Schoffel: College football has to hope recent outbreaks were wake-up call

It can be a bit overwhelming to watch all of this from afar. One can only imagine what these days must be like for Florida State’s administration.

For the last three months, FSU President John Thrasher, his cabinet and the university’s Board of Trustees have been consumed by guiding FSU through the coronavirus pandemic. Their No. 1 objective, obviously, is keeping the faculty, staff and students as safe as possible. At the same time, they have a responsibility to continue providing educational opportunities to their students and to do whatever they can to preserve the financial well-being of the institution.

It’s an extremely tall task, as seen by the recently revealed plan to reopen the university this fall.

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While many details are still to be determined, it’s clear that a great many classes in the fall semester are going to be held remotely. Some departments have already been informed that they likely will not teach any classes in person. The dorm experience and Greek life will be modified as well, as social distancing will be in full effect.

FSU's plan for reopening was approved Tuesday by the Board of Governors, but we’ll have to wait and see what it really looks like in the fall. This is all very fluid.

We'll also have to wait and see what impact it all has on enrollment this fall and spring. There is legitimate concern that many families and students will opt to sit out the semester or take a “gap year” — either out of concern for their safety or to wait for a more traditional college experience.

Those are decisions that will have major financial implications for the university.

Then on top of that, there is the question of what will happen next with college athletics and, most importantly (because it pays the bills), college football.

Last week was obviously rough in that regard nationally. Clemson had 28 student-athletes and staff members test positive for the virus; Kansas State suspended voluntary workouts after 14 athletes tested positive; LSU placed 30 football players in quarantine because they either tested positive or were exposed to someone who did. Texas and other schools have had significant numbers of cases as well.

Those are all jarring numbers. Numbers that have many fans wondering whether all of our optimism about a return of football this fall was foolhardy.

Maybe it was. Maybe we'll find out in August, September or October that a return of contact sports is not possible right now, even with regular testing, quarantining and contact tracing.

If that happens, it happens. We'll have to deal with that when the time comes. In the meantime, I would caution folks to not be too alarmed by what's happening with testing in June.

When I spoke to someone involved in the testing process at FSU a few weeks ago, he explained that they were fully expecting to see positive tests locally and around the country. He said if anyone is hoping to go all summer -- or into the fall -- without positive tests, they're going to be very disappointed.

The key for a potential return of sports, he said, was that the schools needed to do everything possible to make sure outbreaks didn’t happen during the season or in preseason practice. They needed to take every precaution possible to make sure that one or two cases don't mushroom into 15 or 20.

And from the beginning, FSU got off to a tremendous start to this process. In the opening rounds of on-campus testing, which featured more than 150 football players, coaches and staff members, the Seminoles saw only one positive test. A lot of work and precautions went into that success.

It's important to note, however, that that number came out two weeks ago, and it's very likely that FSU has seen more cases since then. I'm fairly certain they have.

But even if that's the case, I'd wager a week's salary that the team's voluntary workouts, which started on June 1, were not part of the problem. From everything we've been able to gather, FSU's sports medicine staff and strength and conditioning coaches have gone above and beyond when it comes to providing a sanitary place for players to work out.

The problem is they can't oversee student-athletes 24 hours a day. All it takes is one party or one trip to a nightclub for all of those measures to become compromised.

But that's where what happened this past week -- as disheartening as it was to see the numbers at the time -- might actually be a good thing in the long run.

Almost all 20-year-olds believe they are invincible. I know I felt that way at that age, so I can only imagine those feelings are multiplied for Division-I athletes.

Well, I think there's a good chance that when word began to spread about what happened on some of these other campuses last week, athletes around the nation took notice. Even if they believe that contracting the virus won't cause them long-term harm, they absolutely had to realize that continued outbreaks will put their 2020 seasons in jeopardy.

Here was a Tweet from FSU senior defensive end Janarius Robinson:

Other players around the country have posted similar messages.

There's no way to know whether this entire experiment is going to work well enough for college football to be played this fall. If every athletics department and university is taking it as seriously as Florida State, then I think it still has a very good chance of happening.

But only if the players are willing to be extremely cautious when they're away from their teams. When they want to go out for dinner or a drink. When they are invited to go spend time at a friend's house.

That's where the most immediate risk in all of this lies.

College athletics programs won't have the luxury of placing all of their players, coaches and staff members in a "bubble" like the NBA plans to do in Orlando. All they can do is put measures in place to make sure the players are as protected as possible when they're inside the facilities.

When the players leave those buildings, however, it's up to them to be responsible and limit their potential exposure to the virus. And that will be especially important when thousands of their fellow students return to campus in August.

As FSU officials have explained many times over the last three months, one of the most difficult elements to reopening campus is the fact that all of these students will be coming back to Tallahassee from all over the country -- and the world. While Leon County has fared much better than other parts of the state so far, that could change drastically when tens of thousands of students return to FSU, FAMU and TCC.

Those are the thoughts have to keep Thrasher, athletics director David Coburn and others awake at night.

We all know that college athletics departments can't survive if a football season is scrapped -- at least not the way we know them now. The idea that so much of this entire enterprise rests on the notion that student-athletes will have to be extra-careful about social distancing when away from the team is ... well ... not exactly comforting.

We were all 20 once. We know how we were then.

We can only hope that what happened in the last week has been a reality check that causes at least a majority of the players to feel like Janarius Robinson. To believe that "COVID-19 is real" and that it's up to them to protect themselves.

We'll have to wait and see if that's what happens.

We just got a glimpse of what things will look like if it doesn't.

Contact managing editor Ira Schoffel at ira@warchant.com and follow @IraSchoffel on Twitter.

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Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans in the Tribal Council