider as well as likely lead to more injuries during practice and competition.

But that brings up my next point: practice.

If there is no college football season in the Fall but a plan is put in place to play in the Spring, do teams still practice together in the coming months to stay sharp and, in a sense, have their offseason that initially got interrupted by the pandemic in the Spring?

If the Big Ten deems it unsafe to play games, it very well could decide the same for practices. If there are no practices or games this Fall or, even worse, until next Fall, what does that mean for players’ development? I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can safely say it wouldn’t be good. There’s a reason they say practice makes perfect.

And then, there’s the issues of scholarship count and whether or not to extend scholarships and eligibility. These are subjects that need attention from both the individual institutions as well as the NCAA and Big Ten.

If there is no college football this Fall or next Spring, do the players that would have had expiring eligibility retain their eligibility? If so, does the number of scholarship players that each team is allowed to hold increase?

If the NCAA rules that these student-athletes lose their final year of eligibility because of something that was totally out of their hands, that would seem to be a very unpopular decision. But if they grant them another year of eligibility and don’t increase the scholarship limit, are teams left to pick and choose who remains on the roster?

All of these scenarios are on the table as we continue to tread water amid uncertain times. On top of the logistical nightmares and stunting the development of student-athletes and young professionals, not playing a college football season in the fall or spring has its obvious ramifications on athletic departments as a whole.

Maryland’s athletic department has already been through the ringer in recent years and now it’s faced with an unprecedented situation that could lay the groundwork for the school’s athletic future.

Will non-revenue sports have to eventually be cut if the athletic department loses the revenue generated by a college football season, and perhaps loses the college basketball season as well?

Can Maryland or any Big Ten programs withstand the financial impact of just taking a year off and letting the dust settle? After all, there are billions of dollars on the line when you talk about college sports as a whole.

Although we don’t have a clear ruling on whether or not we’ll have a college football season just yet, what remains clear is that we all have more questions than answers.

Perhaps some of the questions laid out in this article will begin to be answered soon but, in the meantime, we’re all still along for the cruel ride that is 2020.