COVID-19 might affect the 2020 California–UNLV game

If the coronavirus is taking away our clicks through the loss of sports, then we'll use the coronavirus itself to get those clicks.

With the world in crisis over the COVID-19 coronavirus, life is starkly different than it was just a week ago. Given the monumental changes we’ve all been forced to make, perhaps the one certainty is that all of our plans are about to be undone. Including some plans that will surprisingly affect California football.

Given that the US is a bit behind the progression of other nations, we can look to their responses for an idea of what may be in our future. Furthermore, here in the Bay Area, we’re already seeing massive changes with mandated shelter-in-place for most counties that keep us from leaving the house for anything deemed non-essential. If these changes should be mirrored in Nevada, then that will affect our 2020 game against UNLV.

A new stadium is set to open by the end of the year in Las Vegas that would be the home of the UNLV Rebels and the Las Vegas Raiders—Allegiant Stadium. However, should the epidemic worsen to the point where Las Vegas is under similar restrictions, construction could be delayed such that the stadium would not be ready for our season-opening game there on August 29.

If that were to happen, possible alternatives would be playing at Sam Boyd Stadium (where the Rebels played from 1971–2019), playing in Berkeley (and swapping our 2022 game from Berkeley to Vegas), or playing at some neutral field out in Milwaukee or something.

Life was much easier when we were worried about the world running out of our supply of chicken sandwiches rather than us being disease-ridden and worried about the world running out of our supply of toilet paper.