College football had stops, starts and cancellations; prep teams have a small chance
The scorecard for those playing football in Northern California is thin and lonely, scattered with chaos.
This sport can be unsettled enough without strange factors hovering about.
At the college level, Cal managed four games amid a trying stop-and-start season, undone by tighter COVID-19 health restrictions in California than other parts of the Pac-12 Conference. The Bears’ lone win was over Oregon, which won the Pac-12 championship game. Stanford managed to play six games.
San Jose State uprooted from its Santa Clara County base and became the “Traveling Nomads” in an effort to stay a step ahead. The Spartans have resided in Nevada since Dec. 5. The last home game was Nov. 14. Entering Saturday’s Mountain West Conference championship game against Boise State, the Spartans were 6-0, their best showing since 1939.
The 49ers are now identified as the 49ers of Santa Clara by way of Arizona. They will finish out their trying season in the Phoenix area, meaning the last four games were out of state, due to those COVID-19 restrictions.
Sacramento State opted out of a spring schedule to prepare full bore for fall of 2021. UC Davis hopes to have a six-game spring schedule like the rest of the Big Sky Conference, but is at the mercy of those COVID-19 numbers.
Regional community college programs pulled the plug this week on football and other fall sports, officially stalling out the last remnants of a 2020 season for American River College, Sacramento City, Sierra College and Yuba College. Football coaches from those schools wanted a chance to give it a go, reminding that they have wide-open spaces to condition and train. They were not granted those opportunities.
The school presidents voted to opt out, concerned the coronavirus pandemic could roar through their programs and schools.
“It’s brutal,” Sierra coach Ben Noonan said. “Before I went on a Zoom meetings (to inform players), I wiped away tears.”
Largest crowd waiting for sports: high schools
The largest football crowd on the outside wondering if it’ll ever get in this academic year is the high school lot.
Some 500 programs have been on hold since summer. Schools from Santa Cruz County to the Oregon and Nevada borders are seeing red while stuck in purple. Red is the shared frustration of student-athletes, coaches and parents from the lack of state health guidelines, and then not pleased with them when finally released.
In short, if counties don’t get out of the most restrictive purple tier that is reflective of positive tests and COVID-19 surges, then game over on the gridiron front. A county would have to drop down two levels to have a chance to play football games in the spring.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has become a target of angst. He reminded this week in talking to reporters that for prep football to drop into the allowable orange tier, or basketball into the yellow tier — “The virus will make that determination.” He added: “We’re just trying to do our best to encourage physical activity, address obvious issues of mental and brain health and get kids safely resuming based upon differentiation of risk.”
The governing body California Interscholastic Federation and its 10 sections are advocating for games and seasons. Any notion that the CIF is not behind this effort, and we hear it weekly from all over, is misguided and flat wrong. The CIF, and any of its 1,600-member schools dotted across the state, are all about kids and engagement.
But no one tied to the CIF is going to defiantly ignore county health suggestions or mandates. The CIF could tell everyone to grab football gear and start up full practices next week, but a school superintendent, a principal, and — most likely — county health officials would nix that in an instant.
So regularly test players, coaches and staffers, right? Well, no. It’s not that simple. It’s easier to test in the NFL with 32 teams, or college football where there are hundreds of teams, and where finances are not an issue. In California alone, there are 1,600 schools, and even more if considering freshman and junior varsity programs. And tests would have to produce results in minutes, not days, to be of any use.
Best-case scenario for football is March, April
On Monday, the California Department of Public Health posted updated youth sports guidelines, which includes high schools. No prep games of any sort will be allowed in the state until at least Jan. 25.
At best, football would likely have to be played out in the spring. The CIF and its section leaders have been in regular contact to brainstorm. They want to continue to work with public health, with Will DeBoard of the Sac-Joaquin Section office reminding things will have to “improve dramatically” to have any sort of normal prep sports seasons.
The CIF will not allow football to be played past April 16, tied to the CIF’s medical advisory committee with summer/fall football too short of a turnaround. OK. So work with that. Area coaches and players are ready to roll up sleeves to their necks to get games in. There may only be five games, but that’s something. There may only be one playoff game, but it’s something.
“Right now,” Oak Ridge quarterback Justin Lamson said, “we’d take anything. Even a scrimmage. (Students having) no sports have taken a toll on kids everywhere, for sure. We need something, anything.”
Cal’s end, Sac State and UCD views
This is how 2020 it was for Cal: The Bears announced just three positive tests the entire football season. But their opener against Washington was canceled and so was their season finale at Washington State, en route to the stadium in six buses, double the normal travel party to try and get as much social distancing possible.
One Cal player tested positive and the game was off, two hours before kickoff. Still, Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton said the season was worth it. He told the New York Times of how the Bears handled the news, “Our entire football team, offense versus defense, is in this snowball fight, and they are having the best time. And I thought, we just gave them heartbreaking news a half an hour ago. It just shows the resiliency of kids, the camaraderie that sports brings to teams, and all the second- and third-order effects.”
In Davis, UCD coach Dan Hawkins reflected the big picture. He misses this sport. His payers as well.
“I know this may seem a little bit trite, and I wasn’t in Vietnam, but I knew a lot of people who went on planes to fight in the Vietnam War, and they either didn’t come back or they came back a changed person,” Hawkins said. “The Great Depression lasted years (in the 1930s), and we got past it as a country. The Spanish Flu in 1918, we got past it.
“People have endured things before. It doesn’t make it fun. It puts things into context. So what can we all do? Control what we can control. We can wish and want and could’ve and should’ve, but that gets you nowhere. What can I do? I can get up, study, eat right, get a workout in, call my parents.”
Sac State coach Troy Taylor is without a fall season for the first time since he was a little boy in the 1970s. He’s also a big-picture thinker and talker.
”If not playing football (this academic year) is the worst thing any of us will go through,” he said, “then we’ve had a good life. Yes, it’s disappointing but football is coming.”
This story was originally published December 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.