Back during the conference realignment episodes of a decade ago, there were times when it felt like college football was falling apart. It was mostly figurative, though the Big 12 almost broke apart entirely and the WAC ended up having to drop football.
Last week felt like college football was starting to fall apart in a much more literal sense. The Big Ten and Pac-12 decided to postpone all sports to the spring semester, and it took a decision from the Big 12 to go forward with the season for everyone else who wants to give it a try.
I cannot adjudicate the decisions the go/no-go decisions. I have heard of myocarditis, the heart inflammation condition that the Big Ten cited in its explanation. I know that many kinds of infection, including multiple forms of viral but not only viral, can lead to it. I have no level of medical expertise whatsoever to gauge whether COVID-19 is a stronger form of risk for it for college athletes than any other infections, though I will note that I’ve never heard of college programs having anywhere the incidence of it that reportedly is happening now.
The Pac-12 is a different story. While the Big Ten’s process has appeared to be a mess from the outside, the Pac-12 has seemed to have it’s stuff together. It’s 12-page explanation of its postponement is readable and cogent.
The biggest factor for them out there is the third bullet point in its current assessment, which is that testing is too limited to allow for college sports to happen. It’s a believable claim. On August 7, the state of California announced a backlog of 300,000 test results that had yet to be included in its data. This came days after a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle about how getting test results back could take anywhere from two days to two weeks or more depending on where you got your test done.
It’s still a mess out there, and there just isn’t the capacity to get the kinds of rapid testing that sports would require. Circumstances forced the conference’s hand. Maybe the Big Ten could’ve made another choice; I don’t think the Pac-12 could’ve done anything different.
I’d like to think that regions outside of the west coast have their testing regimes in a place to hold sports, and maybe some do. The drop in testing in Florida and Texas isn’t super encouraging, though. There should be rising testing everywhere, even states that have long had their outbreaks under better control. The White House’s task force having to warn Georgia that its mitigation efforts are insufficient isn’t confidence-inspiring either.
What does actually make me hopeful about having sports following these delays is the saliva test that the FDA just approved. Yale University developed it with funding from the NBA, and it’s a quicker and significantly cheaper test than the ones that are in common use today. At an estimated price tag of $15-20 per test, it makes widespread testing more feasible.
It may not be quite as accurate as the nasopharyngeal swab testing, but you can run five or six of these for the widely reported common cost of $100 for the swab test. You only need about two or three tests to compensate for the lower accuracy rate, depending on your desired threshold of certainty, so you still come out ahead. And as someone who got a nasal swab test last month (for precautionary purposes, no symptoms, and negative), I can tell you that spitting in a tube is the far more pleasant option.
The daily or near-daily testing that would make sports much safer could be done so easily with that kind of test. The non-power and lower division conferences that have bailed on fall sports would be able to much better afford sufficient testing with that kind of test than the current standard. Especially since the $15-20 estimate is for the general public, and the cost could be as low as $4. “As low as” are classic weasel words, but a college that’s doing in-house testing with its own lab could achieve the lower end of the cost scale.
Extensive testing will be needed because the beginning of outbreaks from the general student populations returning to campus are already starting to manifest. Notre Dame saw a cluster of cases that traced to a house party and people who interacted with partygoers. Dorms and one frat house have seen outbreaks at UNC. After a one-week break from preseason camp, nine Oklahoma football players tested positive.
I want to believe that college sports can happen sooner than later. I don’t want to have to wait until January. It’s going to be hard, though, and it might require waiting until the rapid saliva test is available to use on whole student populations and not just the athletes. It would be good for those students in addition to the players.
Let’s hope schools can stand up a testing regime within the next month. It would be a real game changer if they could.