Buccaneers buoyant they’ll get a football season
CHARLESTON, S.C. (BVM) — The latest news involving college football comes from the Big Ten Conference, with rumors swirling around about the decision regarding the season. Additionally, the FCS has eliminated their post-season playoffs. While all trends seem to point south, one school remains steadfast on playing football this fall.
The Charleston Southern Buccaneers, members of the Big South Conference, want to hit the field.
And they don’t want to come off as negligent to the COVID-19 situation. They have taken all things into consideration: safety, testing, professional opinions and athlete opinions, with the university ultimately finding it safe to play. CSU athletic director Jeff Barber explained the thought-process of this assessment.
“The protocols set out by the NCAA are sufficient,” Barber said. “They talked to experts in every possible area and gave us a protocol to use. It includes intensive testing, and a lot of other things that we believe will work.”
Some of those other things constituted were daily self-health checks, the use of face coverings and social distancing, and adhering to health standards set within local communities.
CSU is prepared to take on this health regimen, and it also believes that playing its regular schedule will benefit the university as a whole. Barber mentioned that although the FCS playoffs have been thwarted this fall, the team plays for more than just national championships.
“We look at our athletics program as good for the student-athletes, student body, and culture on campus.” Barber said.
Unfortunately, the majority of the FCS does not have the same opinions as many schools in the Big South do. The FCS is comprised of 13 different conferences, with nine of those already having abandoned their fall sports.
But as of now, the Big South’s season is still on as scheduled. Conference commissioner Kyle Kallander has been communicating with athletic directors weekly, via phone call and Zoom video call. Barber says that Kallander has been sending out update emails almost daily.
As much as CSU wants to play, though, its student safety will always come first.
“The most important thing is that we will never put any of this before the safety of our student-athletes,” Barber said. “Their safety and well being is the most important thing.”
If it does come down to a cancellation, or postponement of the season until the spring, they hope they’ll be able to play some FBS games in the fall. Their big-time FBS matchup for this season versus the Arkansas Razorbacks has already been lost, a game that was going to pay the school $500,000.
“I’ve probably got 16 schools I’m communicating with (to fill the gap left by the Arkansas game) depending on which way the fork in the road turns,” Barber said. “I don’t know where it’s gonna head yet but we certainly have plenty of options out there.”
With COVID-19 having changed the landscape of sports for the last six months, Barber holds his optimism that one day, things will return to normal. Not that we will have a new normal, but that things as we remember them will come back.
“I don’t think in two years people will be wearing masks to school or masks to games, I don’t think we will be doing the testing,” Barber said. “There may be some slight changes, we go through airports differently than we did 20 years ago, but if you take the whole ball of wax and look at it, for the most part it’ll be the same.”
