What will Fresno State spring football season look like? Schedules, facilities are issues

The Mountain West Conference announced this week that due to health and safety concerns with the COVID-19 pandemic it would look to the spring to play football, women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and run men’s and women’s cross country, its traditional fall sports.

But, taking a peek forward at the revenue driver in that group, would a spring football season even work?

Fresno State athletics director Terry Tumey, who was a three-time all-conference defensive lineman at UCLA in the mid-1980s, said it would be difficult for student-athletes to play a traditional 12-game schedule in the spring followed by the 2021 season in the fall, just a few months later.

“That,” Tumey said, “may be a little bit of a heavy lift.”

But how many games in the spring are too many? And how many games does it take to make a spring football season feel like a season when teams these days are playing 13, 14 and even a 15th game?

Is eight enough? Is it too many? What’s the magic number?

“That’s what the charge is going to be for us as administrators, to figure out what that right complement would be, given that we understand what life looks like for a student-athlete whether that’s their academic pursuits, their athletic pursuits, their overall growth as a person and all the things that go along with that,” Tumey said.

“But I don’t think it would look like a traditional 12-game season in the spring and 12 games in the fall. I just can’t see that, nor do I see it for soccer or volleyball. The demand might be a little too much, if we think about all the things that go along with the student-athlete experience.”

The Bulldogs’ soccer team played 20 matches last fall, volleyball played 30 matches.

How many games are too many?

Before it punted its football season, the Mountain West was set to play a coronavirus-shortened football season this fall with eight conference games and up to two non-conference games.

The winners of the West and Mountain divisions would then meet in a conference championship game in December.

Scheduling up to two non-conference games in the spring wouldn’t appear a problem. The Mid-American Conference and the FCS Big Sky Conference have moved football to the spring due to the coronavirus, and the Big Ten and Pac-12 postponed fall sports on Tuesday.

There were eight Mountain West teams scheduled to play a Big Sky opponent this season including Fresno State, which had its season-opener Sept. 5 against Idaho State.

But there is the potential for many issues with football in the spring. It is not as simple as turning over a few pages on the calendar and picking a start date, if COVID-19 conditions allow.

Would seniors and NFL Draft-eligible juniors opt out of a spring season, choosing to prepare for the NFL Draft?

There also is an injury factor – if a player suffers a season-ending injury in the middle or late in a fall season there is a good chance they can be back the following year, but if they go down in a spring season they could end up missing a large chunk or the entirety of the following fall season that starts just a few months later.

And, for at least part of a spring football season, football could be going head-to-head with March Madness, assuming basketball and winter sports are played within a typical time frame.

While scheduling football games might not be a problem, scheduling for the Bulldogs’ other 20 sports programs as well as staffing and facilities could be if by the spring Fresno State is allowed by state and local officials to play at anything up to a full capacity at Bulldog Stadium.

Scheduling, facilities become an issue

During football games, Fresno State uses Beiden Field as well as the soccer and lacrosse stadium for fan events and tailgating.

For smaller Group of Five conference athletics departments, the spring is an especially challenging time. Fresno State has 10 of its 21 sports programs competing in the spring – baseball, men’s and women’s golf, women’s lacrosse, softball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s track and field and women’s water polo.

Now, potentially throw a football game into that mix … with women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s cross country. Depending on what happens with winter sports, all three seasons could overlap at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of their schedules.

Not all of the Bulldogs’ sports programs are housed in the student-athlete village, but that would stress weight training and rehab and treatment facilities, one reason that before COVID-19 the athletics department was developing plans and funding to expand its footprint near Bulldog Stadium.

And, as Tumey pointed out, there are only so many weekends in the spring for teams to compete.

But the timing, length and look of a spring football season are the critical questions for a growing list of conferences and athletics administrators looking toward the spring.

“I do believe there is a way to have a fruitful season in the spring,” Tumey said. “That’s not to say that we have the answers right now. If we go down a path and we don’t have the wherewithal to make the right decisions and have the right experience for student-athletes, then we pick up our tools and look at what the fall would look like once again.

“However, I do believe it’s worth the exercise and the analysis because I think that we can provide that experience and hopefully know much more about this virus during that time period so we can provide an experience more reminiscent to the traditional experience that they’re looking for.”