The 2020 college football season is in serious jeopardy of being cancelled or postponed to the spring in large part due to the lack of a sweeping federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has left the United States dealing with tens of thousands of cases per day around the country with no end in sight.
Much like the United States’ decision to leave most choices on how to proceed up to state and local government, the NCAA has refused to do anything akin to creating a national standard of protocols for how schools should proceed with the upcoming fall season. As such, some schools and conferences have already decide to call off the fall season, while others are hoping to move forward with a conference only schedule.
Players have taken it upon themselves to organize and present a united front across the country in all Power Five conferences, insisting that “We Want To Play” but issuing a list of things they need to see before they’re comfortable playing. The movement, headlined by Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State QB Justin Fields, calls for uniform safety and testing protocols across Power Five conferences, athletes not being penalized for opting out, athletes being allowed to have representation, and, biggest of all, calling for the creation of a college football players association.
The last point, in particular, has led many who supported the players when they first started tweeting about “We Want To Play” to backtrack, but president Donald Trump somewhat surprisingly still seems to be behind the movement, retweeting Lawrence’s tweet that had the list of demands on Monday.
The student-athletes have been working too hard for their season to be cancelled. #WeWantToPlay https://t.co/lI3CCKZ4ID
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2020
Two things are possible here, and I will let you determine which is more likely. The first is that Trump agrees that the players in college football should unionize and be afforded the right to sign representation for themselves. The second is he didn’t read the whole list and voiced his support before really knowing what all he was co-signing. It’s a mystery!
Trump has been vocal about his hope for sports, namely the NFL and college football, to return this fall in their usual stadiums and, possibly, with limited fans, to provide some hope and normalcy for people, serving as a distraction from the administration’s response to the pandemic that has been severely lacking and continuously well behind schedule.