How should NCAA football programs approach the upcoming season?

720 WGN hope you're having a great evening Mark Harmon Andy Mazur with you this is Sports Central

till 10 o'clock our fearless sports director Dave Ennett taking some time on a Saturday night to

join us as we take a look at what's going on with the Big Ten football specific right now Dave and

no non-conference games where they're just going to play in the conference which is obviously

painful for local schools and we extend that out to say Ball State and Northern Illinois teams that

were scheduled to play Big Ten teams and make a you know a huge part of their athletic budget

with those games with the Big Ten also trying to have a season and protect themselves

what was your reaction I'm assuming you weren't surprised when this news came down

not really Mark I think it's been trending that way

and I thought it was more likely they would they would try something like this first

before canceling the fall season as as the Ivy League did or announcing they're going to try

to play football in the spring I mean I think this was kind of plan B and then I couldn't tell

you what plan C is but you're right I mean it's it's an adjustment for the Big Ten and the Pac-12

and the other the power five conferences if they all

you

go this way it's devastating for some of the other FBS schools I believe there were six of

them you mentioned two that had two games against Big Ten teams scheduled but it's also devastating

for those FCS programs like Illinois State that were you know counting on a a big game against

an FBS team as Illinois State was going to play Illinois and and plus you lose some of these

rivalry games between FBS schools so I think that's a big thing that's going to happen

I think it's it's something that is look nothing's normal right now and this certainly

falls into the category of abnormal but I also think as tough as it is it will be

tougher if they just came out and said all right we're going to just give up here and

wave the white flag and just say there ain't going to be any football if we could figure out a way to

do it safely and I'm not saying that isn't ultimately going to end up that way I mean I

don't think anyone can say for sure what's going to happen but I think it's going to be a big thing

right now but it it has to be something they can figure out that it can be done safely and

and and in a way that's going to put the fewest but put nobody really in harm's way is it really

feasible to I mean if if the season does have to move back to say after January 1 I mean maybe they

lose a couple of months but with all the other sports that are going on there I mean these

universities obviously are going to be stretched pretty thin as well as far as being able to staff

games and things of that nature especially if they're doubling up in a certain in a certain week

I think it's going to be very difficult Andy I mean I think it could be done but

and I don't think even that that weather is as much of a concern as some people have said well

how are you going to play uh you know in the spring in the upper midwest and so well November

can be pretty brutal around these parts too so I don't think it's that uh but are we really

confident that things are going to be that much better in the spring than they are now from the

point of health and safety that that's one thing and and you're right I mean I think it puts a

tremendous strain on these athletic departments and there's a certain rhythm to the sports year

which we're already out of let's face it starting the baseball season on July 23rd I think we can

safely say we're out of the normal rhythm but I think it would be a tremendous adjustment and

and here's another thing what about

seniors who are preparing for the NFL draft and I know that's not that's not every guy but for

players who are preparing for the draft who've already been opting out in in greater numbers

from bowl games in recent years if you're a guy who's a senior who's in your final year of

eligibility and you're a draft prospect you're not going to play football in the spring you're

going to be preparing for the the combine and and for the draft and

I mean I think it would have to be a concession on the part of the NFL to move the draft back

for there to be any way that that those seniors would would play and now I guess that the choice

for them is well you could play in the spring or basically your college career is over anyway

so I I think there would be some very tough decisions I I just I think it could end up

happening I just something tells me it's just

not very likely to take place and I'm walking that one through it's kind of the way I was

seeing at least Dave if you know you're going to be drafted you're not going to play if you

think you need to play your season to put your senior season to make yourself attractive to NFL

teams and then you got to go through it figure out whatever you're going to do for combines or

also take on the added you know amount of workload in doing in playing an incredibly physical sport I

lot if you and i i don't know how much uh you you know here dave i feel like you might be on the

inside on some of this stuff but like what what's the sense you get as far as the next thing coming

that hey we're going to play a reduced schedule and we're not going to have nebraska travel to

play rutgers and we're just going to try to condense it as much as possible well i mean i

think that the idea of playing a conference only schedule is aimed at cutting down on that travel

and controlling conditions around the team and around to have the same set of standards for all

the conference members so you've got 14 institutions basically playing by the same rules now

this is going to sound strange i was actually somewhat uh encouraged by the news that ohio

state suspended their voluntary workouts this week because that tells me that ohio state

understands that

the severity of the situation and they're not going to put uh their athletes at risk and they're

going to adhere to the rules that that i think everybody should adhere to so what you would

worry about is a school that feels like they're above that and and trying to do things their own

way but if you get all the big 10 schools basically adhering to the same standards just like major

league baseball is doing just like the nhl

i think will

attempt to do here in the next few weeks then i i think you've got a chance now i i think with that

in mind it's going to be very difficult to put together a schedule where there aren't flights

involved and and look that's probably the longest flight right i just off the top of my head uh in

the big 10 would be going from newark to lincoln uh maybe uh you know i would be a close second or

minneapolis uh

or maryland going to minnesota something like that but you're basically talking about flights of

no more than what two two and a half hours tops so maybe a little more than that but

you know i think that they will try to regionalize it as much as they can but

in my mind they're going to take the open dates vacated by the non-conference schools and then

plug in other conference games there i don't think they're but now here's the other x fact

if they want to front load the schedule with division games then they're basically tearing

it up and and starting over as far as the schedule goes and then uh maybe they just do make it kind of

a regionalized schedule where you you split it pretty much geographically east and west

so you'd have the penn state rutgers maryland ohio state michigan michigan state sort of playing

each other and then you got the the schools further west

playing each other something like that but you're going to have to have still some geographic

crossover games to get to if they want to do say a 10 game schedule yeah this is going to be really

interesting if this if this goes down the way it does and i want to go back to something you said

earlier too about you know this is not normal and it's obviously a situation but you know no expected

and no one could have anticipated but how when do you when do you think it's it's the time to say

okay well you know we can't play this season because now if we play it now we're not going

to be normal for another year and a half or

maybe two years well that's a great point i think andy that we're going to have to know something

here well let's see today is what july 11th so we're going to have to know something here in the

next couple of weeks because just like the nfl is planning training camps at the end of the month

the ncaa has already mandated their the division one council said you have a six-week ramp up to

right so it's it's four weeks of training camp four weeks of pre-season practice starting

basically that would be a month before the first game but before that two weeks of walkthroughs

meetings video work that sort of thing so it's basically a six-week process and conditioning

first and foremost because these guys haven't had the kind of conditioning they normally would have

so you want to reduce the risk

of injury to the extent that you can so basically you'd really be talking if the season's going to

start september 5th or week zero as they put it or week one uh basically talking mid-july to be

talking about now to start this six-week program clearly that's not going to happen so i think

they're going to have to come up with something in the next few weeks and i don't know if they're

going to start if they're going to delay the start of the season there's been some talk they want to

get to the normal conclusion of the season which would be the end of november now if you're playing

a 10-game season you could conceivably do that but they want to build in some flexibility in that

schedule so if a team uh has an outbreak or there is an outbreak that they can as gene smith the

athletic director put it the other day they can hit the pause button voice the wildcats dave and

dave how many years it will it be this year what season is this this would be my 31st season so we

all desperately want football right and but i'm just curious like from your standpoint as a

northwestern student as a man who's been in the booth forever does it would it feel incredibly

off to you if students are doing their classes at home online and yet we're playing football and

would that feel wrong well i mean certainly it it would feel like something's amiss

there's no question about that uh but but the idea that the cubs and white socks are going to

be playing here without fans in a few weeks without fans in the stands and the blackhawks

are going to be playing i guess up in edmonton with no fans in the stands if if the students

home uh if they weren't going to be in the stands anyway and i know there's been talk about having

uh limited number of fans at football games this fall both college and pro

but realistically i can't see the season starting with any fans there so i think if if if they're

not on campus they're not in the stadium i don't think it would seem as weird i i think that uh if

there were other fans there but the students aren't there that would seem

strange uh but again everything seems strange right now doesn't it guys yes everything that

doesn't seem odd it it's so weird getting my temperature check before i go into guarantee

greatfield it seems odd it's it's it's it's it's odd it's frightening it's tragic you know

and any adjective you want to use and and look there are many many more important issues right

now facing us than than whether we have college football this year but

i i i think if they can figure it out you know and here's one other thing that i don't

that i think kind of gets lost in a conversation i you know i hear people say these are young

healthy guys they're going to be fine the uh the virus the virus isn't going to affect that first

of all you don't know that right there are players with underlying conditions but there are players

with relatives with parents with underlying conditions and there are officials at the

games and there are assistant coaches who are high risk and so while everybody's seems to be

saying well it's okay they're college kids they're they're going to be fine yet 37 or

however many players at clemson test positive you don't know uh the effect that's going to

have on people close to those guys and and so i think that before we jump to any conclusions here

think about the ramifications of

an outbreak among college football players and you know and and and anybody in our population

i think we just have to be very careful jumping to conclusions dave and it will wrap on a fun note

is it's 7-11 day we've been talking about your favorite thing that you buy at 7-11 if you go

back to your like if you think about a kid walking into 7-11 what it what did young dave by regal and

slurpy where what was the purchase before the only the only thing i ever remember i mean in

more recent years

coffee but as a kid i remember when slurpees were invented that's how that's yeah i'm a little

embarrassed to admit that but i think it was a root beer slurpee was probably the first thing

i remember buying that's good stuff dude that's that's that's amazing like this that was like

that was an incredible innovation right there like better than when you've you know we got

the internet right the slurpee you know absolutely but but here's something else real quick two

years ago i was in uh denmark with uh steve bertrand travel went to denmark and norway

and in denmark there there are tons of 7-elevens and our our uh tour director told us he said

this is we've got some outstanding uh fine dining around there's there's 7-eleven and and he wasn't

i mean they have sit down dining in 7-elevens in in some of some of the towns there so

frozen burritos heated up and served to you yeah i mean it's an underrated chicken wing and i say

that by the way having never actually eaten it but it looks delicious it's sitting there one of

these days try one for me i'll pass hey dave thanks for jumping out we appreciate it all right guys

have a good one david at 720 wgn