College football is going to leave us with some tough decisions.

While we hope that we would have forgotten about Coronavirus and all the problems it has caused us in six months, that isn’t going to happen.

And nor will the spread of the pandemic and nor will the deaths.

As we know, one of the biggest causes of the virus is the fact that it spreads quickly in crowds. The fact that we want to be together has been the reason why governors in most states have put in ‘shelter in place’ orders, in an effort to stop people moving to walk around parks and socialising, in an effort to slow down the virus and stop more people than is needed to ending up on a ventilator. The hospital beds across the USA simply won’t be able to deal with it.

I suspect that way before September, Donald Trump will trumpet that the virus is beaten (which will simply not be true), and that everything will go back to normal. Of course he’ll say that, because he’s got votes to win in November. Senators, mayors and everyone will say the same – without there being a vaccine in place (yet) for this to happen.

Anyhow, how does this effect college football attendance – and the SEC particularly?

7.4 million people went to SEC games total in 2019, averaging over 72,000 per conference game. And the SEC leads all other conferences in total attendance. I don’t know whether open booze had an effect, but that’s really not the point.

The point is this. The tailgates are rammed with people not exactly obeying the six foot rule. There are gatherings of more than 10 people. Beer is passed around. Hand-washing from a frankly unsanitary toilet – and certainly hand-washing – is non-existent when the hand sanitizer runs out….and not a lot of people are running to the local arts building to empty themselves of beer, bourbon and barbecue. Add to that a student base of well over 20,000 (unless it’s Vanderbilt, which has an enrollment of around 6,800), of which a lot of them have a more-than-healthy Greek life (again, kids in close proximity), and you’ve got the opportunity for all hell to break loose.

Now, the schools will say that they can have automatic temperature taking outside all gates. They won’t. There aren’t going to be 7.4 million tests over 14 sites, plus the totalled millions at tailgates and the student population. Plus, the stadiums are cramped. People will high give and hug and kiss after every team score (some more than others), and everything becomes more virulent.

And as the seasons goes on, things become colder, flu season starts to come back again, immune systems become more shot to pieces, and we start again.

We won’t lose college football this season. We are still going to see 14 teams play. Some will be great. Other teams will be awful.

But don’t be surprised if the SEC mandates that all games will be held behind closed doors for the safety of the area, and of the country.

The good thing is is the college sports programs will be still be able to function after this is all said and done. The SEC’s deal with ESPN looks increasingly valuable because of it.  And the other good thing is is that you’ll see a climb in viewer ratings and more people stay at home to watch. Your local policeman won’t go house-t0-house to stop a viewing party – and people won’t use common sense – but it’ll be better than a local pandemic because of a football game.

But here’s to hoping this doesn’t happen.

Doing their bit against COVID-19, the SEC has cancelled all of the Spring Games.

The conference suspended all athletic activity until April 15th, although it would not be surprising if that is longer.

This will leave a lot of coaches and players in the ‘corridor of uncertainty’. Players will want to know if they should stay around or transfer. Coaches will want to find out who their No.1 QB is in a live game.

And of course, this also impacts recruiting, as high schools have either shut down completely, or schools have abandoned recruiting trips.

Of course, you can expect a proliferation of online recruiting via Zoom and players’ meetings, as well as group ‘home’ weights sessions (most schools will close their doors and get students to do assignments online), and we’ll see how that holds up.

Here are the list of games:

Friday, April 3: Vanderbilt

Saturday, April 4: South Carolina

Saturday, April 11: Kentucky, Mississippi State, Auburn, Missouri

Saturday, April 18: LSU, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Ole Miss

Saturday, April 25: Arkansas

The ACC has also canceled its Spring Games and the Big Ten has suspended them – although Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State have all cancelled their Spring Games. The Big 12 and Pac-12 have suspended all athletic activities until the end of March, but you can expect that to be longer.

Spring Games aren’t like your run-of-the-mill football games. They have been cancelled due to crappy weather, and they will get cancelled again.

This year, every school in the SEC should lead the way in college football, and cancel their Spring games because of the Coronavirus.

They need to do it before the States – after declaring an emergency because of the numbers of people affected it – effectively close down the games before them, leaving Vanderbilt – the only private institution in the SEC – to make its choice.

These Spring Games are extremely well-attended in the SEC, with most schools in the conference seeing their stars of the future play on their hallowed turf.

In Europe, games between soccer clubs are getting played behind closed doors, or entire leagues are being suspended – particularly in Italy, which is one of the hubs of the Coronavirus.

It won’t be an entire surprise if March Madness crowds are forcibly reduced by states, or played entirely behind closed doors. The Ivy League used its brains and cancelled its postseason tournaments, handing Yale a spot in the NCAA Tournament (Men) and Princeton (women).

So why shouldn’t the schools get ahead of what seems like the inevitable and simply cancel their games? The events are free, meaning the schools only really lose on merchandising revenue, which they more than make up for anyway in SEC television money. Not only that, but the games certainly aren’t going to be as full because of virus worries, and it becomes even more of a strain upon schools financially. l because of people not wanting to take the risk of exposure – especially those who are older and are more infirm.

It makes more rationale than putting thousands at risk just for a stadium scrimmage.

If the SEC schools want to, they can always broadcast the Spring Games behind closed doors. After all, the NFL Combine does that it seems to work fine.

OK, so I’m your broker and the stock market is crashing. You look elsewhere, because you’re a gambling addict and you can’t sit on the loose change.

‘Let’s look at SEC Futures’, I tell you. Immediately, you’re thinking I’m talking about the Securities & Exchange Commission, and trying to work out whether the conversation that Larry and you had about bonds in the bar last night could have been eavesdropped by some genius in New York City.

‘No, no. It’s about the NFL,” I reassure you. “You know? The place where the owners couldn’t really give a crap about the fans. Yeah, they provide the atmosphere and add millions to their pockets in stupid merchandising, but it’s all about the TV money. As for caring about the players? The owners will care until they get too expensive for them. And then they’ll boot them. They’ll try every trick in the book to make sure that they save a couple of dollars. You know, because need the money for their Florida massages, their botox and their son’s cocaine habit.’.

OK? So the SEC kills it every draft. In 2019 SIXTY-FOUR players from the SEC got drafted into the NFL. THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE players on NFL rosters played at the SEC. Maybe that’s because they pay them the best, maybe it’s because most of our schools are basically either for rich dumbasses or straight-up dumbasses, or maybe it’s because they are just killing it.

So who are my top tips? Or who should I be careful of? Or who’s being too hyped? 

TOP

Joe Burrow (QB, LSU): Threw SIXTY passing touchdowns. A NCAA record. And it wasn’t against terrible defenses either. He also ran for five touchdowns too, and can scramble a bit. His 5,671 passing yards were third-most ever thrown in a college football season. The kid’s not exactly a flash in the pan, either. You know all the B.S. that SportsCenter’s been spinning about how he ‘came from nowhere’? That’s crap. He’s been loved since he was a kid. He’s used to being hyped-up. Now, let’s hope Cincy can draft a receiver or two to help him along.

Derrick Brown (DT, Auburn): In my view, the best defensive player in the draft. At times he was unstoppable. Got the award for college football’s defensive impact player of the year, and was the SEC Defensive player of the year. He caused fumbles, defended passes, and also he’s also a sure tackler. He would have had even better numbers if he wasn’t double-teamed a lot, either.

Jerry Jeudy(WR, Alabama): Blazing speed. Just….blazing. Jeudy had 1,163 yards receiving, and 10 TDs. He’ll be a first rounder and will come away as a No.2 receiver somewhere, but be a No.1 receiver by the end of the season. He’s going to give defensive players FITS.

D’Andre Swift (RB, Georgia): Swift is lucky because he shared a lot of the load during his time at Georgia, meaning that he wasn’t receiving the ball 200 times a season – like Jonathan Taylor at Wisconsin, who in our opinion was talented by overused. Swift is a machine who’s got great speed, and knows how to find a hole. He’s also damned hard to stop. He’s not a bad receiver out of the backfield, too.

Javon Kinlaw (Defensive Lineman, South Carolina): His numbers weren’t as great in 2019 as people thought they might. But then again, offensive line coordinators weren’t exactly facing the three-headed hydra when they were playing South Carolina, either. It meant that opponents could key in on Kinlaw, which they did. A criticism has been that he didn’t get away from double-teams as much as he could have done, but he won’t face the same problems at the NFL – unless he’s on a really crappy team. We expect him to be earning some serious money after his rookie contract runs out.

QUESTION BEFORE YOU BUY

Tua Tagovailoa (QB, Alabama): There is no question that had he remained uninjured, he would have been the best QB in the draft. He’s that good. But you know what? He didn’t. He’s got two ankles with bolts in them and one replaced hip. Basically, he’s a pelvis away from being The Terminator. There’s no denying that Tua’s got football brains and a cannon, but be careful.

Grant Delpit (S, LSU): Ignore the Jim Thorpe Award. Delpit won that because of LSU’s fantastic season in 2019. He got better and better as the season went on, but for me he was one of the more disappointing members of the LSU defensive part in 2019 – until the Tigers ‘D’ got its head out of its rectum and got better and better. NFL scouts said: “He misses an inordinate amount of tackles in a variety of ways”. That’s like saying: “Buy that car but the steering might go ever so often”.

Lawrence Cager (WR, Georgia): We love Cager’s height and his catching ability. But his injuries at both Miami and Georgia have hampered his progress. His injury wasn’t the reason why Georgia was taken to the cleaners by LSU in the SEC Championship Game, but it sure as hell didn’t help.

WORRY ABOUT

Jake Fromm (QB, Georgia): Because of the fact that he’s the ‘aw shucks’ guy that the pretty sorority girls down in Georgia loved because of his leadership and generally not been the a**hole that Jacob Eason was (or so we hear), people love little Jakey. They loved him as a pocket passer. I’m sorry. I’m not one of them. While injuries to his receiving corps didn’t help his completion numbers in 2019, Fromm – when he was harried – looked completely out of sorts. If you get someone who wants to sell you Fromm, you gotta be asking for a rock-bottom price before pulling the trigger.

BIG RISK/REWARD

Willie Gay (Jr, Mississippi State): Gay’s performance at the NFL Combine was sensational. If he – and a bunch of his teammates – had been around instead of having to sit out a ton of games after getting his ass suspended for academic violations (a tutor took exams for him), then Joe Moorhead might still be in a job. I don’t know if this was a one-off matter, but I do know this: If you can’t be bothered to do the work at a school like Mississippi State, how can you be expected to do the research in the NFL? Playing-wise, though, the kid could be a stud. We think he’ll be a 4-6th round pick though.

STEAL

Clyde Edwards-Helaire (RB, LSU): This might raise some eyebrows, but we’ve got Edwards-Helaire higher than most because the NFL’s evolving, bro. We’ve got offensive co-ordinators who want their running backs to be able to catch, and E-H does all that. He caught 453 yards and a TD out of the backfield, didn’t drop the ball, he can block, he’s a ballsy runner and put up 1,414 yards and 16 TDs for that machine in Baton Rouge last season. Someone’s going to take him in the second or even the third round, and they’ll have a steal.

Albert Okwuegbunam (TE, Missouri): First of all, don’t bother pronouncing his last name. No-one can. Call him ‘Albert O’. You call him ‘Fat Albert’, and I’ll laugh as he stomps your head in.  He led the SEC with 11 touchdowns caught in 2017, but after Derek Dooley as OC came in in 2018, the production dropped by half. At 6-5 he’s going to be a nightmare match-up.