(08-10-2020, 12:09 PM)Farm93 Wrote: FWIW - I don't think the game of football is the concern. I don't think the football practices are the concern. The NHL, MLS, the NBA Bubble and the WNBA "Wubble" are proving that the bubble model works.
I think the problem for colleges has always been the travel coupled with mixing of different geographic communities.
Home and visitor style competitions bring different communities together and exposes the visiting athletes to a full range of COVID risks associated with travel. (Bus operators to airport, home town airport, airplane, visiting town airport, bus operators in visiting town, hotel, meals, stadium staff, visiting team, and TV coverage team)
So the question is not really would the player be safer at home or on campus. I think for a lot of the student-athletes (but not all) the campus environment could be safer. The question becomes is a student-athlete that follows health related guidelines in their home town safer there than in a sport with multiple road trips.
Also, I know a lot of coaches are willing to take the risk of interacting with the players, but there are other college staff members that don't quite get a vote here. I am talking about the "essential workers", the grounds crews, the stadium and facility maintenance members and janitors, the food service staff, etc. etc. For all of them the risk of acquiring COVID is significantly greater if games are played. Don't believe me? Just ask the stadium staff for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Come on. The risk isn't a bunch of supervised and tested players traveling together and staying in hotel rooms. Infections among college students come from swarms of them partying together in bars and indoor locations. That is what college students do whether at home or college. Football players with a season to play for and weekly COVID tests are going to be a lot more careful than those who don't have that to play for.
(08-10-2020, 12:21 PM)chrisk Wrote: If the Stanford players remain on campus, they would be subject to the same requirements as other undergraduates, which are reasonably stringent. Of course, with Stanford starting in mid-September, it is possible Stanford could pull the plug on bringing half of the undergrads to vampus, depending on how other schools fare.
Only half the students will be on campus at a time. What about the 50% of the team that isn't on campus? Will they have the same testing access? Will they be motivated to practice the same social distancing techniques when they are hanging with their friends in their hometown as they would be this fall trying to stay healthy for a football season?