Athletes Can Return to Campus Monday; FB Season Plans Taking Shape

I like the idea of conference-only games. Although the Arizona's have me worried, given the spiking COVID-19 rates there right now. I have deep concerns about the possibilities of outbreaks on individual teams, if not entire conferences. I hope our luck holds out.

Sebastabear said:

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Looks like Knowlton's "most likely best case scenario" of a 10 game season is going to come to pass. A bit of a shame as I would have loved that Vegas trip (and Wilcox's OOC record is pretty stellar) but I'll take what I can get. Plus picking up Arizona or Colorado - two of the potentially weakest teams in the conference - is definitely going to help our overall record compared to schools that were getting to miss the conference heavyweights. Oregon State and Washington State we're both going to miss USC, for example, but no more. Plus when we win it all we'll be able to claim the title as the only school to have "legitimately" won the Pac 12 without the noise of the OOC schedule detracting from the purity of our victory. I'll take it

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I would have preferred an eleven game schedule v. every other team in the conference. The ten game schedule means one additional road game (v. AZ or CU) instead of one roadie and one home game (one against AZ, the other v. CU). As Sebastabear noted, neither of them is expected to be very good this year.

71Bear said:

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Sebastabear said:

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Looks like Knowlton's "most likely best case scenario" of a 10 game season is going to come to pass. A bit of a shame as I would have loved that Vegas trip (and Wilcox's OOC record is pretty stellar) but I'll take what I can get. Plus picking up Arizona or Colorado - two of the potentially weakest teams in the conference - is definitely going to help our overall record compared to schools that were getting to miss the conference heavyweights. Oregon State and Washington State we're both going to miss USC, for example, but no more. Plus when we win it all we'll be able to claim the title as the only school to have "legitimately" won the Pac 12 without the noise of the OOC schedule detracting from the purity of our victory. I'll take it

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I would have preferred an eleven game schedule v. every other team in the conference. The ten game schedule means one additional road game (v. AZ or CU) instead of one roadie and one home game (one against AZ, the other v. CU). As Sebastabear noted, neither of them is expected to be very good this year.

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Yeah if the concern is that other conferences won't have the same testing protocols in place I'm not sure why dropping all of the OOC and going with an 11 game schedule wouldn't have made the most sense. But I'll focus on the upside here just in that it's looking increasingly likely we'll at least try to have a real season and we're one of the teams who were missing the lower tier tier opponents and will now get to add them to the slate.

I do however wonder what the economics of this plan will look like. Will the TV networks pay the conference 10/12 (5/6) of the contractual amounts? Or will it be the payout same based on the fact the content will be that much more valuable? Guessing that Cal Poly game wasn't going to be a big draw. Speaking of which, will we still be paying Cal Poly? If yes, where's that money coming from? If not, how can Cal Poly absorb that financial hit? I'm sure they were heavily planning on this game for their budget. Will we have to pay UNLV if we are cancelling on them?

Seems like there's a huge amount that would need to be worked out if we go down this route. Hope Cal is on the ball on this.

Sebastabear said:

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71Bear said:

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Sebastabear said:

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Looks like Knowlton's "most likely best case scenario" of a 10 game season is going to come to pass. A bit of a shame as I would have loved that Vegas trip (and Wilcox's OOC record is pretty stellar) but I'll take what I can get. Plus picking up Arizona or Colorado - two of the potentially weakest teams in the conference - is definitely going to help our overall record compared to schools that were getting to miss the conference heavyweights. Oregon State and Washington State we're both going to miss USC, for example, but no more. Plus when we win it all we'll be able to claim the title as the only school to have "legitimately" won the Pac 12 without the noise of the OOC schedule detracting from the purity of our victory. I'll take it

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I would have preferred an eleven game schedule v. every other team in the conference. The ten game schedule means one additional road game (v. AZ or CU) instead of one roadie and one home game (one against AZ, the other v. CU). As Sebastabear noted, neither of them is expected to be very good this year.

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Yeah if the concern is that other conferences won't have the same testing protocols in place I'm not sure why dropping all of the OOC and going with an 11 game schedule wouldn't have made the most sense. But I'll focus on the upside here just in that it's looking increasingly likely we'll at least try to have a real season and we're one of the teams who were missing the lower tier tier opponents and will now get to add them to the slate.

I do however wonder what the economics of this plan will look like. Will the TV networks pay the conference 10/12 (5/6) of the contractual amounts? Or will it be the payout same based on the fact the content will be that much more valuable? Guessing that Cal Poly game wasn't going to be a big draw. Speaking of which, will we still be paying Cal Poly? If yes, where's that money coming from? If not, how can Cal Poly absorb that financial hit? I'm sure they were heavily planning on this game for their budget. Will we have to pay UNLV if we are cancelling on them?

Seems like there's a huge amount that would need to be worked out if we go down this route. Hope Cal is on the ball on this.

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My guess is that all three OOC's would be postponed to a future year (even if that year happens to be many years from now). That won't help Cal Poly today but it does mean they will eventually receive their payment (who knows, maybe an advance today to offset the issue of "future value of money")...

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Some intriguing matchups would be scratched including Oregon-Ohio State, Washington-Michigan and Notre Dame's annual encounters with USC and Stanford.

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I'm skeptical that this will happen, especially the bolded part.

The other games mentioned there can be postponed or cancelled, no big deal. But USC-Notre Dame is much more important in the overall context of college football than, say, USC-Washington State. There's no health benefit for USC's team to play Wazzu instead of ND.

Sebastabear said:

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71Bear said:

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Sebastabear said:

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Looks like Knowlton's "most likely best case scenario" of a 10 game season is going to come to pass. A bit of a shame as I would have loved that Vegas trip (and Wilcox's OOC record is pretty stellar) but I'll take what I can get. Plus picking up Arizona or Colorado - two of the potentially weakest teams in the conference - is definitely going to help our overall record compared to schools that were getting to miss the conference heavyweights. Oregon State and Washington State we're both going to miss USC, for example, but no more. Plus when we win it all we'll be able to claim the title as the only school to have "legitimately" won the Pac 12 without the noise of the OOC schedule detracting from the purity of our victory. I'll take it

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I would have preferred an eleven game schedule v. every other team in the conference. The ten game schedule means one additional road game (v. AZ or CU) instead of one roadie and one home game (one against AZ, the other v. CU). As Sebastabear noted, neither of them is expected to be very good this year.

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Yeah if the concern is that other conferences won't have the same testing protocols in place I'm not sure why dropping all of the OOC and going with an 11 game schedule wouldn't have made the most sense. But I'll focus on the upside here just in that it's looking increasingly likely we'll at least try to have a real season and we're one of the teams who were missing the lower tier tier opponents and will now get to add them to the slate.

I do however wonder what the economics of this plan will look like. Will the TV networks pay the conference 10/12 (5/6) of the contractual amounts? Or will it be the payout same based on the fact the content will be that much more valuable? Guessing that Cal Poly game wasn't going to be a big draw. Speaking of which, will we still be paying Cal Poly? If yes, where's that money coming from? If not, how can Cal Poly absorb that financial hit? I'm sure they were heavily planning on this game for their budget. Will we have to pay UNLV if we are cancelling on them?

Seems like there's a huge amount that would need to be worked out if we go down this route. Hope Cal is on the ball on this.

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As regards the issue of payouts for TV rights for fewer games one can make the argument that each of the 10 games become much more important: 1. Each game counts for the championship 2. There are no cream puffs 3. The games against Cal Poly and UNLV were expected to be "nothing" games because of the records of those two teams. 4. PAC-12 fans are expected to be glued to their TVs since in person attendance will be nonexistent or strictly limited.

As regards the question of paying the Cal Poly and UNLV, there may be a force majeure clause in the contract which might be triggered by the PAC-12's requirement that no OOC games can be played. The decision to cancel the OOC game Would be triggered by the PAC-12 not by Cal.

I like the idea of conference only games. It should allow for more control and agreement across venues (safety first).

But can someone explain why it will be 10 and not all 11 conference opponents? Is it to allow for a bye week (or two)? I think i'm indifferent about 10 or 11 I'm just curious as to the why?

I feel that expectations on the season may need to be tempered. The loss of Spring practice to acclimate to a new offense and offensive coordinator could be severe. There are many variables one of which could be that the presumptive starter at QB does not adapt well to the new offense or another QB (less experience) emerges as the best fit for the offense. So, it could come to pass that the offense doesn't start to "click" till mid way or 3/4 into the season. I feel that any teams with new offensive coordinators, new QB's or even returning QB's (new system) will be behind schedule.

The only play in conference and 10 games will have negative consequences for Cal and the conference:

1) Assuming there is a post season, less teams in bowls unless the six game win rule is dropped.

2) No games against other conferences provides very limited national TV opportunities.

3) With just Oregon with a decent pre-season rating it is unlikely that the conference winner (I'm assume there is a championship game) gets to play in any playoffs. There will be 10, 11 and 12 game teams that played tough out of conference games that will get priority. Query if the Pac champion even gets to a major bowl? Certainly if no championship game, the conference is just screwed

4) This only exacerbates the trend of top west coast players leaving for other conferences, especially the SEC. At least we are having a season.

Guess we should be thankful for that Pac 12 football is even playing. If this is bluff to get other P5 to us safety rules that the Pac wants to impose, it is not well thought out. They would just as soon monopolize the conversation on football rankings and post-season.

I think this is an interesting point...say Kedon Slovis tests positive the week before USC-Cal game? This is a major unknown for any team, even up until the day of games. This year will be a crap-shoot to keep a full team on the field as I would imagine no team will test completely negative the entire season.

sandiegobears said:

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I think this is an interesting point...say Kedon Slovis tests positive the week before USC-Cal game? This is a major unknown for any team, even up until the day of games. This year will be a crap-shoot to keep a full team on the field as I would imagine no team will test completely negative the entire season.

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good point. The teams that can deal with adversity and uncertainty will do the best. The good news for Cal is they probably are the most experienced team in the conference.

"There is no football season!"

Sebastabear said:

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71Bear said:

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Sebastabear said:

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Looks like Knowlton's "most likely best case scenario" of a 10 game season is going to come to pass. A bit of a shame as I would have loved that Vegas trip (and Wilcox's OOC record is pretty stellar) but I'll take what I can get. Plus picking up Arizona or Colorado - two of the potentially weakest teams in the conference - is definitely going to help our overall record compared to schools that were getting to miss the conference heavyweights. Oregon State and Washington State we're both going to miss USC, for example, but no more. Plus when we win it all we'll be able to claim the title as the only school to have "legitimately" won the Pac 12 without the noise of the OOC schedule detracting from the purity of our victory. I'll take it

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I would have preferred an eleven game schedule v. every other team in the conference. The ten game schedule means one additional road game (v. AZ or CU) instead of one roadie and one home game (one against AZ, the other v. CU). As Sebastabear noted, neither of them is expected to be very good this year.

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Yeah if the concern is that other conferences won't have the same testing protocols in place I'm not sure why dropping all of the OOC and going with an 11 game schedule wouldn't have made the most sense. But I'll focus on the upside here just in that it's looking increasingly likely we'll at least try to have a real season and we're one of the teams who were missing the lower tier tier opponents and will now get to add them to the slate.

I do however wonder what the economics of this plan will look like. Will the TV networks pay the conference 10/12 (5/6) of the contractual amounts? Or will it be the payout same based on the fact the content will be that much more valuable? Guessing that Cal Poly game wasn't going to be a big draw. Speaking of which, will we still be paying Cal Poly? If yes, where's that money coming from? If not, how can Cal Poly absorb that financial hit? I'm sure they were heavily planning on this game for their budget. Will we have to pay UNLV if we are cancelling on them?

Seems like there's a huge amount that would need to be worked out if we go down this route. Hope Cal is on the ball on this.

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I would imagine that the Pac 12 network would be the networks that gets fewer games, and the other TV contracts would try to be made whole. So if there is a reduction in revenue I assume that the conference will hit the Pac 12 network.

wifeisafurd said:

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The only play in conference and 10 games will have negative consequences for Cal and the conference:

1) Assuming there is a post season, less teams in bowls unless the six game win rule is dropped.

2) No games against other conferences provides very limited national TV opportunities.

3) With just Oregon with a decent pre-season rating it is unlikely that the conference winner (I'm assume there is a championship game) gets to play in any playoffs. There will be 10, 11 and 12 game teams that played tough out of conference games that will get priority. Query if the Pac champion even gets to a major bowl? Certainly if no championship game, the conference is just screwed

4) This only exacerbates the trend of top west coast players leaving for other conferences, especially the SEC. At least we are having a season.

Guess we should be thankful for that Pac 12 football is even playing. If this is bluff to get other P5 to us safety rules that the Pac wants to impose, it is not well thought out. They would just as soon monopolize the conversation on football rankings and post-season.

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I believe that the NCAA has already said that Bowl games minimum requirements would be adjusted to ensure that all bowls were filled. So not to worry there. The reduction in OOC action will be negative for sure, but also we will be one of the few possibilities that will be playing in the early fall to have games that matter. Washington or Oregon against USC in the first few weeks will be a big one, while Ohio State will have to switch to playing Eastern Michigan or someone like that. What may happen though is that teams eat each other up in conference schedule (which will be the toughest schedule in the country for the conference teams) and at the end of the season, while others are still playing we will not have the opportunity to rise in the ranks. So unless someone comes out of the conference with 0 or 1 loss, then we will certainly not get into the postseason.

On the other hand, no one from the Pac 12 will have an inexplicable loss to anyone else, so that does help. We continuously get beaten up by those who bring up Washington State losing to Down Town high, and then beating Utah - how can the Pac 12 be any good? Those will be gone.

The other thing is that it does make sense to get the season over before COVID kills the season in November. I mean, if Ohio State closes before they play Michigan, or if Saban is on a ventilator in November, then it will be interesting who made the right call.

I hope that when a player tests positive that he is given a second test. I've heard that false positives are common. If there are a lot of players that have to sit out games due to testing positive the season will be a real crap shoot.

dmh65 said:

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I hope that when a player tests positive that he is given a second test. I've heard that false positives are common. If there are a lot of players that have to sit out games due to testing positive the season will be a real crap shoot.

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Initially, the testing was prone to false positives. However, that is no longer the case. Current testing protocols have addressed the issues they were having.....

I want to see Cal football as much as anyone, but lets see if teams can make it through training camps without major infections.

Infections in California are still rising and the effects of the protests without much social distancing and everything opening up is sure to keep these numbers climbing.

dmh65 said:

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I hope that when a player tests positive that he is given a second test. I've heard that false positives are common. If there are a lot of players that have to sit out games due to testing positive the season will be a real crap shoot.

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I thought there was talk of doing aggregated tests across team units and then if those show a positive they would then test individuals in that group to confirm who and how many. Cuts down on the total number of tests and helps root out false positives/negatives.

CALiforniALUM said:

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I thought there was talk of doing aggregated tests across team units and then if those show a positive they would then test individuals in that group to confirm who and how many. Cuts down on the total number of tests and helps root out false positives/negatives.

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carp memory claims growls chatter was grid-starved wishful thinking, not from cal movers and shakers.

for those not venturing into the world of off topic, there is discussion that vaccines may be out in winter, which could be a game changer at least for post-season play. For example, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands now expect to be fully vaccinated by December, which seems optimistic, but you get the picture. Info on US is confidential so it is hard to know, but rumors abound that several vaccines are in Phase 2 or ready to start Phase 3.

wifeisafurd said:

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for those not venturing into the world of off topic, there is discussion that vaccines may be out in winter, which could be a game changer at least for post-season play. For example, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands now expect to be fully vaccinated by December, which seems optimistic, but you get the picture. Info on US is confidential so it is hard to know, but rumors abound that several vaccines are in Phase 2 or ready to start Phase 3.

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The status of US vaccines under development has been announced by several government health officials, a sign of the times (and our President) that we consider government briefings as 'rumors'.

sp4149 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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for those not venturing into the world of off topic, there is discussion that vaccines may be out in winter, which could be a game changer at least for post-season play. For example, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands now expect to be fully vaccinated by December, which seems optimistic, but you get the picture. Info on US is confidential so it is hard to know, but rumors abound that several vaccines are in Phase 2 or ready to start Phase 3.

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The status of US vaccines under development has been announced by several government health officials, a sign of the times (and our President) that we consider government briefings as 'rumors'.

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The US government lost all credibility during the Vietnam era. Since then, everything that comes out of Washington should be taken with a truckload of salt......

> The US government lost all credibility during the Vietnam era. Since then, everything that comes out of Washington should be taken with a truckload of salt......

preach, generational brother of mine. quibbling, a trail of tears goes back further. smh

sp4149 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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for those not venturing into the world of off topic, there is discussion that vaccines may be out in winter, which could be a game changer at least for post-season play. For example, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands now expect to be fully vaccinated by December, which seems optimistic, but you get the picture. Info on US is confidential so it is hard to know, but rumors abound that several vaccines are in Phase 2 or ready to start Phase 3.

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The status of US vaccines under development has been announced by several government health officials, a sign of the times (and our President) that we consider government briefings as 'rumors'.

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actually they don't announce these things specifically, since its considered propriatary. but you go on right ahead with your pronouncements.

And if there is a vaccine this winter, who wants to be among the Guinea pigs at the front of the line?

Cal_79 said:

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And if there is a vaccine this winter, who wants to be among the Guinea pigs at the front of the line?

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news organizations recently woke to the human trial topic. search for titles / keywords like "human challenge trials"

fearless young people for the greater good volunteering for, no kidding, deliberate infection.

a day or two ago pbs newshour did a 8 minute looksee (unskippable 30 sec promo up front)..
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/meet-people-volunteering-to-be-exposed-to-covid-19-for-vaccine-research

Alameda County released their updated shelter in place order yesterday. The summary mentions the following guidelines for college sports:

Quote:

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Colleges may resume non-contact training activities with strict physical distancing

Must be in stable groups of 12 or fewer

Participants limited to only one group/activity

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The county also has an updated reopening plan that shows the next step would be to permit "pro sports without fans"; I am not sure if it can be assumed that college or high school sports could be included.

EDIT TO ADD: The City of Berkeley also issued an updated shelter in place order with this part about college sports: "College sports teams as well as outdoor fitness classes can now hold non-contact practices or classes, respectively, in groups of 12 athletes or participants. One coach or instructor may also be present."