Blue White Illustrated

for a fall season, or other student groups with similar kinds of preparation, it gives us the opportunity to do that, should the conditions say that's OK." With spring practice having already been scrapped, Barbour said that Penn State's sports science experts believe players would require at least 60 days of preparation in advance of the season. Coach James Franklin echoed that as- sessment, noting that he and his staff have been looking at different scenarios, with player safety being the top priority. "We had already worked on about six different models – if we were able to get back in a month, if we were able to get back in six weeks, in two months, what- ever the time period was, and we started breaking it out," Franklin said. "What's it going to look like from a football per- spective? I talked to the staff about it. We usually get vacation time in the summer. I told the staff: I've had a con- versation with my wife, you'll probably need to have conversations with your wives and start to prepare your families. There's a chance we won't get any vaca- tion time this summer because every- thing is just going to get bumped back." Franklin's uncertainty reflects the lack of consensus nationally as to whether there will be a football season in the fall, either at the college or pro level. Analyst Kirk Herbstreit recently said on ESPN Radio that he thought it unlikely there will be football until a vaccine for the virus is widely available. His comments drew a sharp rebuke from several coaches, including Notre Dame's Brian Kelly, but they were later echoed by the NFL's chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills. "As long as we're still in a place where, when a single individual tests positive for the virus, you have to quarantine every single person who was in contact with them in any shape, form or fashion, then I don't think you can begin to think about reopening a team sport," Sills said. Alabama head coach Nick Saban was less pessimistic but declined to offer a prediction about when football will be able to resume. "Nobody really knows," he said. "It's uncertain times." One prominent coach who hasn't ex- pressed any uncertainty is Dabo Swin- ney of Clemson. Swinney said he's preparing as if the season will go on as scheduled. "That's the best-case sce- nario, and I think that's what's going to happen," he said. "I don't have any doubt. I have zero doubt that we're going to be playing and the stands are going to be packed." Swinney said his optimism stemmed from a faith in the power of American innovation. "We've got the smartest people in the world," he said. "We're going to rise up and kick this thing in the teeth and get back to our lives." At the pro level, there has been some talk of resuming play – restarting the suspended NBA and NHL seasons, get- ting the baseball season under way and putting a plan in place to have an NFL season. In order to bring back pro sports, the leagues would have to limit partici- pants' social contacts, possibly by play- ing round-robin schedules in centralized locations, monitoring players' off-field contacts and testing them frequently for the coronavirus. But college athletics present a much bigger challenge because of the number of participants across a range of sports and the impracticality of isolating ath- letes from the rest of the student body. While NFL rosters are capped at 55 play- ers, college rosters at the Football Bowl Subdivision level typically number over 100, and those players are going to be at- tending classes and walking busy cam- puses when they're not taking part in sports activities. On April 15, Vice President Mike Pence held a teleconference with the College Football Playoff management commit- tee, which is made up of 10 FBS confer- ence commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick. CFP executive director Bill Hancock told ESPN that Pence "encouraged the com- missioners to provide updates to mem- bers of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, as college athletics will play an important part in the 'whole of America' approach to moving our coun- try and economy forward." Even if American life hasn't returned to some semblance of normalcy by the summer, there might be options that would allow a football season to take place. One of those options, Barbour said, would be to play the season at a "nontraditional" time of year. T H E M O N T H I N . . . One might say that it is well documented how many options Penn State has at running back this upcoming season (whenever exactly that might be) and beyond. Noah Cain, Devyn Ford and Journey Brown make for a trio of knowns while Caziah Holmes adds in some freshman flair and the always exciting unknown potential of a young player. Even with the departure of Ricky Slade, the Nittany Lions' running back group is perhaps as deep and as talented as it has ever been. Of course this presents coach James Franklin and running backs coach Ja'Juan Seider with the unenviable task of balancing the soon to be quartet of players on and off the field. BEN JONES STATECOLLEGE.COM What if Penn State would have been accepted into the Big East in 1982? Imagine a league with PSU, Pitt, Miami, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. And a Backyard Brawl for a conference game! Instead, PSU was rejected by the league with a 5-3 vote. Joe Paterno at the time was also trying to form some sort of an Eastern Conference. Would the addition of PSU actually have made the Big East care more about football than basketball? Or would fate be fulfilled and PSU would eventually split to the more lucrative and stable Big Ten in 1990 anyway? HEATHER DINICH ESPN.COM O P I N I O N S

• Cover