ARLINGTON, Texas — This time a year ago, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby didn’t even have the opportunity to give a state-of-the-conference address, with the cancellation of Big 12 Media Days.
At that point in mid-July 2020, not many were confident there was even going to be a college football season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with health concerns at an all-time high, not only with the virus, but long-term complications that came with it.
However, the Big 12, along with the ACC, led the way through August to try to ensure a college football season happened, establishing strict COVID-19 protocols with testing and monitoring, as well as contact-tracing.
The end result was nearly a full season, with a few hiccups along the way, but when compared to other Power 5 conferences like the Big Ten and Pac-12, the Big 12 appeared to be one of the more innovative in the nation.
Now, Big 12 Media Days, ahead of the 2021 season, kicked off Wednesday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and Bowlsby addressed several important changes to the national college football landscape, but led off with how the conference could handle COVID-19 this season.
With many restrictions lifted and a highly distributed vaccine available, Bowlsby doesn’t believe protocols will be as strict as they were a year ago, but they are not going away anytime soon.
“With the Delta variant, there are good reasons that we need to continue to be vigilant, and we will be,” Bowlsby said. “There’s still going to be a fair amount of testing. We had a lot of surprises and disappointments during the last year, but ultimately, I think self-discipline became the coin of the realm.”
The N.C. State baseball team was forced to forfeit during the College World Series last month due to a COVID outbreak, and it was later announced much of the team was not vaccinated.
Indirectly, Bowlsby does not want a repeat situation during football season, and it could come down to personal responsibility.
Frankly, I’m kind of exhausted. I wasn’t excited about revisiting protocols for this fall, and yet, I think if you’re honest with one’s self, you have to look at this and say, ‘Yeah, we wish we were done with it,’ but we’re probably not quite done with it,” Bowlsby said.
“We are certainly, as we go forward, encouraging student-athletes to get vaccinated, and in doing that, minimize the impact that the Delta variant will have on our activities. Frankly, anyone not getting vaccinated is taking unnecessary and unwarranted risks and that’s not just student-athletes. That’s anybody in our society. I think the Delta variant may, indeed, be a blessing for us because it punctuates the fact that we’re not done with this yet.”
Bowlsby said specific protocols have not been established, and many of the school’s athletic directors will meet to come up with specifics, but later said un-vaccinated athletes will likely be tested frequently.
WVU head coach Neal Brown believes receiving the vaccine is an “individual decision,” but has tried to educate his players on it this off-season.
The Mountaineers lost two nonconference games in 2020 — Florida State and Maryland — with the decision by the Big 12 to only play one game out of the league.
In November, the Oklahoma game in Morgantown was postponed because of COVID issues with the Sooners. The postponed game was ultimately canceled two weeks later because of virus problems at WVU.
“I talk just from an educational standpoint, I’m not a medical expert,” Brown said Wednesday. “We bring our medical team in front. I think our team has been well-versed. It’s an individual decision. I can speak from personal experience. I’ve been vaccinated. My wife was vaccinated, 13-year-old daughter, my parents, my wife’s parents. So to share personal experience, but as far as advice, that comes from our medical community.”
TWEET @SeanManning_1
