FSU football: Kirk Herbstreit optimistic on 2020 college football season

FSU football fans hope there’s a 2020 college football season. ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit isn’t throwing in the towel just yet.

FSU football desperately needs to play games in 2020 for a variety of reasons. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is putting up a major roadblock to that happening.

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit went on record about four months ago and said he’d be shocked if there’s a college football season. That was right after the NCAA shut down spring activities, and COVID-19 cases were beginning to skyrocket.

There was a period after large parts of the country shutdown that cases seemed to be trending in the right direction. However, as parts of the country began to open up, and people began to travel during the summer months, cases have skyrocketed again. The major college conferences seem to be trying to delay making a decision as long as possible, and Herbstreit spoke on the matter via Sportscenter:

"“In about two weeks is when I think they’ll have to get to a deadline. By the end of July or early August, as much as they’re trying to push this thing down the road, they have to make the decision,” Herbstreit said on SportsCenter. “If they say ‘hey guys, it’s too dangerous and there are too many risks. We can’t play college football this fall,’ I don’t think — I would be surprised if they canceled (the season). I think they would keep postponing, keep pushing and hoping that at some point, the data starts to come down. Because as you know, the data, it just about seems almost every day, is higher and higher.”"

Thoughts

It’s good to see he’s still optimistic about having a season even though the numbers seem to be going the wrong way. The state of Florida is a prime example as they have broken daily records for new cases for a couple of weeks it seems.

There’s a lot at stake, and it’s a risk versus reward deal. We have the health and lives of student-athletes and all of the supporting cast that go into make college football possible. Then there’s the amount of money lost if there’s no college football season and how that will affect student-athletes and the ability of people to make a living due to job loss.

We’ve already seen colleges and universities dropping some sports along with some staff already being cut to manage budgets. I suppose we’ll know in a couple of weeks what the ultimate decision will be. As Herbstreit said, either decision they make will likely come with scrutiny.