It's an interesting dichotomy that while you say that we have to respond to the virus, not it to us, yet on the other hand appear to be all for opening everything back up just for the sake of college football. I understand that you are speculating, but still . . . Without a comprehensive testing system in place, it would be folly to allow, what, 200+ people to come together in close contact even without fans in the stand. And with a dearth of leadership in most of the states of the SEC and at the Federal level, testing just ain't gonna happen.
As much as I love Bama and college football - I tell my friends not to bother me on Saturday because I will be indulging in my one vice - it's best for all of us to continue social distancing and not have a college sports season this year. If the anti-viral you mentioned works, and if it is distributed equally throughout the country as opposed to just the "friendly" states, and if all that is completed by August, and if its implementation puts a halt to the spread of the virus, then I say "Halleujah! Let the season begin." But frankly, those are a lot of ifs to overcome.
Other than that, I appreciate the thought you put into the article. As always, it was an excellent read.
My personal position -- which I have not shared on this board, as until now it had little to do with football in general -- is that we will not ever beat Covid-19, or most any other coronavirus-type disease, for that matter.
Diseases like Covid-19, which can be seasonal and/or mutate often, are very hard to cure. The common cold is a coronavirus and we're no closer to curing it now than we've ever been.
Influenza has a vaccine -- and that vaccine, in its best years, is only 50-60 percent effective. It must be updated every year, and a lot of years, the efficacy rate is far worse, in the 25-35 percent range. Then, you have to convince everyone to get it, and that was never easy but the anti-vaxxer movement has made things even worse.
Our best hope for dealing with Covid-19, medically, is post-infection treatment. I hope Remdesivir proves to be that treatment, or maybe even in conjunction with quinine-based treatment, which has shown some degree of effectiveness even if it isn't a panacea.
What's my point?
If we're even 1-2 years out from a fix -- or especially if it's longer -- your choices will come down to two: You can either continue about your life, possibly get Covid-19 and statistically be overwhelmingly likely to survive the experience, or you can hide in your house. The economy will not survive if we all do the latter, or even if the current phased shutdown is allowed to continue without end. Eventually we will run out of money, and we will face shortages of food and other durable goods. And finally, there will be an inflection point at which deaths due to starvation, stress-related heart attacks, suicides and other diseases become more prevalent than deaths due to a coronavirus.
If you choose to continue living, you might die. I might die. But the alternative isn't much better, and the period of suffering prior to death will be elongated.
Social distancing was never meant to kill off Covid-19. It was meant to smooth out the caseload of Covid-19 sufferers so that hospitals could care for the influx of patients without losing too many of its own staff to the disease.
Let me be clear: You're probably going to get Covid-19, whether you get it today or in November or a year from now. So will literally everyone you know. Unless you know of someone who has never gotten a cold, I don't see how anyone can avoid this fate. That's why the treatment is 100x more important than a vaccine that will largely be no good 2-3 years later.
As it relates directly to football, publicly-owned universities don't go bankrupt, but if they could, I would expect 30 or so FBS schools to declare bankruptcy if the season is wiped out. Schools are already dropping other (minor) sports programs now, even before the initial shutdown is over. This is going to accelerate as the calendar moves on. Eventually, athletic directors and presidents will have a choice to make: Open up, or drop sports, lay off coaches and begin returning donations.
The complicating factor here is these are students playing -- although, in lieu of the recent decision to start paying kids to play, they can no longer claim to be true amateurs anymore, nor can they claim to be captive employees. Congrats, kids, you got your money, but a salary comes with certain responsibilities to your employer. If you didn't want to be held to those responsibilities, you shouldn't have pushed for the money in the first place.
They're not technically "kids", as they are all 18 years and older, no more a "kid" than a bunch of like-aged young adults fighting wars across the globe under our flag. But high school players are certainly kids, and they make up the future pool of players at the college level. The real question is, if 1-2 years of football got wiped out at the high school level, how would that affect future college football seasons?
These decisions are not easy, but anyone suggesting we shut down the economy for a year or more doesn't understand economics in a free-market society. Once everyone finally gets around to that realization, college football will go on. They can either realize it now, or a few months from now. But they will realize it.