I know that they have already played some college football and NFL football, but it's still too early to say if that's a success or not. Fortunately for the Pac-12 is that the picture should be clearer by the end of the month.
Pro sports in a non-bubble environment have been fairly cavalier about the whole two-week incubation period (they being satisfied with two consecutive negative test results and not requiring people to quarantine for two weeks even after exposure to the someone with the virus). I think baseball is able to avoid disaster because transmission through touching the ball is small; football is obviously a much more contact sport (both within practices and games). We are still a week or two before we can say that no COVID spread across two cities/towns because of a game of football either in college, pro, or high school level to be able to proclaim that football during the pandemic is working.
another great write up by Nick. My only disagreement is with the first point: rapid testing "fanfare". Sure, its awesome, but not a game changer. The ACC announced 3x/wk testing back in the summer. Similar to Big12, NBA, MLB, NFL; if they can do it, so could the p12, which just happens to have some of the greatest medical centers in the world.... (Heck, in back in April LA County announced free testing to anyone who wants it. Sure, it took a few days for the results, but that is just a logistics issue, not a scientific lab issue. USC & UCLA could have easily paid their med centers to run pcr tests same-day.) The lack of testing was and has been nothing more than an excuse to justify delaying sports. Now, delaying fall sports for the health/safety of the student athletes may have been the right thing to do, but using testing availability as a rationale was just spin.
The difference between what the NBA/NFL currently have and the PAC12 announced vs. what the ACC is using is same hour test results, right? My understanding is the testing kit that the PAC-12 announced was first available around May and started reaching the private sector a few months later. This way, everyone can get tested every morning and know if they're allowed into practice or not without putting anyone at risk.
PCR is the gold standard of testing, and that is a batch process that takes a couple of hours to load and run in a high speed machine. The NCAA requires pcr at least once per week. The ACC, SEC and Big12 are doing one pcr and another test for a total of 3 tests/week. The 15 minute test is not as accurate as the pcr, but higher frequency can help overcome its lower statistical accuracy. Regardless, my point is that guys could easily be tested at breakfast with the pcr gold standard and have results before afternoon practice starts. And that has always been true. (I have no doubt that if Uncle Phil wrote a check, Oregon could test its athletes each and every day and twice on Sunday.)
Regarding Title IX, the other fall sports were ppd to spring at the NCAA level. If they are played at any time this academic year, or cancelled by the NCAA (in the off chance all this goes sideways), Title IX is satisfied.
Is it okay to be both jazzed and uneasy?
I know that they have already played some college football and NFL football, but it's still too early to say if that's a success or not. Fortunately for the Pac-12 is that the picture should be clearer by the end of the month.
Pro sports in a non-bubble environment have been fairly cavalier about the whole two-week incubation period (they being satisfied with two consecutive negative test results and not requiring people to quarantine for two weeks even after exposure to the someone with the virus). I think baseball is able to avoid disaster because transmission through touching the ball is small; football is obviously a much more contact sport (both within practices and games). We are still a week or two before we can say that no COVID spread across two cities/towns because of a game of football either in college, pro, or high school level to be able to proclaim that football during the pandemic is working.
another great write up by Nick. My only disagreement is with the first point: rapid testing "fanfare". Sure, its awesome, but not a game changer. The ACC announced 3x/wk testing back in the summer. Similar to Big12, NBA, MLB, NFL; if they can do it, so could the p12, which just happens to have some of the greatest medical centers in the world.... (Heck, in back in April LA County announced free testing to anyone who wants it. Sure, it took a few days for the results, but that is just a logistics issue, not a scientific lab issue. USC & UCLA could have easily paid their med centers to run pcr tests same-day.) The lack of testing was and has been nothing more than an excuse to justify delaying sports. Now, delaying fall sports for the health/safety of the student athletes may have been the right thing to do, but using testing availability as a rationale was just spin.
The difference between what the NBA/NFL currently have and the PAC12 announced vs. what the ACC is using is same hour test results, right? My understanding is the testing kit that the PAC-12 announced was first available around May and started reaching the private sector a few months later. This way, everyone can get tested every morning and know if they're allowed into practice or not without putting anyone at risk.
PCR is the gold standard of testing, and that is a batch process that takes a couple of hours to load and run in a high speed machine. The NCAA requires pcr at least once per week. The ACC, SEC and Big12 are doing one pcr and another test for a total of 3 tests/week. The 15 minute test is not as accurate as the pcr, but higher frequency can help overcome its lower statistical accuracy. Regardless, my point is that guys could easily be tested at breakfast with the pcr gold standard and have results before afternoon practice starts. And that has always been true. (I have no doubt that if Uncle Phil wrote a check, Oregon could test its athletes each and every day and twice on Sunday.)
Regarding Title IX, the other fall sports were ppd to spring at the NCAA level. If they are played at any time this academic year, or cancelled by the NCAA (in the off chance all this goes sideways), Title IX is satisfied.
Thanks for the reporting. Now what happens to the laundry list of demands made by Pac-12 players for revenue sharing and whatnot?
Your penultimate sentence is true in more cases than we would like to contemplate.
Great write up.