One of the top coaches in college football thinks the season can be moved to the spring without much trouble if the COVID-19 pandemic makes it impossible to play in the fall.
Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley said that if the situation surrounding the pandemic doesn’t improve in the weeks ahead, delaying the 2020 football season until the spring of 2021 would work.
“To me, this becomes, ‘Do you think [playing in the spring] is doable?’ and I personally do,” Riley said, via OUDaily.com. “I do believe you can adjust your schedule. You’d have to adjust your schedule to give players plenty of time off to get their bodies back. . . . But I think the people who say it’s not doable, in my opinion, just don’t want to think about it. I just think it would be unwise to take any potential option off the table right now, and I think it would be very difficult to say that the spring’s not a potential option. I, for one, think it’s very doable.”
The NFL wants to keep its season on schedule and also keep next year’s offseason on schedule, including keeping the draft in April even if college football season is played in the spring and hasn’t ended yet. But so much can change in the months ahead that every option is on the table. Including the option of making college football a spring sport for the first time in its 150-year history.