There S Absolutely No Reason Whatsoever to Not Be Completely Transparent

That's where we are with the ACC, Big 12 and SEC hoping to College Football Live Cast play this season while the Big Ten and Pac-12 are evaluating a spring season in 2021. For now, pick a group of medical advisors for your version of the truth.For these conferences, it starts to look like a trial where each side brings its own group of expert witnesses to make their case.
In this case, the jury not only decides but holds these decisions up to scrutiny bordering on ridicule. (Just read some of the responses to Fields' petition.)The Pac-12 issued a 12-page document detailing the medical reasons that led to its decision not to play. So far, it is the only FBS conference to provide such an explanation. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby was pressed last week why his conference didn't explain the medical reasons why it is playing. He simply said playing is the "status quo."

There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to not be completely transparent with all that information," Mars said.Those liability waivers that players affiliated with the #WeAreUnited movement protested against just two weeks ago now seem like a necessity if the conferences that have canceled their seasons want to play.A group of Big Ten parents asked Mars last week for advice on how to get their sons back on the field.

The conference-only schedule eliminates big rivalry games like Clemson and South Carolina, Florida and Florida State, and Georgia and Georgia Tech. While the SEC, Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 are pushing forward, the Big Ten and Pac-12 are receiving pushback from players and parents for canceling its fall season.
How to Wath college football news, scores, stats, standings, and more from ... The state of college football leadership in 2020: Amid concerns of playing college football during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Southeastern Conference is pressing on and will announce its 2020 football schedule Monday on SEC Network.In July, the SEC established that its teams would play a 10-game conference-only schedule with Week 1 set to begin Sept. 26. The championship game is scheduled for Dec. 19 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Justin Fields, one of the Big Ten's most prominent players, is pleading for the conference to reverse its decision of postponing the season. The Ohio State quarterback and potential Heisman Trophy candidate created a #WeWantToPlay petition addressed to Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, the conference's university presidents and athletic directors. The petition, which Fields tweeted out on Sunday, had more than 200,000 signatures by Sunday night.

Parents of Iowa football players are also continuing their fight for fall football with a hand-delivered letter to the Big Ten offices in Chicago on Friday morning. It is now a nuclear-grade conflict of silliness, this debate over playing the 2020 college football season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Actually, calling it a "debate" is an insult to civility.
It is a battle of the science of two conferences (Big Ten Pac-12) versus the science of three (ACC, Big 12, SEC). It is parents from half the Big Ten schools demanding answers as to why their sons aren't playing in the face of what is still a raging pandemic.On Sunday, Heisman Trophy finalist Justin Fields took the battle to a new level. Ohio State's quarterback posted a petition calling on the Big Ten to "immediately reinstate the 2020 football season."
It had more than 121,000 signatures in the first four hours, and the number continues to climb.If it all wasn't so befuddling, it would be sad. Ask Jon Drezner, the University of Washington's team physician and a member of the Pac-12 medical advisory board. "We are in the middle of a pandemic, our country is one of the worst controlled on the planet," Drezner said. "We have more deaths than any country. We have cases surging all over the place. We haven't done what we needed to do to play fall sports.

"And that is really sad."The NCAA's top doctor late Saturday night said there's "no way to go forward" with fall sports without drastic improvement in testing nationwide.But it's not over, this battle. Not by a long shot. In fact, it's getting worse and more intense.An LSU infectious diseases expert seemed to call out the decisions by the Big Ten and Pac-12 as part of a Q&A with The Athletic."I would say we have seen enough to develop a safe plan. They have not," Dr. Catherine O'Neal said.

Never mind that COVID-19 has been raging in the United States basically since March. That's not enough time for most to date a future spouse, much less evaluate the second-worst pandemic in the nation's history. The most deadly occurred a century ago, the infamous Spanish Flu that killed at least 50 million worldwide. "Not to disparage Dr. Neal at all, but if she had opined it wasn't safe to play college football this fall, I'm not sure she'd be representing the SEC much longer," said Tom Mars, a prominent Arkansas-based attorney who has battled the NCAA on eligibility issues.
Mars drew up an "action plan" that started with the parents/players asking the NCAA to rescind its ban on waivers, the one requested by players in the first place. That means those players and parents would sign away the right to sue their respective schools if the players caught COVID-19.Specifically, Mars wrote, the parties would sign a document that "extinguishes liability for negligence" and "requires [a] player to knowingly assume risks of infection."