By Jarra Gojolo — Senior Content Editor
The Spartans are back? Not quite.
After initially deciding in August to punt football season to the spring, the Mountain West voted yesterday to begin the season next month.
Each team will play eight games starting the week of Oct. 24, with a championship game scheduled for Dec. 19.
Athletes, coaches and others on the field will go through point of contact antigen testing three times a week provided by testing lab Quest Diagnostics
Rapid testing has been the “breakthrough” for other conferences that first chose to postpone the season, also being a key factor in the Big Ten and PAC-12 conferences returning to play in the fall.
“The health and well-being of our student-athletes continue to guide all decisions,” said SJSU president Mary Papazian, who is also chair of the MW Board of Directors.
“The availability of rapid testing addresses one of the main concerns that was expressed by our Board, the MW Health and Safety Advisory Committee, as well as by student-athletes and coaches … We will be ready to change course if necessary should new information come forth, or we feel an appropriate environment cannot be sustained on our campuses.”
Despite the vote to return, there’s still another hurdle for San Jose State football to clear before they’re a full go: Santa Clara County.
Prior to the PAC-12’s own late push to return to football, California state COVID-19 regulations only allowed for college sports to practice in “cohorts” of no more than 12 players at a time. Meaning 100+-man football teams were unable to conduct full practices.
Shortly after the “cohorts” issue was identified as a barricade to a return to play, California governor Gavin Newsom indicated that state laws didn’t prevent schools from holding practices.
And now the state is planning to expand cohort sizes in order to allow football teams to practice in full.
It would be up to individual counties to allow their respective college football teams to practice in full. Santa Clara County’s regulations completely restrict athletic activities “that involve physical contact or close physical proximity,” unless said activity is modified to the point athletes are six feet apart.
Stanford and SJSU each have to submit their own safety proposals to the county’s public health department for their approval. As of today only Stanford has done so, but the Spartans have indicated they will “once testing and return-to-play protocols are established.”
Santa Clara County’s approval of a return-to-play plan not only affects the Spartans, but the other 11 Mountain West teams as well (or 10, depending on which sport you’re looking at). If the conference is intent on salvaging as much of the fall football season as they can, they’ll need every team on board to do so.
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