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30 Sep 2020
The 2020 college football season will be unlike any other season because of the Covid-19 pandemic. For starters, the season typically begins in the last week of August, but this year the NCAA has allowed each conference to make the decision on when to kickoff their seasons, or if they’re going to have seasons at all. Right now, the Power Five conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC) all have different kickoff dates, with the Pac 12 choosing to start in November 2020 at the latest. The conferences who have decided to have games also have a decision to make on whether fans will be allowed to attend games. On top of that, teams will be getting tested on a weekly basis, so we are bound to see some postponements throughout the season because of positive cases.
Start Dates
By the time of writing this, some conferences have already begun their seasons, while some will not be kicking off at all in 2020. With the Pac 12 announcing their season will begin in November of 2020, the two conferences choosing to delay the start of their seasons until 2021 are the Mountain West and the MAC. The remaining 7 conference will all be starting their seasons between early September and October 24th, with the Big 10. All Power Five conferences participating this fall have decided to play either an all-conference schedule (SEC, Big 10), or an all-conference plus one non-conference game schedule (ACC, Big 12). Because the ACC and Big 12 will have an extra game on their schedules, they began their seasons on September 12th, as opposed to the SEC beginning on September 26th and Big 10 on October 24th. The ACC has also adopted Notre Dame, who is usually an independent school for football, as the 15th team in their conference for the 2020 season only.
Fan Attendance
When it comes to crowd capacities for these games, each team is handling it differently depending on several factors. The main factor to consider is determined by each institution’s leadership in accordance with local/state health and safety ordinances. Some states like North Carolina are more strict on allowing fans into stadiums, so schools like Duke, NC State, and North Carolina will have no fans through at least September. Other schools, like Kansas and West Virginia, will just be opting out of allowing fans at their home openers, while schools like Virginia and Virginia Tech will just be allowing family members to attend for the whole season. However, many of the bigger programs like Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, and Georgia, will be allowing between 20-25 percent capacity. You can expect to see anywhere between five thousand to twenty-five thousand fans at these limited capacity games.
Safety Protocols
One of the biggest concerns for this season is the safety of the student athletes and the fans attending the games. The last thing the NCAA wants is for every campus across the nation to become a hot bed for spreading the virus. On the sidelines, masks will be mandated and coin tosses will be socially distanced. In between games players and staff will be tested on a weekly basis. If a team produces multiple positive tests within a game week, we will most likely see postponements, but most conferences set their schedules up in a way that allowed open dates for makeup games.
In the stands, we can expect rows to be socially distanced, concessions to be cashless, and marching bands will be limited. Almost every stadium will try to make the move to completely digital ticketing, and fans may be given specific time slots to enter the gates to limit large lines outside the stadiums. Even traditional pregame rituals like tailgating will be outlawed by state governments in places like Alabama and Mississippi, where tailgating is a sacred practice. Regardless of the pageantry lost in some stadiums, the tradition of college football will be a welcome sight to see this year.