Will college football return this fall? Texas Tech athletic director says they’re ready to play despite coronavirus

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Texas Tech athletic director discusses what a fall 2020 football season will look like

In Lubbock, Texas, football players from Texas Tech University are participating in eight hours of mandatory workouts with the hopes that fall camp can start in August and their first official 2020 kick-off in September. Director of athletics Kirby Hocutt says despite some students testing positive for the virus in June, their student athletes want to play and they will provide them that opportunity until they’re told they have to stop.

With the news of two Big Ten programs, Michigan State and Rutgers, putting their entire teams into quarantine after some of their staff and players tested positive for coronavirus, the future of college football in 2020 gets more dismal by the day.

“It's affected intercollegiate athletics, the enterprise. And we continue to navigate so many unknowns and uncertainties,” Director of Athletics at Texas Tech University Kirby Hocutt told Fox News in an exclusive interview.

Collegiate sports are universities and colleges’ biggest moneymakers—and school presidents and athletic directors certainly rely on the funds that come from their Division I teams. Between the millions the teams bring in from ticket sales, television contracts, apparel deals, and alumni contributions, it’s easy to see how much a school’s financial status could change if say a pandemic closed down a large portion of athletics.

“It's had a significant impact on the finances of intercollegiate athletics all across the country,” Hocutt said. “We're in uncharted territory, we have never tried to lead and manage through a pandemic before and the financial challenges are real.”

Real as in a $14.1 million financial loss to the athletics department since the pandemic started, according to Hocutt.

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Texas Tech University football (TTU) is a NCAA Division I program in the Big 12 Conference—a conference that announced it will make a decision on the state of the football season in "late July."

The announcement came after news that the Big Ten will play a conference-only schedule in 2020. The Pac-12, also a part of the Power Five conferences (ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12), announced they will shift to a conference-only schedule this season as well.

Texas Tech was originally scheduled to play Pac-12 team University of Arizona this fall.

Hocutt said he respects the conference’s decision.

“I know they believe they made the right decision at the right time for them,” Hocutt said. “From everything that we see and hear, the number of cases of the virus that's in the Los Angeles area right now where they've got a couple of their premier schools [like] UCLA and USC, it's significant. They made the right decision for them just like we in the Big 12 are going to continue to move down this linear process together and make the best decisions that we can make.”

California has seen a surge in coronavirus cases over the last few weeks. As of July 26, the state has a total of 452,288 cases, a 102.2 percent increase from four weeks ago. Texas has seen its fair share of confirmed COVID-19 infections as well.

As of July 26, Texas has reported a total of 385,923 cases, that’s more confirmed cases over the past 20 days than the state had through the first 4 months of the pandemic. And in the city of Lubbock, home to TTU, and a city of 250,000 with a prominent college bar scene, cases have more than doubled in July -- up 125 percent this month.

Texas Tech Red Raiders captains Jax Welch #30, Xavier Benson #37, Thomas Leggett #16 and Riko Jeffers #6 walk to the midfield coin toss before the college football game against the Iowa State Cyclones on October 19, 2019 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)

Although numbers like these don’t shed any extra hope on college football resuming in the fall, Hocutt remains optimistic.

“I believe the path that we're taking is the right one. We have the testing instruments, the testing availability right now within our community and for our athletics department to bring our student athletes back in a safe environment,” Hocutt explained.

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TTU’s football players are currently participating in eight hours of mandatory workouts.

Hocutt explained the new protocol student athletes have to adhere to on campus.

Once returning athletes are back on campus they all have to take a COVID-19 test, and then once confirmed negative, are asked to complete a daily health assessment online. TTU staff will take the players’ temperature at the entrance of their football training facility building where they also make sure each athlete is wearing a mask, which they are mandated to wear during their workouts and in the weight room.

In accordance with the NCAA return-to-sports guidelines, players will need to be tested to confirm they are not positive for COVID-19 within 72 hours of competition in high contact risk sports, like football.

Since the beginning of June, TTU has conducted approximately 415 COVID-19 tests with their football team, men's basketball team, women's basketball team, soccer team, as well as their coaching and support staff.

“Out of those 415 approximate tests we've had 37 student athletes test positive for COVID, 24 of those have been within our football program,” Hocutt said.

All but one of the 37 cases have fully recovered, Hocutt added.

Players won’t be the only ones adapting to a "new normal" come fall sports time.

TTU’s Jones AT&T Stadium, which sees an average of 58,000 fans during home games, will only be allowed to hold 50 percent of its usual attendees. Tickets will now be paperless and in digital-form only, and concession stands will be dressed with plexiglass and are moving towards a more online order platform.

Hocutt said he recently met with the football team’s leadership circle, who told him they are ready to hit the field.

“Our guy told us they want to play," Hocutt said. "And as long as we can provide them with that safe environment, we want to provide them that opportunity. So we're going to continue down this process until somebody puts a boulder in front of us and says it's not safe for you to go any further down this path.”

For those student athletes who don’t feel comfortable and opt-out of playing, TTU President Dr. Lawrence Schovanec told Fox News that his school will honor those students' scholarships as well as everyone else on the roster who has an existing athletic scholarship commitment.

“We're prepared to support our students whether or not we play,” Schovanec said.

Players who don’t feel comfortable and opt out of playing will keep their scholarships too, Hocutt added.

“It's unchartered territory for all of us and we're going to continue to communicate and work together and be stronger when we get through this than we were at the beginning,” Hocutt said.

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Hocutt reiterated that their ability to play will in large part be up to the way the members of the football team conduct themselves off the field. In June, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Texans under the age of 30 were testing positive for COVID-19 at a higher rate than previously seen since the pandemic began.

“It's going to be dependent upon them," Hocutt said, "and the decisions that they make in their personal time and social life that are going to be dependent upon us being able to provide a safe environment for them to continue to come into our facilities and continue to move forward in hope of having a fall season.”

TTU’s football team is set to report to fall camp on Aug 7.