Category: Vanderbilt

How do you keep players ‘in the bubble’?

  Right, so keeping players in the bubble’s going to be tough. It’s pretty obvious that the kids who are going back to school think that just because they passed a COVID test between March and now that they aren’t ever gonna get the plague, so they are gonna hang out, drink and do dumb stuff, because they are students. Football players aren’t different, particularly with all the distractions. And no, we ain’t talking about studies, since a lot of college football players wouldn’t be in college if it wasn’t for football. Hell, it’s a miracle most of them got through high school. A great friend of mine was pursuing the sort of lifestyle that would have made Hunter S Thompson proud

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SEC, ACC: No plans to scrap college football

The SEC and ACC have both said that they have no plans to quash their college football plans after the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences said that they are cancelling fall football. B SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement: “I look forward to learning more about the factors that led the Big Ten and Pac-12 leadership to take these actions today. I remain comfortable with the thorough and deliberate approach that the SEC and our 14 members are taking to support a healthy environment for our student-athletes. We will continue to further refine our policies and protocols for a safe return to sports as we monitor developments around COVID-19 in a continued effort to support, educate and care

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The Terminator Chronicles: Big Ten/Pac-12 edition

August 11, 2020, the Big Ten and the Pac-12 fired the first missiles. After arguing as to whether the fall college football season should be delayed or not, the conference decided that that was it: They were cancelling fall football. There were words of players practicing at Nebraska and Iowa. There was a sense of hope that everything could get sorted with a player-pushed protest. News of all but Iowa and Nebraska deciding to resist came through yesterday, but they had said there wasn’t a vote. There was. And the red button was pushed. But now, there will be no Game. There will be no bitter battles for weird jugs, trophies and helmets. We won’t be able to jump around, white out,

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SEC unrolls new non-division opponents, Missouri gets screwed

The Southeastern Conference released the two new non-conference opponents for the ‘oncoming’ college football season. ALABAMA Previously scheduled: vs Georgia, at Tennessee Added opponents: vs. Kentucky, at Missouri ARKANSAS Previously scheduled: vs. Tennessee, at Missouri Added opponents: vs. Georgia, at Florida AUBURN Previously scheduled: vs. Kentucky, at Georgia Added opponents: vs. Tennessee, at South Carolina FLORIDA Previously scheduled: vs. LSU, at Ole Miss Added opponents: vs. Arkansas, at Texas A&M GEORGIA Previously scheduled: vs. Auburn, at Alabama Added opponents: vs. Mississippi State, at Arkansas KENTUCKY Previously scheduled: vs. Mississippi State, at Auburn Added opponents: vs. Ole Miss, at Alabama LSU Previously scheduled: vs. South Carolina, at Florida Added opponents: vs. Missouri, at Vanderbilt OLE MISS Previously scheduled: vs. Florida, at

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SEC mandates masks on sidelines, increased testing

The SEC has announced a number of things to keep players safe during the 2020 College Football season, including increased testing and mandating masks on all sideline personnel. Players will be tested six days and three games before days, and masks “will be required to wear face coverings on the sideline and physical distancing will be employed to the extent possible”. Testing will be done through a third party which is has been put in (obviously) to assuage worries about schools deliberately scewing testing in their own favour. And in its release, the SEC has also outlined what would be the factors to stop a game happening – or even a season. They are: Inability to isolate new positive cases, or quarantine

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NCAA: Schools must honour opt-out eligibility

The NCAA has said that schools must honour athletes’ scholarships if they choose to opt out of the 2020 season on health concerns, the ruling body said in a release. It added that should that happen, the scholarship MUST be honoured by the university, putting paid to worries that a player who opted-out would simply lose his scholarship – funnily enough costing teams leverage, but actually doing the right thing. Also, it said that schools “may not require student-athletes to waive their legal rights regarding COVID-19 as a condition of athletics participation”, which puts paid to a lot of schools asking players to sign waivers. Other measures included the requiring schools to cover COVID-19-related medical expenses for student athletes “to

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SEC opts for a ten-game, conference-only 2020 schedule

The powers-that-be at the SEC have decided on a ten-game, conference-only schedule for 2020. Although there have been no schedule released – we can probably expect them to come next week. The decision meant that the season will start on September 26th – a month after Big 12 and three weeks after the Big Ten. South Carolina Board of Trustees member Chuck Allen told The Athletic (via Twitter): “My understanding is the vote was 13-1 with our president, Bob Caslen, being the sole dissenting vote and part of the reason for his dissenting vote was the rivalry with Clemson.” Either the SEC is waiting for another month to try and ‘get’ the numbers lower, or they are stupid. Why stupid?

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The SEC should follow Ohio State’s example

Ohio State put out what their plan for college football games should be during games. Capacity will be capped at 20%. The capacity at The Horseshoe will be no more than 20,988 at any one time. There will be no tailgating. Face covering will be required at games.   Now, while you can enforce the first one, stopping 20,000 people going into local Columbus bars before games isn’t an option, so you’ll have to trust them. You can enforce the third one, by either supplying Ohio State facemasks at the game or not letting people who won’t wear them or booting those who persistently don’t wear them during the game. The SEC should do the same. Yes, we know that

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Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC are moving to Conference-only games

And so the dominos continue to fall. According to multiple media sources, the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 have all decided that they will play a nine-game conference-only season It is an effort to cut down the season and make it work, as well as give schools some wiggle-room if there an outbreak of COVID-19 on teams and campuses. For the SEC a bunch of non-conference games will be affected, including (sadly), Clemson vs South Carolina, Georgia vs Georgia Tech, Louisville vs Kentucky and Florida State vs Florida. Notre Dame have been told that the ACC will accommodate Notre Dame in its own schedule. For the Big Ten the biggest match-ups being lost are Notre Dame’s game with Wisconsin, Penn

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Ivy League cancels fall season: Will the dominoes fall?

The Ivy League has cancelled its fall sports. Not postponed, cancelled. Everyone in college football is taking a breath, now. You might think that a bunch of rich schools cancelling sports isn’t a big thing. After all: Harvard? Yale? Who cares. They aren’t going pro on ESPN or anything (unless they are Ryan Fitzpatrick)… But remember the Ivy League in March? They were the first to cancel their tournament because of COVID-19, and it created a domino effect that led to the cancellation of March Madness. Could this happen in college football with the Ivy League schools taking these extraordinary measures? Yes and no. The ‘Yes’ is the fact that what the Ivy League is very good at getting out

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