The Pac-12 got this right.
It waited and watched before forging ahead with football and then basketball, straight into the risks and potential ravages of a pandemic. The conference’s presidents and chancellors decided on Thursday that they had enough information and capability to move forward with those two big-sport seasons with enough health technology to proceed responsibly and safely. And if they figured such a move now could be done without a severe liability burden, then there’s that, too.
It matters not one bit that the league followed the lead of the Big Ten.
Who cares who did what first and who did what second if the right decisions are made in both cases?
Nobody. Or at least nobody should.
Under further review has never before been more aptly applied.
Some people want to give the Pac-12 all kinds of grief for waiting until this week to proceed. And they want to give other leagues — the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12 — credit for their strength and courage and boldness in planning on playing weeks ago, not letting a little thing like the coronavirus get in the way of a big thing like college football.
What a load that is.
Those leagues' decisions were more callous and cavalier and careless, foolish even, as they powered on in an environment that was still too unstable to reasonably conquer.
It was unreasonable.
What has occurred since has changed that — namely, the thing to which the Pac-12 presidents pointed on Thursday as their game-changer: daily rapid-result testing.
And it is a game-changer. A mind-changer, too.
If athletes and coaches and staff can be tested every day, knowing their results in a matter of minutes, then taking the field, whether it’s for practice or for actual games, can be done without so much worry for spreading the virus. It’s not perfect. It may not be as airtight as a bubble scenario, like the NBA’s, but it’s the next best thing. Some have claimed daily testing is only marginally more effective than testing, say, every other day, but in this case marginal improvement is worthy of the effort. And rapid results are an absolute necessity.
The Big Ten figured all of this out a little ahead of the Pac-12, without some of the local-jurisdiction complexities and entanglements that a few Western states threw upon Pac-12 schools. But it got worked out, and now, those Pac-12 programs can coordinate their conditioning sessions and practices, going full throttle in preparation for the coming games, starting Nov. 6.
Allowing no fans in the stands is another prudent move.
Utah has an advantage over the California and Oregon schools because the Utes have been able to work out and practice on campus, at least in some measure, over the past month or two. While they are replacing a large number of talented players who have moved on to the NFL and other endeavors, they’ve benefited from their prep sessions.
Anybody who watched the BYU-Navy game, no matter how much better the Cougars were than the Midshipmen, could see the swinging sharp edge of proper preparation.
How much that helps the Utes is an unanswered question at this point, but … who really cares, one way or the other? Football will be played — and that’s a cool thing, as long as it can be done safely.
Another box the Pac-12 presidents checked was getting their shortened season in, including the league championship game, before the college football playoff committee will decide and reveal which four teams will be invited.
That lofty goal might be a bridge too far, given that the league has been left out of such invitations on numerous occasions in normal seasons on account of not having a candidate judged good enough to participate. For that to be altered this time around, a Pac-12 team will have to impressively dominate the rest of the league. Either way, in or out, the conference will gain its portion of the CFP payout and also get its shot at a New Year’s bowl game.
If the league had not played football this season, the only P5 league to sit it out, an already drooping reputation would have sagged further, hurting in recruiting, in success, in value. On the other hand, had daily rapid-result testing not been available, it would have been worth it for the Pac-12 to suffer those losses, those indignities to the benefit of everyone involved, and everyone who may have been adversely affected by the spread of COVID.
That technology, though, is available and the Pac-12 can go ahead and play ball — of both the spheroid- and the round-shaped varieties — before Jan. 1, 2021.
Even if local governments really did sit on the league, it’s better to have followed the cautious lead of the Big Ten than the jumpy lead of those other conferences, the ones who moved so eagerly, so quickly toward what everybody justifiably wanted, but what some leagues unjustifiably wanted too badly.
Good on the Pac-12.
GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 2-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.
