Will Carolina cancel games to save its football season?
UNC athletics director Bubba Cunningham speculated last week that the 11-game schedule might not turn out that long, if coronavirus gets in the way, either in Chapel Hill or road destinations.
The Tar Heels tested Monday after their fourth-quarter blowout of Syracuse, and Mack Brown will be on pins and needles awaiting those results sometime today. In this COVID-interrupted world, there is more to consider than your own execution off the field.
There is the other team. Syracuse didn’t have a separated bench configuration like Carolina’s. The Orange players not in the game congregated on the sideline cheering the action more than the Tar Heels did. And head coach Dino Babers wore his mask on his chin.
So you can do everything right with your team but still catch something from an infected opponent. That could come into play more seriously after a second home game Saturday against Charlotte and then an off weekend of September 26.
The Heels go on the road for the first time on October 3 to Boston College, which is trying to contain an outbreak on its campus that began with the Eagles’ swimming and diving team and then spread to more than 100 students who are all being quarantined in their dorms for 14 days.
The ACC has no set guidelines for teams choosing not to travel into hot spots. So whether going to BC might be too much of a risk will be decided by Cunningham, the chancellor and the head coach. If the BC outbreak grows, Carolina might be better off canceling that trip or at least postponing it to the next idle weekend of November 21, six days before Notre Dame comes to Kenan Stadium.
After BC is a home game with Virginia Tech and then a trip to Florida State, which lost to Georgia Tech in Tallahassee, where there were fans in the stands to see the Yellow Jackets spoil new coach Mike Norvell’s FSU debut.
The Seminoles still must go to Miami and Notre Dame before UNC’s visit, and two more losses might make some of them stop caring and start socializing on campus, which could leave the home team too dangerous for the Tar Heels to play before the game even starts.
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In this day and time, I’m not betting that a star player testing positive isn’t covered up going into a big game. Some, more than others