Nobody knows for sure when college football will begin or how it may move forward. Not even Nick Saban, head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Making an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network on Wednesday, Saban expressed his optimistic hope that his players will be able to start making their way back to Alabama’s campus later this summer and the season can go on as scheduled. But Saban is also doing what many of us are doing and sitting and waiting for the green light to get back in a more familiar routine.
“I think everybody knows that quite a bit of the revenue that supports all the sports at any university comes from football,” Saban said during his interview with Finebaum, as transcribed by BamaOnLine. “But you also have to make sure it’s going to be safe to be able to do it. I really can’t make any predictions. I’m hopeful that sometime in the summer the players can come back here and we can get around the players and they can get back to school.”
But the question of what the college football scene will look like when the sport does inevitably return is one Saban is just as stumped on as everybody else right now.
“Are we going to have seats between fans,” Saban asked out loud. “Are we going to come up with a solution that allows people to go to games? Are we going to have to test people to get in stadiums? Are we going to have to play games with nobody?”
Saban is naturally hopeful the COVID-19 outbreak can be combated as quickly as possible, and not just so he can get back to coaching. Saban also expressed a hope that some form of treatment even without an actual vaccine being available could accelerate a return to normalcy.
“Hopefully, if people knew they could be treated for this and they wouldn’t be at risk of fatality, they may be more at ease with what’s happening,” Saban said. “Hopefully, maybe something like that happens and maybe that accelerates the process of us getting back to sports and being able to have all sports.”
Saban went on to suggest he would ideally like to have four weeks available for conditioning before opening any fall camp, a sentiment that has been shared by other coaches around college football, give or take a week depending on the situation.
Helmet sticker to BamaOnLine for the Saban quotes.
