PITTSBURGH (93.7 the Fan) – It's a changing world and trying to plan NCAA athletics or for the safety of athletes seems to take a new course daily.
With so many events postponing or cancelling, including Wimbledon on Wednesday, West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons is going to stay optimistic and wait on information before making broad statements.
Although Lyons made what appears to be a big statement on Wednesday, college football will happen on time.
"The next two weeks will tell us a better story," Lyons said via Zoom. "A month from now everything becomes more crystalized and that's what we are trying to focus on instead of throwing it out that it's not going to happen."
Lyons said the experts he has talked to have the same information we are hearing from the President.
"The pandemic will spike here in the next two to three weeks and if you use the approach in what we've learned from China, it was roughly three months and they started to get back to normal," Lyons said. "If you look at that with us, that means fall camp starts in August."
Lyons said schools will continue to have conversations with their conferences and athletic staffs with their chancellors and presidents. He knows there are issues if you decide to push the football season back. One big one is facilities.
"If you play in a pro stadium what does that look like home and away," the fourth year WVU athletic director said. "If you push it too far what does that do with the bowl seasons and they have contracts with facilities. There are just a lot of things that need to be worked through."
That brings up the money. There was a huge reduction in revenue from the loss of the NCAA Tournament. Imagine the loss of a college football season.
"Our biggest revenue stream as an athletic department is through our football programs," Lyons said. "I think as athletic directors, how do we salvage a football season? We are going to have to be very flexible in our approach."
Then there is the student part of student-athlete.
"This is not just about college football, this is about higher education," Lyons said. "Not only is there a question about whether football will start in August, but whether school will start in August."
"We go hand-in-hand with higher education and if our students across the country are not returning to campuses, it's hard for us as athletic directors and administrators to say that football is going to start."
Crowds are already decreasing at sporting events and Lyons says there may be people not wanting to be a part of a large gathering after being told to social distance. The Parkersburg, West Virginia native and WVU grad is curious what ticket sales will be like.
If he knows one thing, it is that he doesn't know right now. And for those like Kirk Herbstreit to speculate the season will be cancelled.
