The return of college football during the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in plenty of skepticism. In October, the Daily Emerald published a story on Lane County being the most vulnerable community, according to a study.
Now that the football season has concluded, it’s time to take a step back and reflect on how the season progressed under these bizarre, unforeseen circumstances.
Oregon was able to play five of its six scheduled regular season games. While teams around them were hit more severely, Oregon didn’t have any games canceled until their scheduled meetup with Washington in week six.
“The student-athletes from both schools have worked so hard, and I’m just really disheartened we are at this point…,” Washington athletic director Jennifer Cohen said in a statement, “but we will always put the health and well-being of our students, coaches and staff as our greatest priority when making decisions.”
While people can certainly be frustrated and disappointed about any cancellations caused by COVID-19, Cohen’s statement raised a good reminder that at the end of the day, the main priority should be to keep everyone safe.
Even after two ugly losses, the Ducks were still able to squeak into the Pac-12 championship game, due to the Huskies’ lack of eligible players on their roster.
And despite the obvious flaws in their team, and the zig-zagged path they took to get there, the Ducks won the Pac-12 championship. They concluded the season in the Fiesta Bowl, where they lost 34-17 to Iowa State. Despite their championship win, you can’t help but feel that their season was uneven.
Oregon is lucky to even have played as many games as they did. Colorado, Arizona State, Washington, Washington State and Cal all only played four games each. All things considered, the Ducks made it out pretty well..
Cancellations weren’t the only negative impact of COVID-19 on this season, as a decrease in revenue meant pay cuts for the programs. The league’s head coaches lost about $1.1 million in salary, a 10% pay cut, and it was up to them to stay motivated amidst a less-than-ideal situation.
“It’s something that now more than ever people have to show unity as we tackle this together, so no, it wasn’t difficult,” Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal said about accepting pay cuts.
Asking Cristobal and all the other coaches to accept these standards might not have been fair, but it’s a credit to their selflessness that they were able to make it work.
And when further considering the emotional and financial strain that the players and coaches had to deal with, it becomes more admirable that the Ducks were able to squeeze out a Pac-12 championship.
The season kept chugging along despite all the cancellations and concerns, and one could certainly argue that it would have been in the best interests of everyone to pull the plug on the season altogether. University of Oregon president Michael Schill was adamant that if it wasn’t working, they would pull out. But as the season went on, it was clear that money remained a high priority.
Through the first four weeks of the season, 38% of scheduled Pac-12 games were canceled, with Arizona State only getting in one game in that time span. Whether that number qualifies as the season “working” is hard to say, but it does raise questions of whether continuing on with the season was the best course of action.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 both announced back in August that they would be postponing their seasons, only to change their minds a month later, citing daily testing and deeper analysis methods of players who tested positive.
“This is something they dream of, this is something that they want for their future,” Schill said. “COVID-19 has taken so much away from these students. I didn’t want to take this away from them.”
But as the football season carried on, students still could not attend in-person classes, marching band members could not march, and theater students could not perform in any productions.
Bill Isaacson, an antitrust litigator and plaintiffs’ attorney in the O’Bannon vs. NCAA trial of 2014, spoke about this flaw of the NCAA, a flaw that will be even tougher to defend after this year’s football season.
“You don’t get a starker illustration of the hypocrisy than they are operating just like a big business who needs this revenue and so the students go home and get their education from home and the football and basketball players stay and play their games for television…,” Isaacson said. “It’s absolutely remarkable you could say, ‘For the safety of our students we’re closing our classrooms but opening up our football fields.”
It’s almost eerie how relevant that quote is to today’s situation.
While Oregon was fortunate this season, especially compared to other schools, the Pac-12 was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond just the canceled games, this season featured in-conference matchups only, meaning intersectional games like Oregon-Ohio State and USC-Alabama never had a chance of happening.
The unusual season also affected TV ratings, due in part to the 2020 presidential election. On November 7, USC pulled out an exciting 28-27 win in the final minutes over Arizona State, yet viewership was down 9%.
“Before the election, college football was down somewhere close to 30% across the board,” Sports Business Daily digital managing editor Austin Karp said. “It’s pretty bad out there. People can’t even keep track of who’s playing.”
Even Mike Nealy, executive director of the Fiesta Bowl, had his doubts.
“If students are dispersed and then coming back, there’s just a higher probability of infection, and we’re just running the risk,” Nealy said.
Despite it all, college football was played in 2020 and was met with mixed results. If there’s one thing we learned, it’s that the NCAA is willing to go to great lengths to protect their revenues.
