Trevor Lawrence and the #WeWantToPlay Movement
College Football is on life support as we head into what some may consider to be the most crucial week in the history of the sport, but there’s no doubt Trevor Lawrence is fighting as hard as he possibly can to save the 2020 season and make a new path for CFB in the future.
Trevor Lawrence, who enters his junior season already considered to be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming 2021 NFL Draft, has been the biggest proponent and the loudest voice in the room in an attempt to save College Football.
Following the release of schedules last week by several Power-5 conferences it seemed as if everything was going according to plan, but reports began swirling Saturday that the Big Ten conference presidents were now in majority favor of canceling the season and potentially looking at a spring start date.
Those sentiments continued to grow over the course of the weekend, culminating in a report from Yahoo Sports saying that College Football’s cancellation was “inevitable” and it was just a matter of “when, not if” at this point.
While the vast majority of insiders still expect the Big Ten to announce a decision to cancel the fall season at some point this week and then for the other Power-5 conferences to follow suit, there is a growing movement that has taken a new life of its own from thousands of players and coaches, as well as some politicians, to save the season: The #WeWantToPlay movement.
Trevor Lawrence gave the #WeWantToPlay movement legs
Trevor Lawrence began tweeting Saturday evening following the rumors circulating about the cancellation of College Football and it just continued to grow from there.
Let’s work together to create a situation where we can play the game that all of us love. Not divide and argue. There is a way forward
— Trevor Lawrence (@Trevorlawrencee) August 9, 2020
Players being safe and taking all of the right precautions to try to avoid contracting covid because the season/ teammates safety is on the line. Without the season, as we’ve seen already, people will not social distance or wear masks and take the proper precautions
— Trevor Lawrence (@Trevorlawrencee) August 9, 2020
As those tweets continued to unfold, what we saw was a mass movement from College Football players- from north to south, from east to west- all across the country tweeting in favor of playing a season.
The culmination? Trevor Lawrence and his close friend and teammate Darien Rencher released a graphic showing the unification of the #WeAreUnited and #WeWantToPlay groups and listed some valuable and doable talking points for getting the season played.
#WeWantToPlay pic.twitter.com/jvQhE7noGB
— Trevor Lawrence (@Trevorlawrencee) August 10, 2020
The graphic starts off by letting everyone know that the goal is to play this season.
This is a unified movement from players of all the Power-5 conferences and they want to establish universally mandated procedures and protocols to protect student-athletes against COVID-19, they want to have the ability to ‘opt in’ or ‘opt out’ and for everyone to respect their decision either way, and they want guaranteed eligibility for players whether they choose to play or not.
Lastly, and perhaps the biggest talking point for the future: They want to ultimately create a College Football Players Association to speak on behalf of the players in the future.
All of this may still not be enough for University Presidents who have already made their mind to even consider changing their decision, but there’s no doubt that Trevor Lawrence, alongside with other athletes across the country, are not done fighting for the sport they love and they believe it can be conducted safely.