So no college football this fall? Now that the Big Ten has reportedly decided to cancel its fall football season, that possibility is looking more likely.

According to a report by The Detroit Free Press, 12 of 14 presidents of Big Ten institutions “were in agreement Sunday to end fall sports in the conference.” The story says an official decision is expected to be announced Tuesday.

An article published Sunday night by AL.com’s John Talty said the SEC “prefers to take a wait-and-see approach” and states the thinking in postponing the season opener until Sept. 26 was to see how well pro sports leagues like MLB and the NBA were able to navigate games during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I think it’s safe to say the 2020 college football season is up in the air at this point. I’ve believed for the longest time the money lost by not having a season would be far too great for powerbrokers to cancel the season when we already lost March Madness in the spring. So why cancel when, for example, the PGA Tour and NASCAR have been back for a while with no major problems, the NBA is showing that the bubble concept might just work and even MLB is still playing games despite COVID-19 outbreaks among two of its teams?

Two reasons, I believe. Firstly, I think college presidents are scared to death of potential liability issues if a student-athlete or team staff members get sick during the course of a season and either become severely ill or even die from COVID-19. Just one such instance would not only create a massive public outcry, but the NCAA announced Aug. 5 “member schools may not require student-athletes to waive their legal rights regarding COVID-19 as a conditioning of athletics participation.”

The other reason, and one that generated far more discussion on social media Sunday, was outlined by The Athletic’s Andy Staples on Twitter. Quoting a thread where Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence outlined the risks of not playing college football — sending them home to family situations where the coronavirus is more likely to spread, as well as some players going home to generally unsafe home conditions — Staples said the following: “If the school would just drop the charade and cut some checks, they could bubble them and play. But they won’t do that.”

What is the “charade” to which he’s referring? Well, you know how one of our favorite things to do as college football fans is to accuse all of the other teams of having boosters pay players under the table while insisting our own team is completely innocent of this? I would argue few college football fans believe the sport to be anything more than amateurism-in-name-only. The problem is, since schools are insisting they are amateurs — and thus, regular members of the student body who happen to play a sport for their schools — that means they must be part of the general student population when that population returns to campuses this fall. 

If you bubble these student-athletes, you are admitting they aren’t just “regular students,” but key pieces in the athletic system that generates millions of dollars for their schools’ athletic departments. In other words, they’re not simply amateurs, and you should probably give them a cut of these millions. The school presidents don’t want that, so they’d rather take a short-term financial hit than open up the possibility of paying players. 

But not having a season would be disastrous not just for the reasons Trevor Lawrence outlined, but for others as well. Athletic departments would have to furlough even more employees than they have already. College towns that depend on football to bolster their economies would take a significant financial hit. You don’t play football, each school’s biggest money-maker, and it’s not a stretch to say some athletic departments may not survive the fallout.

It may seem like I’m using the threat of a canceled college football season to push for paying football players, but I believe schools should be doing that anyway because they generate insane amounts of money and don’t get a piece of the pie. But if dropping the charade, as Staples put it, saves the season and prevents the awful consequences of doing so, why not go ahead and do it? Early indications with the NBA are that a bubble works in terms of safely playing a sport during a pandemic, and a future where college athletes are compensated beyond their athletic scholarship is going to happen sooner or later anyway. By just accepting it now you can realistically have something that brings so many people joy in a time when joy is desperately needed.

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.