Joe Kinsey
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As it stands right now, the ACC will play a college football season starting September 12 and Dabo Swinney knows the season hinges on people — not just the athletes — putting in the work to make sure things go smoothly in the fall. In an interview Monday on the Packer and Durham Show on ACC Network, Dabo outlined what it’s going to take to pull this off. Dabo’s telling those who want football to do the right thing or this isn’t going to work.
“Yeah, there’s no question and that’s what we’ve tried to do with our team because the students are back — we’ve got a lot of people, the dorms are closed, but we’ve got students all over Clemson because we have off-campus housing, we’ve got apartments, so we’ve had students back for a while,” Swinney said. “But it’s something that I really have been challenging our team with is — listen — I’m thankful that the students are coming back and all of that, and same thing. Had they all had their own risks and stuff that they take, I certainly support that (they came back), but everyone has to be smart because the virus is a very real thing and it will spread. We know that, but we also know how to live in exposure. We’ve learned a lot, how to mitigate classrooms and all those types of things.
“But it still comes down to everyone’s personal responsibility to protect themselves and to protect other people. So I think just everybody has to sacrifice. We’re going to get through this. This isn’t for the rest of our lives. We will get through this. But we need to get back to school, back to football and everything we can as safe as possible. So just having respect for the protocols and understanding what close contact is, and if you can’t have social distancing, making sure you have your mask on and protecting yourself and protecting others, keeping your hands clean. All those types of things are so critical. There will be people getting the virus. That stuff — people are foolish to think that the virus, somebody’s not going to get it. But having that plan in place, being transparent, being honest — I know the university has a great plan, whether it’s a quarantine dorm and how we go about all those sorts of things.
“But the biggest thing is just everyone being smart and not having big groups and not having all the close contact and all those types of things. If we can do that, we can get back safely and allow everyone to start getting some normalcy back in their life and get back to (normal). We have to live with this. We have to live through it. And eventually, we’re going to get over to the other side of it. So just really follow the protocols and be smart, as we challenged our team — listen, everyone has to sacrifice because we have a group that is tested and we’ve created as much a bubble as we can, if you use that word. But at the end of the day, they still have to make good decisions and keep their circle tight and avoid certain things and follow the protocols so we can have the opportunity to have a season.”
Trevor Lawrence and the Tigers start the year at home against Wake Forest and then has an open date for a game against a TBD opponent. Notre Dame just happens to have an open date in Week 2. You can go ahead and assume we’re getting Clemson-Notre Dame in Week 2. The last time these two teams played was 2015 in Clemson.
Clemson University has a COVID tracking website that states the campus has had seven positive tests over the last two weeks (thru August 13).
It brings up a great point, College sports not only have the coronabros to contend with, they have the mindset of the average 20 year old, which will more than likely ruin college football this year. 20 Year olds simply don’t have the executive function in their brains the way true adults do. There’s no question that every campus will have large outbreaks of Covid.
Personally, I would have all college courses taught online this fall, and have just the football teams on campus in a very sheltered living situation (no parties). The whiny coronabros of the world would obviously not like that situation, saying that it gives athletes special treatment, robs college football players of the college experience, blah blah blah.
But that’s where the Universities could simply put on their big boy/big girl pants and say you’re damn right they’re getting special treatment, that’s because their sport funds all the other sports we participate in, so for one year we can make the exception. And any players who don’t feel compelled to play can stay home at mom and dads and take computer classes.