The optimistic perspective for 2020 Clemson football season
Whether you’re looking for news on Clemson football or any other sport across the country, you’re going to have a hard time finding many positive perspectives.
As a matter of fact, right now, there’s very little optimism when it comes to professional sports, and that has led to a complete loss of hope when it comes to the College Football season.
We understand where that pessimism is coming from and there’s no doubt that it’s not just coming from media outlets, but even from those who will have a seat at the decision-making table before it’s all said and done.
That being said, I still don’t believe it’s time for Clemson football fans to give up hope.
At the risk of being told that I’m living in ‘an unrealistic bubble’ and that I’m simply not dealing with reality, here’s a look at a positive perspective in relation to how we might be able to play the 2020 College Football season.
It’s not over yet, Clemson football fans
Many fans across the nation believe the writing is on the wall currently because the Big Ten and Pac-12 decided to move to conference-only schedules. The ACC, SEC and Big 12 are expected to make a similar decision, as well.
While it’s certainly disappointing that we won’t see some great out-of-conference games like Ohio State-Oregon, I didn’t take this as bad news.
Instead, I took it as what it is: A plan.
For the longest time, we didn’t have any kind of plan as to how the season could be played. These conferences took the lead- albeit maybe a little too early- and are now putting themselves in position to play a season with unified policies and procedures with one another. Is it ideal? No. Does it make complete sense? No.
But here’s what a conference-only season does:
It allows the conferences to develop protocol that will be followed by all of its member institutions. In addition, it also allows for the greatest flexibility.
We don’t have to start the first week of September for a season to be played this fall. We don’t even have to start by the first week of October. When you’re playing a conference-only schedule, it allows great flexibility to push back the start of the season and to make up games on the back-end if a few were postponed over the course of the year.
There’s a general distrust among Power-5 conferences that really can be felt all the way back to conference realignment and this is the way that they feel the safest in playing their regular season.
Now, a few more positive thoughts.
While we all want football by Labor Day weekend, there’s also a greater flexibility that comes with being able to move the games back, even if it’s just a few weeks.
Remember three weeks ago when everyone seemed much more optimistic that a season was going to happen and the main question was how many fans were going to be allowed? Who’s to say we can’t have a big turnaround yet again within the next few weeks- or the next couple of months even- in terms of numbers?
College Football has time back on its side because it doesn’t have to start the first week of September. It has the luxury of waiting and seeing how treatments and numbers progress- and that’s a good thing, despite what many will say.
That’s not to say that officials will or should sit on their hands and wait. They’re going to be heavily involved in making decisions and actively monitoring the situation as we progress closer to the fall.
Speaking of waiting, there’s one more positive sign. Well, hopeful sign: Team sports are returning. If you want to see College Football return, then you have to see leagues like MLB, the NBA and even the NFL have success and do it first (after all, CFB players are amateurs and not professionals). If those leagues shut down or can’t get it done, it’s not going to happen for CFB. The good news, however, is that everything seems to be progressing in the right direction as we await the return of those professional sports.
If you believe the season is going to be canceled, you may be right and that’s fine. But currently there’s still reason to hold out hope that we we will see Clemson football take the field at some point this fall.