5/7/2020 football Edit

5 Things We Learned From Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes

Brenden Slaughter • BeaversEdge

Publisher

With Oregon Governor Kate Brown announcing on Thursday that sporting events in the state will have to be canceled or modified in the wake of not having a vaccine for COVID-19, Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes met with the local media via zoom to discuss the next steps for the Beavers.

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1. Not playing football isn't an option, but modifications are

With Oregon Governor Kate Brown announcing via a press conference on Thursday that all live events that include audiences in the state would be canceled or need modification through the end of September, the exact start of the college football season for Oregon State and how it would look is very much in question.

Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes took to zoom to address some of those questions and he says that despite the continued regulations, not playing football isn't an option.

"The one scenario we aren't working on is not playing football. It's obviously an impact, but it's not a situation that we haven't been modeling for. We've been talking about so many different decisions during this time of uncertainty. Certainly, not playing football in Septemeber is going to have a huge impact."

2. No sports programs are slated to be cut in the wake of the COVID-19 revenue loss

In terms of good news that Barnes was able to deliver, despite the massive financial fallout looming in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, OSU is not expecting or modeling scenarios where the school has to cut athletic programs.

"That's a fair question, but at this point, we have every potential option on the table except that. We do not have cutting a sport as an option. In our modeling, we're going to have to make some deep cuts and tough decisions across the board in our athletic enterprise as everyone is. In the models we've developed, those don't include dropping a sport."

3. Barnes says there will be unity between the Power-Five Conferences

While there's been a fair number of college football coaches and athletic directors, mainly from the SEC Conference, that have said that they'll start the season on time regardless of what's going on nationally, Barnes says that having that sort of competitive imbalance won't happen.

He noted that because the commissioners from the varying conferences are meeting daily and discussing national coordination, he's not worried about the notion of other schools starting their seasons on time while others don't.

"I'm not worried because college sports is a national enterprise and the A-5 commissioners are meeting daily. We can't move forward with a national football schedule without alignment and coordination. The continued communication between the commissioners leads me to believe that the competition aspect, even the training camp aspect from the competitive equity standpoint needs to be nationally coordinated."

4. There's still fluidity amidst the Governors decision

While Governor Brown's declaration that there won't be live events that involve fans including sports until at least the end of Septemeber, that directly impacts the Oregon State football team that is supposed to have three home games in that span, including the conference opener against Washington State.

"We need to extract and process more information from today's announcement, but all options are on the table and we're in constant communication with the governors' office. We're to the point of modeling what a reduced capacity would look like. Let's say we started with a reduced capacity, what would that look like sanitization wise and physical distancing. We're dealing with those scenarios to be as prepared as we can when the time comes."

5. Opening up self-guided facilities is a priority

With things beginning to open slowly in the state of Oregon, Barnes noted that opening up the team training facilities under a heavily-controlled environment is going to be one of his biggest priorities. Above all else, the Beavers have placed a high emphasis on making sure that the athletes are 100 percent ready to go physically to start the season and that's where things could get more complicated as far as a timeline goes.

"I'd rather put my student-athletes in a controlled environment controlled by us rather than have them at a local fitness center where it's not controlled. You have to separate the notion from opening voluntary self-directed workouts with a trainer to having a full-on training camp environment and playing. Those are the high-level equity scenarios that need coordination."