I can't say I ever expected to spend Easter weekend quarantined amidst a global pandemic, but sometime's life's just an adventure. Let's have a delightful weekend regardless.
Song of the Day: "Here and Now" by United Pursuit.
Word of the Day: Lavation.
PLEASE. My official stance on the fate of the college football season is that nobody actually knows anything, so there's no point in listening to anybody's opinion.
HOWEVER!
Speaking to people in and around college football this week, there is strong conviction there will be college football this season. Uncertainty about when - multiple scenarios being debated - but they sound certain there still will be college football this season.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 9, 2020
I'm never had reason to doubt Schefty, and I ain't about to start now.
Personally, that's all I needed to hear. I don't care when it's played, I don't care where it's played, and I don't care how many people are in the stands. I just want college football in some capacity. If there's confident – even certainty – that I will get that, I am a happy Kevin.
EMPTY STADIUMS ANYWAY? If sports are able to return to our lives in the near future, the next question is whether they'll happen in front of spectators. But apparently, some of those spectators may not be keen to show up even if they are allowed.
While sports commissioners, governments and medical experts debate when to reopen sports leagues, a huge majority of Americans including a substantial majority of sports fans are prepared to stay home until the development of a vaccine for Coronavirus.
Asked what they would do if the leagues resumed play before the development of a vaccine, 72 percent of Americans said they would not attend games, with 12 percent saying they would if social distancing could be maintained. Only 13 percent said they would feel safe attending as in the past. Among sports fans the number drops to a still significant 61 percent.
That's undeniably interesting, but here's the thing – I'm no math genius, but I'm fairly certain that still leaves more than enough people to fill every stadium in the United States with like, tens of millions of people to spare, so I'm not sure this really matters all that much. It's not like everyone surveyed here was absolutely going to go to a game anyway.
I'm sure they'll be some sort of attendance dropoff – there's been an attendance dropoff for half a decade when we weren't recovering from a global pandemic and financial crisis – but let's not get carried away. If it's deemed safe to have fans spectating, there will be plenty of spectators.
PORTAL 2. Ryan Day's recruiting dominance is well documented, but I feel like we haven't talked enough about how he's also been owning the transfer portal as well.
In two years, he's gone to the portal and landed the top-ranked quarterback in program history, a starting interior lineman who's now one of the top guards in the NFL Draft, and now the top available transfer at a position of dire need.
Previous school: Oklahoma
Status: Graduate
Impact rating: 6Sermon's arrival could be huge for Ohio State, which has talented young running backs in its pipeline but lacks experience other than Master Teague (135 carries, 789 rush yards in 2019). Although Sermon wasn't Oklahoma's featured back for most of his career, he had 1,691 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns in 2017 and 2018 before an injury-shortened season last fall. He and Teague could form a strong tandem alongside Justin Fields in the Buckeyes' backfield.
The jury is admittedly still a little out on Sermon, but he's going to be the starter (despite the presumably inebriated commenter blindly insisting he'll be no higher than fourth(!!!) on the depth chart). So at the very least, Day's landed three plug-and-play starters in two seasons. Not bad.
There's a fine line between landing transfers to help your team and bringing in transfers to the point that it hurts your recruiting out of high school, and Day seems to be walking that line perfectly.
ONE-TIME TRANSFER IMMINENT. Speaking of transfers, it's looking like a one-time transfer rule change is coming extremely soon.
SOURCES: The @NCAA Division I Council will discuss the implementation of a one-time transfer waiver on April 24. The Council will not vote on it that day, but a vote IS expected to take place on May 20. Told the measure is expected to pass and would immediately apply. Stay tuned.
— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogers) April 10, 2020
I was not expecting the rule to immediately apply, but I'm all for it. If this is going to be the longest offseason of all time, we may as well spice it up a bit however we can.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. Giant Asian hornets that can ‘kill with a single sting’ are beginning to invade the United States... Alabama authorities urge people to ignore a KKK-era anti-masking law... My name-twin was arrested for robbery and everyone thought it was me... A prisoner snapped his cellmate’s ribs and nose over a foul-smelling fart... A top German doctor recommends whiskey to protect against COVID-19... Zoom has gone from a conferencing app to the pandemics social network.
