Will COVID-19 be the needle that finally bursts the sports bubble?

Worth noting that that is the public school league.
The private school association -- which has members in Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana as well as Mississippi -- is still planning to start on time, as of now. The first games are Aug. 14. Now that the public schools have made their move, it'll be interesting to see if their counterparts follow suit. The private school league is allowing its members to opt out of playing without penalty, if they so choose.

 

Aug. 14 as the scheduled opener? In Mississippi? Insane in any year.
I laugh at the notion of football as a "fall" sport in the south. There is no fall that far south. And it sure as (hotter than hell) isn't in in the middle of August.

 

Depends on how far south in the state. Birmingham certainly has a fall, but not till mid-October. It's hot as the hinges of hell through September, for sure.

 

They play jamborees and scrimmages as early as Aug. 7. The softball and soccer teams start playing on July 31. That's the reason one of my journalistic pet peeves is calling it "fall camp" or "fall practice" when referring to preseason practice for football. They're halfway through the season by the time it actually becomes fall.

In any event, it's a handful of games -- maybe seven or eight statewide -- being played on Aug. 14. The private school association had to schedule some that week to balance out the schedule because they had an odd number of teams. The rest start on Aug. 21. If the public schools hadn't delayed, though, they would have been playing scrimmage games on Aug. 14.
There's an annual kickoff doubleheader in my neck of the woods. One local team plays at 5:30 p.m. and another at 8. One year they invited a third team in and had them play at 3 p.m. It happened to be during a heat wave where the temperature was right at 100 degrees at kickoff (as opposed to the usual 93 with 65 percent humidity). That experiment lasted one year. The third team was happy to be a part of the game, they got a nice payday from it, but politely declined whenever discussion of doing it again was brought up.

 

Amen.
"Fall camp" is preposterous anywhere. It just doesn't exist. Too fucking hot anywhere except perhaps the Pacific Northwest.

Aside from the Trumpandemic, playing football isn't necessarily dangerous; practicing football is the problem. I think a serious majority of all deaths in the sport happen in practice rather than games because steroid-laden strength coaches have to justify their preposterous salaries and drive men into the ground in the absurd heat and, in some cases, months before they play a game.

 

If an athlete isn't in another sport (hoops, wrestling, baseball, track, soccer, whatever), he/she is usually back in the weight room starting early in the year. A little bit of spring ball, perhaps, before school gets out, then conditioning work and 7-on-7 tourneys and, after a brief respite, two-a-days and putting on pads. It takes a toll.

 

We will not be getting Slippery Rock scores this fall.

 

Michigan announces ticketing policy for this fall … and notes that this is if it’s able to have fans at home games. The actual press release on Michigan’s athletics website notes that this is if UM is able to have a football season at all, which is just laying further groundwork for what seems inevitable.

 

Sounds like Virginia is putting off football until February.

VHSL calls off fall football in committee vote