College Football Is Putting Players In Danger With Electronic Whistles

If you’ve noticed an increase in ‘after the whistle’ hits, that’s because college football is now using electronic whistles. Even in empty stadiums, players are having a hard time hearing the new whistle and it’s causing problems. There should be no reason to place COVID fears over common sense on the field, but here we are.

Electronic whistles, sanitized footballs and, yes, masks: Inside college football's new look https://t.co/qHYhXzAQNn pic.twitter.com/7l2ImdAYx5

— ESPN 690 (@ESPN690Jax) September 4, 2020

College football wants to claim electronic whistles are there to protect athletes, while putting player safety on the line for not hearing them. How can you put any piece of technology into a sport as important as college football before troubleshooting effectiveness?

Sean and Todd agree with us pic.twitter.com/uDhhMZu7q5

— Jim Dunaway (@jimdunaway) September 19, 2020

The physicality of all levels of sports are growing by the second and can’t afford to make them more dangerous than they already are. Creating any avenue for unexpected or late hits is negligence at the highest level.

Their fear of spreading COVID is seemingly taking them off course for the progress they’ve made to increase player safety. If they were watching the game the same way we were, they would ditch the PR stunt of fake whistles and use common sense before doing something like this again.

ESPN’s broadcast spoke constantly about the whistles and were grilled on social media for it. Their broadcast was smart to put dangerous hits at the forefront of attention over COVID panic attacks.

We’re doing too much in general to try and make everyone okay with sports marching on, but that’s not possible. Football needs to remain as it was so we can keep as many players on the field as we can.