Michigan considering a spring season
- Thread starter EdgyTim
- Start date
You could theoretically flip fall and spring seasons. Practices and game will be rough in March and April. Right now in the spring we spend close to 50% of the time inside with outdoor sports. There is no room to do that with football. A few years back (2017?) We had close to four weeks in March and April where virtually every track, tennis, baseball and softball game were cancelled due to weather every day.
One issue is if they think the season will be canceled in the fall is that those spring athletes will have 2 years wiped out if they flip them all.
Could be true. Heartbreaking to think spring athletes class 2022 may not get any varsity seasons at all.
Baseball, softball, tennis get rained out... football would practice and play in the rain. Spring sports get killed early with lingering cold and snow... that would not effect football. The issues that effect spring sports would not effect football.
Stand out there with Freshman when its 25 degrees and snow and then say it would have no impact.
Getting in lock-step with this particular Michigan governor might not be the wisest path for others to follow. She has been part of some actions in her state the last few months to be categorized as on the fringe and far short of universal acceptance.
My prediction is a condensing of all three seasons starting in January.
Jan and feb winter sports
Mar and April fall sports
May and June spring sports
Unless you have a lot of baseball fields and softball fields with lights, that won’t fly in the fall. By end of September it’s dark by 6pm which basically kills during the week games.
Conceivably you could get all the other spring sports played. Track and field might be dicey with the cold weather hitting at the most important part of the season. You’d have to start track early and finish mid-October at the latest. Again that would be possible.
Fall sports in the spring that would be effected - golf, tennis.
it’s doable
If it is bad enough we can not do anything in Nov-Dec. Nothing is happening until March at the earliest.
The flip would have to be at all school levels, not just high school. For many communities, and in particular smaller communities, facilities & coaches are shared - baseball & softball diamonds/coaches in particular. And for schools that play football & soccer on their shared stadium grass, spring football & boys soccer in March will do much worse things to the field than girls soccer...the field may not be playable in May and may not recover by August.
And who's to say this vaccine will be out then....it may be a year or more before one is approved, nobody knows, this is just pushing everything back and hoping....
Here’s a thought. You test kids every week during training camp, and during the season. Before every practice/game you check there temp. Anything over 100.4 they go home. With this being done weekly there won’t be one covid positive player on the field. Sure is a pain in the butt for programs but it’s a whole lot better than no season at all. I hope this is the route Illinois takes.
The only way is to just play. Play at your own risk, spectate at your own risk. Do a waiver if you must, even though that is useless with a virus that can come from anywhere. You will have asymptomatic and covid positive people next fall, and fall of 22, and 23, and 24....with or without a vaccine. Unless it dies out or true herd immunity is reached. If we continue down this path of current planning and thoughts, our current 6th graders won't even be able to play in HS.
When do freshman report to D1 teams? I thought a lot of kids got on campus in June to start summer classes and get their feet wet at college. I could see a problem with high level recruits sitting out a spring season to prepare for college similar to how college kids sit out bowl games to get ready for the combine.
I'm sure that would happen and some teams would likely be hit harder than others, but in reality - how many kids in the state of Illinois are that caliber? Maybe 10?
If you flip football,
you should flip boys track due to the overlap. And girls too to keep the seasons together.
If you flip track,
you should flip cross country. Which means running on dirt in rainy season.
If you flip football,
you should also flip baseball due to overlap of players.
If you flip baseball,
you should flip softball too to keep the seasons together.
This cycle could go on forever. It becomes a logistical nightmare and it also is a big middle finger to all the spring athletes who lost their previous season by saying you'd rather risk another season of theirs than of other sports.
you should flip boys track due to the overlap. And girls too to keep the seasons together.
If you flip track,
you should flip cross country. Which means running on dirt in rainy season.
If you flip football,
you should also flip baseball due to overlap of players.
If you flip baseball,
you should flip softball too to keep the seasons together.
This cycle could go on forever. It becomes a logistical nightmare and it also is a big middle finger to all the spring athletes who lost their previous season by saying you'd rather risk another season of theirs than of other sports.
Nothing is going to be easy, however, every other sport has a travel/club season or they can compete in some other way, except for football.
You just made that really complex. If the “flip” occurred it would almost certainly be all spring sports to the fall and all fall sports to the spring thus all these “if this then that’s” are taken care of.
Lots of talk about if football is moved to spring can kids then play again in fall or will college bound players play in spring knowing they would have to then report soon after to college. Let me give you a totally different talking point... if Illinois moved football to the spring and say Indiana (or any other) played in the fall or you could reverse it and say if Illinois went ahead and played in the fall but a neighboring state (or any other) played in the spring how many kids may maneuver to play both. Transfer over to say Indiana play in the fall then come back at Christmas break and play in Illinois in the spring? Would any state or governing body move to block the athlete from playing in the spring after playing in the fall? Assuming all eligibility hoops like change of address etc are jumped through to make sure they are otherwise eligible as a transfer.
The more I have been thinking about this today, the more I think they are going to try something similar to this. Probably expand it through July and not have a real summer period in 2021. People are trying to buy time for a vaccine that may never come. Hoping things are better 6 months from now. They could end up being worse or the same. No one knows.
