Blaudschun has a rich sports journalism background and this report seems rather well sourced.
Sources: ACC has plan to reduce on campus student body attendance, but place FB team in on campus "bubble''https://t.co/8YjckJEhBu— Mark Blaudschun (@blauds) August 19, 2020
Faced with a rapidly approaching football season, as well as still spiking COVID-19 numbers, a plan has been proposed to reduce campus attendance, but with the football team preparing for the season in a semi-secluded environment.
According to conference sources, the plan is based on schools teaching the majority of their classes online as well as reducing the campus attendance to 20 percent of the student body.
To make the 20 percent plan work, schools would have to make the decision to forfeit some room and board money and make decisions on which students would be part of the group taking courses on campus, as opposed to those living off campus or at home.
Ah yes, the money.
There are some other interesting nuggets in there as well:
- Texas moving forward on a season sans Oklahoma
- ACC potentially dropping its +1 non-conference game across the board
Comments
I honestly did not understand why that extra game was even put there in the first place. Seemed odd from the start. If they were trying to limit the season and travel and exposure, just make it in conference with fewer games.
Seems like it was meant to put the pressure on the SEC to be the ones who backed out of the traditional rivalry games but nobody cares or thinks it was a good idea to have the extra game after like 2 weeks so...
This - the idea was that if there was pressure from fans or politicians to play in-state OOC rivalries, the ACC would appear willing to play, so the SEC would take any backlash for canceling.
I honestly expected the OOC game to get cancelled the day after the SEC went conference-only. Especially with at least two schools not having their 11th game, and then multiple questions about Liberty from the three ACC schools on their schedule.
There are some big rivalry games cancelled this year (Clemson/SC, FSU/Florida, GT/Georgia, Pitt/WVU) so I think that was always the hope. Some of these games have been played 70+ years, so alumni are upset.
But none of these impact UNC, so ACC leadership is fine...
Usually I'm all for hating on ACC leadership and UNC but I'm not seeing the connection here. The ACC implemented a schedule with 1 non-conference game to accommodate those rivalry games. People can argue over whether that was a responsible decision but the ACC made it to where they aren't responsible for those rivalry games not being played.
Agree this was not an ACC decision but given none of those "traditional rivalry" games are with the old guard, RTP schools, I doubt the ACC will make much of a push to negotiate with the SEC for in-state OOC games.
I just have heard from several alum of Clemson & FSU who are really disappointed in not having those games continued (that are within 150 miles of one another), while being fine with traveling up and down the coast a d across state lines, to play conference games - all in the name of player safety. If this is really all about $$$ - which it is - then, you'd think you'd prioritize keeping the alum happy.
I still don't get it. Essentially the ACC said, "we will play these games if you will" and the SEC said, "we're going to a conference only schedule with no exceptions." It has nothing to do with the ACC making a push to negotiate because there is no other negotiation to be had. It would be like showing up at a closed restaurant without any employees inside and banging on the door all night.
Pitt/WVU wasn't on the 2020 schedule. It hasn't been played since 2011 when WVU left the Big East. It is scheduled to begin again for a four year run in 2022-2025.
The fourth game in that group was Louisville/Kentucky.
It most certainly was not put in the schedule so we could play Liberty.
This is really the way it needs to go if you want to have a full, successful season.
I'm happy we're dropping our nonconference game. I'm even more skeptical that we get a "full" season such as it is.
Dropping non conference games would mean UVA opens the season against us week 2.
I'd hope having more rust would be worse than having less rest.
Edit: Holy shit this isn't supposed to be some blanket statement about how I feel about the UVA game. I think we'll kill them. Pointing out that they'll have more rest and we'll have less rust doesn't change that. I'm sure I made some off-hand comment when the schedule came out last season about how they got Liberty before us, and that also didn't mean I thought we should be worried.
So they will hold the Commonwealth cup for exactly zero regular-season games
Well, technically they'll be allowed to keep it until the end of the game.
If we are worried about a UVA team with a new starting QB, none of its returning production, and a roster of 2 star players- in week 1 , it's time for us to find a new coach.
We're not worried.
So bring 'em on.
🆗
When a fan base accepts Duke blowouts, ODU going undefended down the field, and losses to a medicore at best UVA roster, you are Wake or Maryland football. Congrats. And keep that coach forever.
Thank you for summarizing my feelings so succinctly you absolutely genuine and good-faith individual.
Well, you do you.
Covid is a wild card, so if Fuente loses to UVA in back to back years, it's not necessarily an indictment on his coaching this year. Losing to UVA won't hurt the image of the program's direction at all /S
Another day, another strawman.
If the game takes place, I predict the Commonwealth Cup comes back to Blacksburg.
You can say anything you want as long as you put /s
Total Strawman... nodbody in this thread- nobody- pointed out that we hope UVA (UVA football not basketball) having us as a first opponent wouldn't be an advantage for them. Nobody said that.
Pointing out that it could be an advantage and thinking we need them to not have the advantage in order to win are two different things.
You've gone so sarcastic and double/triple negative, I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
Not that I disagree with your assessment in any way, but...
It appears Fuente and Co. are working hard to recruit right along with LOLUVA so we can compete with them on a more regular basis. /s
I agree with you, UVa should have more rust than us to kick off. Devil's advocate though:
Early season games carry more uncertainty and opportunity for upset. Both teams will be playing sloppy which introduces more parity. Parity of course, is a good thing if you're the underdog, which I don't view us as for this game.
I think if this experienced 2020 VT football team that is poised and expecting a big year loses to this rebuilding year UVA it would be a very bad look. I'm personally not concerned about that game.
Yes, I'm old enough to remember when we beat UVA 15 straight times... seems like 100 years ago.
Well, 99 of those years were 2020...
If we don't take them to the woodshed, we have more problems with the program than even the critics on here would say.
Short of a massive scandal, I'm not sure how we could have more problems than some critics on here say (coach should've been fired two years ago, roster is G5 level talent and continues to get worse).
Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't realize when I posted they were opening up with their non-conference opponent (at the time VMI which has since canceled their season).
I hadn't even put 2 and 2 together about VMI not playing after the SoCon cancelled their fall season.
I wonder if UVA had been looking into a replacement.
probably just play themselves!
FTFY.
Let's make 80% of the on-campus students of a UNIVERSITY leave campus so we can play football.
I'm going to go take a shower now.
This was also how I read that bit...
Yep. If this is the only way we can do this, you really gotta question why we're still trying to do it.
It's money. The answer is money.
Hopefully the roundball players are in the bubble too, we need a tourney this year
How would you react if you (parent or student) had to pay full tuition this year to get the Phoenix online experience in 2020. Tough situation.
Assuming they do, in fact, return some of the tuition money, I've got no problem with this. Classes can be conducted online in a manner that at least approximates/mimics in-person. I would submit that this is particularly true for large classes with hundreds of students. Football, on the other hand, cannot be played via Zoom. Not the ideal situation, but potentially making the best of a tough situation IMO.
I would hope for another conference game
Given the outbreaks already present at UNC and NCSU a week after the semester opened, it seems a little late to still be coming up with plans like this.
It's never too late to live in a bubble, or to drop the non-conference game.
If the situation warrants, they should send students home.
But you're right, why didn't they decide this earlier? Maybe it's informed by some of the early campus outbreaks.
I wrote a column on this, they wanted to maintain the guise of amateurism. It's all about money.
I don't quite understand the leap some made where if all students weren't on campus but football players were, they were something more than student athletes. They are partaking in an extra-curricular activity that requires their presence on campus with more strict protocols in order to participate. They also have the complete autonomy to opt-out ,no questions asked, if they do not want to participate in this modified season. It's not like if a pro athlete decided not to play and could be found in breach of contract.
I know some made the argument that if it's not safe for all students to be on campus, we shouldn't be playing football. It sounds nice but actually might not be true. If all students aren't on campus, it may actually be safer for the athletes to participate in football.
The question is 'why football?' and the answer is almost always 'football funds our entire athletic depart.' The natural response to that is 'if you're relying on amateur athletes as labor for a $100m operation, how can you say they're not employees?'
I think you need to be able to justify why a student participating in an 'extra curricular' gets to come back. What differentiates football players, from women's tennis, from ROTC, from greek life, from club sports, from academic groups, etc?
Obviously football supports the athletics department. But when you are at the D1 - FBS level, the vast majority of these players have serious pro potential and aspirations in football. Not playing football would not only hurt the school financially as you pointed out, but many of the players would be negatively impacted from having a chance to pursue an opportunity at professional football. Their degree is important, but the shot at a career in football is also equally important IMO. You can't go straight from high school to the league and have to play college football in order to make it to a professional level.
There's 65 P5+ND teams, at 85 scholarships per roster, you have 5,525. There's 224 spots in the draft. No way in hell you can argue that the 'vast majority' of these players have 'serious pro potential.' Maybe aspirations, but not potential. How many Joe Borrows are there each year? How many players does one year take them from undrafted to a career in the NFL? Maybe 30/year? Out of 5500+? Even on the best college football teams, we're talking about maybe 10-15 kids out of a school of 15-30k?
You're kind of making the argument that the career of a few takes precedent over the education of many. What about all of the engineers who use their capstone project as a means to show work experience? What about all the students who won't be able to graduate on time because a lab they need to be in person for isn't offered remotely?
Circling back to the original question, one must ask what the purpose of a college football team is? Is it a minor league? Is it a marketing tool for the university? Is it a perk for students that adds to the experience? Is it a social welfare program (I kinda cringed typing that, but I couldn't think of another phrase) for certain students?
If you are saying that football is different from every other program on campus, then either you're arguing that these particular student athletes' experience trumps everyone else's, and one must ask why? Because of the high earning potential of 5 people?
Well, cases were going to explode regardless when students showed back up to campus. At least one positive consequence of this and reverting to online is we might get football in exchange. I'm not going to weigh in on the societal value of football over education. If the players are bought in and want to play I just don't see what the fuss is all about. People with no stake in it making assumptions about what's best for these players.
I definitely think you can make the argument:
224 spots in the draft every year + free agent signings. Of the 5,525 scholarship players only about a quarter of those are graduating/leaving early to enter the draft so a significant portion P5 D1 football players have a good to great shot at making the NFL. Not playing can be a significant blow to a life changing opportunity (e.g. Joe Burrow last year because he only needed the one year). I'm sure almost every scholarship player on a P5 team thinks they just need one shot at making an NFL roster and I'd bet the majority value their football program more than their major or educational programs.
I mean, most generous reading there would still only be ~20% going, which ignores underclassmen declaring etc., which, either way, is far from the "vast majority." That also assumes that everyone who goes to a camp or two makes it. I would say maybe 30-40% have pro-aspirations, but that's both not a majority and not really the same thing.
I have to wonder if pulling the plug on the in person student population wasn't a little bit too rushed. If it was ever going to work, a certain level of outbreaks had to be expected, likely worst at the start if they could hypothetically contain the first wave. But, I also understand the risk of it getting out of control. I hate Covid.
The SEC is actually being kind of smart on that in pushing back the season start into late September. They get the students back on campus now, allow over a month for the initial "OMG! Cases!", and then move on with life.
Kind of like back in March where we thought this would be a month of OMG! Yet now it's August and it's worse than March and April?
Is it really worse now? It sure doesn't feel that way around where I live.
The overall, nationwide numbers are worse, but that's partly because it has worked its way into nearly every community in the nation.
The options were:
Stop it completely in it's tracks, or
Let it go endemic.
We made a choice at a certain point. Or maybe it never was really a choice in a country with limited government.
And don't worry, this will be my last comment regarding that in this thread.
(Up front, I want to say that this is not an attack on you personally, vtcivengr; you bring up a good point about perspective and perception)
"It sure doesn't feel that way around where I live" was what people said in Florida & Texas & Arizona & California (again!) & about a half-dozen other states who didn't experience the initial surge like we saw in NY/NJ/CT (full disclosure: I live in the NYC area). So they went out and got their nails & hair done and went to the beach and the lake and that, as we all know, is going... not well. We keep seeing large crowds of maskless people result in clusters of infections. Schools at all levels that lasted a week before shutting down again are evidence of this. Decisions being made at UNC, MSU, Notre Dame (and, soon, at dozens of others) should be a wake-up call. But people are deciding - for themselves but affecting others - that because they're tired of staying at home, the danger is over, or at least 🤷♂️negligible. And nationally, we paid for that reasoning with over a dozen straight days of record positive test numbers in July - almost 2.5 months after The (first) Surge.
I know people are tired of the isolation. And the worry about jobs/economy. And the confusion & frustration & conflicting information & the divisiveness & the politicization of a national emergency. It is the proverbial shit sandwich. The problem as I see it is that proponents of both options for a path forward (painting with a broad brush here) - "stay home, cancel everything, and lay low until we have a vaccine even if that means kneecapping our economy" OR "reopen, save the economy, while acknowledging that people will become infected and thousands more could die as a result" - think their way is "better". That's a huge mistake. There are no good options here.
I fully acknowledge that there is no "good" option. And I understand that the concerns over the economy are very real and dire (again, full disclosure: I am an independent contractor in a field that is just now trying to restart; I've been out of work since March 13th). But we can't think of college football as some sort of reward for 6-plus months of dealing with a pandemic. It's not a cheat day; it's not a treat we are owed for our suffering.
In my personal opinion, it's like an ER dilemma: do you want to lose the limb and save the body, or keep it and risk losing the patient altogether? In this case, the recovery from a lost season will be arduous and will have serious, long-lasting repercussions. But at least at the end no players end up getting sick - or developing lifelong health issues like lung scarring or myocarditis, or actually dying - just to save the athletic departments. I have full faith that college football will survive if we don't play this fall. It would absolutely suck. But we'll live, y'know?
It may be just me, but I find the prospect of even one student-athlete or coach or administrator or whatever losing their life so we can have a half-assed season very unpalatable. And the idea of shutting out 80% of the student body from in-person learning so these kids can come and sign a waiver and help these schools make their nut? It disgusts me.
Thanks for reading and Let's Go Hokies. Everyone stay safe and I hope we can all be together in Lane sometime in the not-too-distant future. 🦃
Excellent post - there are no good options. I just sent my kids back to elementary/middle school two days a week. I'm not thrilled about it, but I also wasn't happy with the virtual option. All of the options are fraught with risks and potential disaster.
My stance on the season is that we are trying to move heaven and earth to make unpaid kids play football, and I honestly don't know if they are safe or not. I'm terrified that a college football player is going to get COVID and die, and it will be (rightly so) a massive tragedy and a potential nail in the coffin of college sports in general.
Nobody is forcing the athletes to do anything they don't want to do. Everyone who chooses to play accepts the risks and gets to play the game they love. If they're uncomfortable with the situation or don't think the risk is worth the reward, they can sit out without penalty.
And some have chosen not to participate (e.g. Farley.)
I live in Florida. And media histrionics aside it really isn't so bad in most parts of the third most populous state. Most folks wear masks when they're visiting stores. People go to restaurants. People go to the beach. We haven't eliminated the coronavirus, but (tourists aside) most people are living relatively safely and normally. Businesses that couldn't make it through six weeks of being closed and reduced business afterwards never came back. So we had a sampling of what an American-style-lockdown is all about.
We're all adults here. Everyone gets to make their own decisions. While that's not likely to completely eliminate the coronavirus, it is likely to keep it within certain parameters. Nobody is forcing college athletes to play football. I believe the players who are participating are fully aware of the risks (or should be). The risks to that demographic are actually quite low. Not zero, mind you. And like some others have pointed out, because athletic departments are working to keep people safe, some of those players may even be safer playing football than staying in their local neighborhoods.
While there is some risk of trying to have an element of normalcy, there are also costs to having a complete economic and social shutdown. There are costs to everyone taking a year off. At this point we should all be aware of all of these factors, and we should be making decisions taking it all into account.
It's not all about some greedy college administrator sitting in a backroom somewhere counting gold pieces. It's about trying to make the best of a bad situation for everybody, and it's a lot more complex than it probably looks from the outside. I applaud them for making a go of it. I'm hoping they can make it work.
Subtle flex on New York. I like it.
That depends on how you define "worse." Yes, there are many more cases now than in March because of increased testing and the virus is moving through the population. However, the CFR and hospitalizations are much, much better today than they were in March and April.
I'm going to leave it at that. Didn't mean to bring the Coronavirus thread in from the yard. Sorry.
As said in another thread, "hospitalizations" seems to be better in some cases only because of drastically increased capacity. Overall, the raw number of hospitalizations is higher than in March.
Hospital rates are dropping. Period. There may be more cumulative numbers, but people are not going to the hospital in droves, nationwide. Also, as treatment improves, hospital stay lengths have decreased from 3-4 weeks in April, to around 10 days currently.
I'm not trying to play "Gotcha". There is good news out there.
Really, really promise not to post anymore about this in this thread. Cross my heart.
Pretty sure this goes in the bubble discourse thread.
USCe is requiring a Covid test for all students living in a dorm before they can move in, and is offering free at will saliva testing to all students. I can't help but think doing stuff like this will influence many of the students to take things a little more seriously, as well as give a better chance of catching cases early.
More seriously than almost nothing can still be extremely little though.
I don't want to go down the rabbit hole because this is better suited for the coronavirus thread
It just feels like all these colleges went into the semester with the hopes that it would have just magically gone away over the summer and that things would just be fine in the fall.
If having cases on campus wasn't going to be acceptable, and having hotspots on campus wasn't going to be
on campusacceptable, it was completely and utterly irresponsible to bring kids back to campus, Full stop.But we all know why they did this. Money. Bring kids back, have them live in the dorms, and you still collect full tuition for the semester. Even if you have to adjust after the fact and then send kids back home, you can still make the argument they needed to get campus ready for students so they won't refund room and board.
Except the one thing UNC is doing right is releasing students from their room and board contracts and refunding significant portions of them.
UNC Chapel Hill is going to offer housing refunds to students who choose to move off campus. They put that out yesterday in a press release.
I do agree with you in spirit though.
Bingo. As long as a "positive case" is treated the way it is currently, you can't have 50K kids on a campus without very strict rules in place. And even then, it's tricky at best. We are not going to progress from any of this until a positive test is treated differently.
Seems to me that when you made the choice to let them come on campus, you KNEW there was going to be a spike, and you had better have a plan to deal with it.
If you fold at the first sign of cases, your plan wasn't very robust or realistic.
The plan was actually implemented to perfection. Get as much $$$ as possible, implement a few basic measures to satisfy as many parents as possible that all will be fine, then....move to full online.
What does eliminating a non conference do ;other than decreasing exposure by 1? And why was it ever considered in the first place if conference is so important?
Eliminating the non conference game makes the ACC completely autonomous and shields them from dealing with other conferences cancelling.
As for why we considered it in the first place? It's the same answer as it always is: $$$$
There are also reports of certain non-conference schools that do not have many precautions in place to combat Covid-19.
My favorite gif lol
The exposure is greater when you have non con opponents (Liberty) not following the leagues protocol
Especially as their buyout was 2 million to not play, but only paying Liberty 1.1 if we did play. You know Liberty would be arguing for that money.
Hopefully there was a force majeure / act of God clause.
ROFL
I'll assume pun intended on that one
The 1 non-conference game never made any sense to me. If you were so worried about playing schools outside of your conference's testing standards to eliminate 3 of the games, the 4th should have been eliminated at the same time.
It was to preserve the traditional rivalry games Florida-FSU, clemson/SC, Louisville/Kentucky, etc.
I just want to say I think everyone here is awesome. Even when the topic steered towards coronavirus territory and even political, you guys course corrected and made sure the corona stuff stayed over there on those threads and the political comments were closed to debate and furthering the discussion would not happen. You guys rock!
Dropping the nonconference game does literally nothing lol
It's just about pride, like it always is for any team not making a title run. Losing to Liberty? Fuck that.
Nah we're beating them by 50
When I started to see some reports of schools going to online only, I thought this may actually be really good news for the football season, which it appears to be. Also really agree with the idea of eliminating the +1 non-conference game. Much better/safer to keep things within our conference bubble with consistent standards. I think this is a huge plus for our continuing march toward a fall season.
Currently at my in-laws farm in Bedford and both my cousin in laws went to liberty and are pissed I am celebrating 🤣
Has anyone seen anything beside this si.com article that the ACC non-conference games are going to be cancelled? Because I can't find anything else that corroborates this. Literally nothing. And Clemson announced today that they are having a non-conference game with The Citadel. Seems like if they were going to cancel the non-conference games, Clemson wouldn't announce a new game today.
Wait fake news in 2020?
fake news is fake news
I thought the whole report was worth reading, so I didn't want to copy-paste/cite more than I did with the expectation that everyone would read the original report. With that said, for those who didn't read it, it's not a done deal that the ACC will drop the 10th game:
I added the word "potentially" to my original summary. Apologies if I was unclear.
So.....why would OU not play? He states it but didn't follow up.
There is a lot of sketch with this article. I think it is more this writer's speculation because I can't find anyone else talking about the things he mentions. You would think if there was something to what he says, there would be more than one person quoting their "sources".
Isn't it obvious? $$$$MMMMONNEYYYYYY$$$$ At least that's what I'm gathering from most of the comments to this thread.
I give it a week before the season is cancelled.
Yeah, still waiting for that first domino...
Could it be they didn't stack the dominoes close enough to eachother? So dominoes keep falling but due to social distance requirements, they're just not able to create a domino effect....
.... I'll go ahead and see myself out. Thanks! 🥳
Ideally the commonwealth cup is the only game played and it ends in a beatdown of UVA where Bronco complains about the crowd noise. We are undefeated and get crown Champs by some poll that can do so.
Bottom line is that the athletic programs are like a household living paycheck to paycheck, or that maybe has a few months of income stashed away. Not playing the only real revenue sport puts that family on the street because a year of income is gone in a snap of the fingers. So we can be ashamed it is all about the money or we can embrace it. It certainly isn't the only thing in life that gets steered by the financial decisions.
Yes, but if that household living paycheck to paycheck has a whole bunch of frivolous shiny things that they bought just to show off to the neighbors, it's a whole lot harder to feel sorry for them when things go wrong. The positive aspect of this is that hopefully moving forward we see sounder financial discipline across college athletics and things swing back towards amateurism rather than being cash cows.
Yeah, but when the neighbors have even shinier things and we are barely keeping our house up to the HOA standards, it's a little bit different. Hopefully you're right and we see sounder discipline across the board, because it's going to be impossible to impart individually without dropping out of the arms race altogether. While that may be good in principle, it would mean something altogether different for the program and brand.
The schools leading the arms race will be able to survive the massive revenue hit and will be leading the arms race by that much more after covid is over.
The one thing that could change the landscape and how athletic departments spend the money is player compensation and endorsements. That would change the game. In my opinion, Covid won't, it'll just be temporary and force some schools to make some really tough decisions over the next few years. But it'll be temporary. I think some smaller colleges across the country, especially the private ones with high tuition and low to zero endowments will struggle big time and many may go bankrupt and close. That trend was occurring pre-covid, and covid just may accelerate it.
Maybe I don't know where to look, but it feels like journalists should be pressing the schools for information and updates on past Covid cases. For example, where does Clemson stand? They had over 20 positive cases among football players earlier in the year. Does anyone know the current status of those players? Are they all cleared to play and practicing? Have they had more cases? Is there a roundup of this info for ACC schools? I know form a friend that ECU had at least a couple dozen players test positive earlier in the summer as well.
Also, the most high profile case is the Indiana player, Brady Feeney. Has anyone seen an update on him? I can only find articles about his mother's Facebook post and no new information. His health is his business, but at the same time, since his case went so viral and changed the discussion being had, it would certainly be interesting to see an update. Is Indiana practicing? Has Feeney been cleared (I would guess not yet, but that is pure speculation)?
Any stats on VT football covid testing? It has been hard enough to get info on injuries over the years, so I can't imagine we will be getting much detail on Covid testing. Would be great if the VT dashboard separated general student body from student athletes. I imagine the athletes are being tested at a much higher rate, so would make sense to separate the testing stats.
Clemson has had ~50 cases within the team. Afaik, only one player, Xavier Thomas has decided to hold off on the season. He hasn't officially opted out, and I wouldn't be surprised if his "redshirt to get in shape and healthy" turned into a "redshirt but I suddenly show up for the last four games of the season when it actually matters to Clemson to maybe get my draft stock back up" kind of redshirt.
I tend to be a skeptic, but I have a feeling that a lot of ACC/SEC schools were intending to go the UNC route this whole time. It would be bad optics to bring back just football players, but if they bring back the whole student body, then send them back, then say 'well, the football players are already playing, might as well keep them on campus in a bubble,' no one is going to object.
Ha. Anyone thinking that must have never been on Twitter or an internet message board.
or just unpacked their kid and had to pack them back up again!
Lol, Florida State will allow tail gating this year.
What
Tail gating yes, but no fans allowed in the stands... :)
I thought I read FSU announced 20-25% fan capacity. Maybe that was an old announcement that they have since updated? VT hasn't made any formal announcement on fan attendance, right?
Oh, it could be 20-25%, I was guessing. I am not sure why anybody would allow any tailgating this year. Will it be missed, heck yeah. But it not a good idea in this environment.
Just wanted to point out that not ALL tailgating is in large close together groups. Often my friend and I (who park in lot 20 which is not usually extremely crowded anyway) sit and play drinking backgammon(a really fun game BTW ) on the top of my cooler; we are out in the open air (as opposed to inside the car) and can if need be wear masks when not actively drinking. So SOME tailgating can be allowed even if restricted to fewer than 5-10 folks(or a car load) and maintaining distance between folks within parties and between those groups and others.
This means no outside fans for first game. Other games will be announced 10-14 days prior to game. No season tickets only individual game tickets if fans allowed.
It sucks, but I get it. I will miss the roar of the crowd and home field advantage of Lane, but I'll still enjoy the game in 120 inch HD projector glory.
By contrast, UT (Knoxville) is saying 25% capacity, which is roughly 25,000 fans. Not sure if VT (state of VA regs) are too stringent, or if TN is too lax.
games > no games
Considering Tennessee has seen an infection rate of 20.6 cases per 1000 people and Virginia has seen a rate of 12.9 cases per 1000 people, I am going with Tennessee is way too lax.
I wonder if they will still do Sandman. I mean it's tradition, but will be really awkward with no fans.
Start Jumpin' with 1000 people just won't be the same.
The Bristol race had more than 20k people in the stands without any cases traced back to it, so it seems like it can be done safely link
Hopefully they're applying some of the lessons learned from that event. I would think the riskiest part is getting people in and out without massive crowding around the gates