The NCAA released a comprehensive COVID-19 testing guidelines and after reading the rules they have set up in place I cannot envision college football happening.
The recommendations from the NCAA include self-health checks, using a mask and obeying social distancing guidelines while training. The wild thing is they will be subject to take a test within 72 hours of a game. Here are some other rules:
Football players will be subject to a PCR test within 72 hours of competition. If a PCR test can’t be performed within that window, games should be postponed, canceled or an alternate method of testing will be developed and agreed upon. Any player who tests positive for the coronavirus will be forced to isolate for 10 days and only allowed to return to action after at least three days without symptoms. Players who are found to have been in “high-risk” contact with others who have tested positive will have to quarantine for 14 days. High-risk contact is defined as being within six feet of an infected person for more than 15 minutes in which one or more individuals are not wearing masks.
Here is the problem, 72 hours will kill football alone. That is too long in between games. In a perfect world it would 24 hours, but that would require each college facility to have the testing capabilities on campus. That is not likely.
I was recently tested for COVID-19 and it took 4 days to get my results back. They will need to have either their own labs, or they will need to figure out a way to test them faster. It they cannot do this, I cannot see how football is kicked off.
