At Virginia Tech, senior associate athletic director Brad Wurthman is so excited for the possibility of football fans returning to Lane Stadium this fall, he says jokingly that he’ll pay to put a roof on it “just so we can blow the damn thing off on Sept. 3.”
At USC, athletic director Mike Bohn said he heard from the school’s marching band on a weekly basis last fall, pleading to be able to return to games or practices or a send-off — anything — to help the Trojans. Bohn said he is hoping state and local restrictions will soon loosen so everyone can return to the Coliseum this fall, including, of course, the school’s iconic noble steed, Traveler.
And at Auburn, starting left guard Tashawn Manning is clinging to the possibility that he’ll be able to walk off the team bus at the corner of Donahue Drive and Samford Avenue and be greeted by a “sea of fans” waiting for the Tiger Walk again.
“That’s one of my favorite traditions Auburn has,” he said. “As you’re coming down the street, you get to see all of the fans cheering you on, and everybody has your back. It’s just a good boost going into the game.”
After a 2020 season during which COVID-19 wreaked havoc on college football, everyone could use a bit of a “boost” this fall. With exactly 100 days remaining until the first fall college football games kick off on Aug. 28, college football players, coaches and athletic administrators are anticipating a season of Saturdays that resembles the normalcy of 2019.
All 10 FBS conferences and their medical advisory groups are reevaluating the protocols they established last summer — routine testing, mask mandates, quarantines and contact tracing — a myriad COVID-19 rules that could now be reconsidered or in some cases fully rescinded with high vaccination rates.
ESPN spoke to more than a dozen stakeholders, from commissioners and athletic directors to coaches, players and medical advisors about the state of the game in 2021. While testing will remain in some capacity, the focus has shifted to vaccinating teams and educating them about the process. Other priorities include planning for full-capacity crowds and ushering back traditions — all while continuing to follow the guidance of state and local regulations.
Knowing they might have to backtrack at some point, many athletic directors still plan to fully open the gates to the fans who make the sport’s unique traditions happen. The Gator chomps, the cowbells, the 12th Man, the Kinnick Wave, the third-quarter “Jump Around.”
Take us home, “Country Roads.”
“We are working full steam ahead,” said Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich. “We’re looking to erase 2020 from the manifest as it relates to those things, and really get back to what we have done, and what has been incredibly important and successful in the past.”
While optimism is brewing, the sport’s key decision-makers acknowledge there’s still a lot they don’t know, and can’t control.
“The reality is COVID doesn’t go away,” said SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. “As hopeful as we are of playing without disruption, we have to think through what might cause disruption, what might it mean. My desire would be not to have any positive COVID tests, not to have any contact tracing, not to have disruption of games. We all have to be honest, though — none of us can guarantee that reality.”
‘Where does vaccination leave us?’
While the MLB, NHL and NBA have determined teams can relax health and safety measures if they reach an 85% vaccination rate, the SEC is the only FBS conference that has publicly cemented a similar leaguewide rule.
Effective June 1, once an SEC team reaches an 85% immunization rate, the entire team — including coaches and support staff — may suspend surveillance testing regardless of an individual’s immunization status, according to a conference spokesperson.
Many throughout the sport concede a return to normalcy this fall will depend in large part on vaccination rates — not just of players, coaches and athletic department staffs, but also the willingness of fans to help drive down COVID-19 rates. Earlier this month, Alabama coach Nick Saban recorded a public service announcement for the state department of public health to encourage more people to get vaccinated.
“Let’s make sure we can safely make this happen by getting vaccinated,” Saban is recorded saying. “Please get your COVID-19 vaccine. We want Bryant-Denny Stadium loud again this coming season — and Roll Tide!”
Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne said that while the university will follow the direction of state health officials, he is preparing for a full stadium.
“We’re very hopeful that people will continue to get vaccinated, and that the numbers reflect that as far as where COVID starts going,” Byrne said. “But we also know how much college football and college sports means in the SEC, and we know that you listen to the medical experts, that the way we move forward is for people to get vaccinated and we feel hopeful that the great majority of our fans will do so.”
Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an infectious disease expert at Duke and chair of the ACC Medical Advisory Group, said the bulk of the ACC’s updated protocols are on the horizon. Citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent recommendations, Wolfe said fully vaccinated, asymptomatic ACC athletes no longer need to quarantine, and the league’s university presidents will eventually vote on whether they need to test them at the same pace as last season. He said once teams are above the 85% threshold, there will be new relaxation guidance for travel, masking, distancing and socialization activities.
“What 85 does, it’s not only a blend of the best data to average herd immunity, and it gives it a bit of a safety cushion as well,” Wolfe said. “… It also affects the way we need to now treat visiting teams. If I know that my team is essentially 100% vaccinated, and all of my coaching and athletic staff the same, then it actually doesn’t matter so much what you as the visiting team has done because I’m not going to get infected as a result of you.”
Ohio State head team physician Dr. Jim Borchers said he expects those discussions will take on greater urgency in the Big Ten following the conclusion of spring sports.
“The conversation will really quickly shift to conference-wide discussion on where does vaccination leave us?” said Borchers, who continues to play an integral role in shaping the Big Ten’s COVID-19 policies throughout the pandemic.
A Big Ten conference spokesperson said no changes have been made to the league’s testing protocol for the remainder of the 2020-21 season in all sports, and that each campus is working locally to determine the impact of vaccinations on campus for the fall.
“It feels very similar to the season right now in regards to our protocols that we’re following,” said Indiana coach Tom Allen. “Hopefully those will be let up a little bit, but that’s the one thing we’ve got no control over. The biggest thing is fans. You just want them to be able to be here. If we’ve got to do certain things along the way — test, wear masks, whatever — we’ll do what we’ve gotta do to get our guys to game day. But to be able to have the fan experience and the atmospheres at each stadium, that’s what makes college football what it is.”
How schools are promoting the vaccine to players
One of the biggest incentives for players to get vaccinated could be found in the SEC, Mid-American and the Sun Belt — playing time. Those leagues updated their medical protocols so that fully vaccinated individuals who are asymptomatic no longer have to participate in the surveillance testing programs, or quarantine following an exposure to someone with COVID-19.
Last year, Texas A&M had to postpone its game with Ole Miss because of COVID-19 protocols — but there was only one positive case. The Aggies had fewer than 50 scholarship players available, though, because of quarantine protocols.
“For us, in the student-athlete population, there’s still a hesitancy about the vaccine,” said Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork, who estimates around 40% of A&M athletes have been vaccinated. “So we’ve been doing a lot of education, a lot of information to them, but I think a lot of it is going to be incentive-based, meaning what are the protocols going to be come the fall, and if you’re vaccinated, then you’re probably in a different subgroup, and if you’re not, then there’s probably going to be more stringent protocols. I think that will turn the tide in terms of the hesitancy, to say, we know we can play a full season, we know we don’t have to contact trace, we don’t have to quarantine. So if you happen to have a positive test, then you can keep moving forward.”
The SEC’s Medical Task Force adopted the regulation on March 19, according to a league spokesman, making the conference the first in the Power 5 to change its testing protocol for anyone who has been fully vaccinated — meaning at least two weeks past the final vaccination dose, and the individual is asymptomatic.
“Personally, it’s going to be a huge relief,” said Florida linebacker Mohamoud Diabate, who remembered last year when the Gators had to postpone their game against LSU because of a COVID-19 outbreak within the team. “We play Alabama this year. What if you get contact tracing the week before that? Just being able to eliminate all of those scenarios — that you have to miss time, you have to miss games — you can guarantee yourself you’re going to be available to play and help your team.”
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said that while much of the conference’s response moving forward will continue to be driven by state and local policies, ultimately the Big 12 will land in the same place for fully vaccinated individuals.
“That’s the eventual outcome and the intended outcome,” he said, “but we’re not there yet.”
Michigan senior associate athletic director Darryl Conway, the Wolverines’ chief health and welfare officer, said he is hoping the Big Ten updates it COVID-19 protocols by July 1. Currently, Michigan football players who are fully vaccinated no longer have to go through daily testing (unless they are symptomatic), no longer have to quarantine through contact tracing, no longer have to wear a mask indoors or outdoors, and can meet with other fully vaccinated people in person, and use the weight room together.
For some, even escaping the stringent protocols hasn’t been enough to convince them. Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill said he has heard of vaccine hesitancy happening “across the board,” including some coaches and staff who have shown reluctance, along with student-athletes.
“There’s enough vaccine hesitancy and folks who don’t want to get the vaccine at this point that there still could be a lot of folks who are in testing protocol,” he said.
Gill said the conference office created a presentation to educate people on the vaccines and the process, and presented it to all athletic staff at each school so they could in turn provide it to the student-athletes and their parents.
“We’re hopeful that education process will yield some better numbers than we have now,” he said, “but it is a school-by-school deal in terms of how many student-athletes are vaccinated and how many are not.”
In some cases, the most impactful messaging has come from a teammate.
Kentucky defensive end Joshua Paschal, a survivor of melanoma, encouraged his classmates to get vaccinated through a 30-second promotional video sponsored by the university.
“For me, it was important to get vaccinated, because I want a sense of normalcy to come back, as well as ensuring the safety of everyone else around me, especially at the facility,” said Paschal, who represented his school on the SEC’s Football Council, which comprises one player from each school that meets with Sankey on a regular basis.
That’s one reason why Auburn’s Manning is fully vaccinated — he has seen firsthand the devastating effects it can have on older people. When students were returning to campus last fall, Manning said his father, whom he said has preexisting conditions, was diagnosed with COVID-19, and he had to be hospitalized “for a week or so.”
“During that time, I just didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Manning, adding that his dad has since recovered and been fully vaccinated. “The doctors couldn’t tell me anything. My parents didn’t tell me anything, and it was pretty scary not knowing the outcome, what could happen.”
Now, he said, the players are being inundated with information about the vaccines.
“Everybody wants to get back to having a regular season,” he said, “and I feel like this is going to get us the closest.”
Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said 67% percent of all student-athletes were vaccinated as of April 26 — the same day Diabate received his second shot through the university.
He said he hasn’t had to be too persuasive with his teammates to join him.
“A couple of them didn’t have an understanding of how vaccines work, and needed to be educated, but nobody’s really been a hard body about it,” Diabate said. “People are just confused. Once people understand the pros and cons of it, a lot of our teammates made the decision to go ahead and do it.”
Can schools require players to get the vaccine?
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, there are 319 campuses that have made that decision. A majority of them, though, are smaller schools and private schools.
Notre Dame, Rutgers, Boston College, Syracuse and Duke are among the Power 5 schools that have made vaccinations mandatory for students returning in the fall.
While the university continues to collect data, Wolfe said many sports at Duke are already at or near 100% and the football team is at least 96%. The entire athletic department has already crossed the 85% threshold.
“Our medical advisory group has always been unanimous about saying we think the most efficient way to protect our athletes and the coaches and teams around them — and to frankly set a good public health standard that is a visible, scientific flag in the ground to say we believe in the science of vaccinations — is to encourage them to get close to 100%,” Wolfe said.
“Ultimately, the decisions are not with the medical advisory board in the ACC — they’re held in the hands of the individual presidents and their council, but we can still be quite unified in our position to say that we think trying to get as close to 100% as possible is helpful.”
According to a school spokesman, more than 90% of Notre Dame’s student body have been fully vaccinated, so they no longer have to participate in weekly surveillance testing, or have to be tested before leaving campus at the end of the semester. Students are now also allowed to be maskless outside in any size group.
An NCAA spokesperson said the question of requiring vaccines for student-athletes is “best addressed by the schools.”
When asked about the legality of requiring students to get vaccinations that are still categorized as “emergency use authorization,” a Rutgers spokeswoman provided the following statement in an email:
“The university’s position on vaccines is consistent with the legal authority supporting this policy.”
Dorit Reiss, a law professor focused on vaccine policy at the University of California Hastings College of Law, said it’s important to remember that colleges and universities have historically required vaccines, but there is an “extra wrinkle” with this one because the FDA hasn’t yet fully approved them. She said the manufacturers of the Pfizer vaccine applied for full license on May 7.
“The legal framework is less demanding, and the EUA law is written in a way that is somewhat confusing,” Reiss said. “It says that the secretary [of health] needs to inform people who get the vaccine that they have the choice to accept or refuse the vaccine.
“Some universities look at that and say the law isn’t talking to us, and therefore we can still mandate the vaccine under an EUA,” she said. “Other universities are more nervous about it and say, ‘Well, maybe the law isn’t directly talking to us, but there’s enough legal uncertainty that we could get taken to court if we mandate the vaccine under an EUA and we would rather wait for full license.'”
A proposed vaccination policy for the University of California system, which would require vaccinations at both Cal and UCLA, clearly states it’s waiting for “full approval” from the FDA:
“Under the proposed policy, the University would require students, faculty, academic appointees and staff who are accessing campus facilities at any UC location beginning this fall to be immunized against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. UC already strongly encourages students, faculty, academic appointees and staff to voluntarily obtain a vaccination as soon as they are eligible and able to schedule an appointment. The requirement would go into effect once a vaccine has full approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
At Michigan, Conway said about 82% of student-athletes and the staff and coaches who interact with them on a daily basis have been fully vaccinated. Conway said health officials in Washtenaw County have defined “herd immunity” as a 90% vaccination rate. In an effort to get to 100%, though, officials within Michigan athletics have asked the university administration to make vaccinations mandatory within their department — something that he said Michigan would not be doing campus-wide.
“I don’t know if it will get to that point, but we’re trying to make it mandatory for anybody in Tier I and Tier II being vaccinated,” Conway said, also referring to staff who don’t interact with the athletes on a daily basis. “Obviously, we’re going to abide by the university, and [human resources], and religious and medical exemptions, but if you aren’t vaccinated, there’s going to be a testing regime that’s not going to be completed within athletics, so they’ll have to go on campus, they’ll have to wear a mask everywhere … not being able to eat with teams, not being able to attend meetings live versus virtual.”
Ohio State is one of many schools that won’t require the vaccine.
“They’re certainly recommending that, they’re certainly encouraging it,” Borchers said. “We need to strongly recommend it. We need to educate people about it. We need to answer their questions, and I think we need to continue to discuss the benefits of vaccination as it pertains to being able to participate, being able to protect yourself, being able to protect your teammates, but also being able to protect your opponent.
“That’s, in my opinion, why there needs to be a better collective effort to really look at how to do this moving forward,” Borchers said. “Each conference kind of looked at it through their own lens, but it wasn’t optimal, and if we’re really going to be committed to each other’s health and safety, we need to have an approach that addresses that.”
The challenges that remain
From the onset of the pandemic, the California-based schools in the Pac-12 have operated under strict state and local restrictions that have put them on unequal footing with many of their Power 5 peers.
The California state guidance for college athletics — dated Sept. 30, 2020 — is still in effect. It doesn’t account for updates to CDC guidance, or the introduction of vaccines, or the innovation of testing technology.
“We are still duty-bound to follow that guidance from September of 2020, which in COVID time may as well be a different universe,” said USC executive senior associate athletic director Brandon Sosna, the Trojans’ chief of staff. “So even if Pac-12 policies change, and the NCAA resocialization of sports is amended, we still have to wait until the state updates their guidance to be able to implement some of those new protocols.”
Sosna said California permits up to 67% capacity for outdoor venues — if all attendees are vaccinated. The logistics of verifying that, Sosna said, are “enormously challenging,” and also raise the question of health privacy laws. So USC officials have circled June 15 as a critical date because Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state plans to fully reopen the economy then.
On some level, the complexities remain everywhere.
As excited as Wurthman is about the possibility of a packed Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech this fall, there are dozens of details to be worked out — and a genuine concern that some fans might not be ready yet to come back.
As he pointed out, some people still aren’t ready to go out to dinner.
“Who are we to say there’s no problem?” Wurthman said. “That component and that concern is terrifying. If you look at season ticket renewal rates across the country, those are trending down compared with where they have been. And that’s across the board.
“I’m optimistic,” he said, “but I’m by no means sold yet. It may not be comfortable enough for someone to come and sit beside someone that they don’t know.”
One thing we do know is that in 100 days, the college football season will kick off — a certainty that didn’t exist a year ago. Exactly what it will look like, though, is a forecast nobody is ready to predict.
“I would have said last year at this time, the circumstances around the virus will decide our path forward,” Sankey said, “and that’s still the reality. I think we’re all hopeful, but also we would be inattentive if we didn’t acknowledge the reality that still exists around us, which is, COVID-19 is here.”