If you're a college football fan then you've probably already come to terms with the fact that things really aren't looking good for the upcoming season. After all, just a few days ago UConn announced that they won't be playing, making them the first FBS team to call things off due to the coronavirus. A few days later (see: Saturday/yesterday) the MAC announced that they'd be opting out, making them the first full conference to do so. And now it sounds like the Power 5 conferences are getting very close to following suit.
Hope for a fall resembling anything even close to normal is officially on life support.
With that all established (and things looking grim), Clemson QB and Heisman hopeful/probable No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence took his case straight to the people by logging on to Twitter to state that he (and presumably lots of other less well-known players) want to get on the field this season. His tweets came on Sunday, one day after he posted some messages with a similar theme:
Lawrence continued on this track by making a three-part argument in which he contended that players would be just as likely (and possibly even more so) to contract COVID if they were sent home for the fall. He also said that players that did catch the virus would be hit with expenses for medical care without a season, as opposed to a scenario in which schools would front the bill.
It should be noted that, on Friday, Lawrence spoke to ESPN after practice about his commitment to playing in 2020, as opposed to opting out.
“Everyone’s thought about it, but since I made the decision to play, I haven’t thought about it,” he said. “I’m committed. It’s my last year here … and I’m super pumped.”
In addition to laying out the above tweets, he also re-tweeted several others thinking similarly. Here's a sample of those:
Lawrence's calls to play were echoed by a number of other notable players, including at least one other serious Heisman contender:
Guess we'll see what (if anything) comes of this.
