Penn State AD: Beaver Stadium unlikely to be full – if there is a football season at all this fall
Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour was about as open and forthcoming as she could be during a video conference call with media that lasted almost an hour Wednesday.
But, as with just about everything else in the world over the past four months, the answers she didn’t have outnumbered the ones she did.
So while Barbour and the rest of the Penn State athletics department takes a wait-and-see approach about the myriad challenges confronting it during the coronavirus pandemic, there was at least one question she could answer with confidence.
“One of the things I can say with certainty — and, obviously, there’s not much I can say with certainty — but without a season ticket, no matter what our capacity is, you’re probably not coming to a Penn State game this year,” Barbour said.
Penn State is modeling various scenarios for attendance at football games, but one eventuality they are not putting any time into planning for is a 100% filled stadium.
“I do not believe that is in the cards for us this season,” Barbour said.
The basketball rosters contain approximately 15 players each. That means, at least, about 70 football players have been tested.https://t.co/g59T4QAifL
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) July 1, 2020
Barbour said the athletic department has been briefed regularly and advised by expert faculty and the Penn State Health network that provides care to its students. But the university is awaiting guidance from the state and other government authorities before making any decisions about its operations for the fall semester and, specifically, about sports.
The football season is scheduled to begin at home against Kent State on Sept. 5.
“The time is whittling away,” Barbour said. “But we still do have some time.”
They might have more time than they think. As covid-19 cases rise in many parts of the country, momentum is building to postpone or cancel sports seasons — including college football, the sport that provides the lion’s share of revenue that funds most every other intercollegiate sport.
“There’s no doubt there has been a little bit of pessimism in the last couple weeks that we really hadn’t had in the four to six weeks prior when we’d been ticking up on optimism scale,” Barbour said. “The approach I am taking to this is that I think that’s part of the ebb and flow of the virus here.
“The bottom line is, whatever it is we are going to do, we are going to do it only if it’s safe and healthy, starting with the student athletes and moving to the coaches and staff and then moving out to our community at large.”
All of the Penn State football players who have reported to campus since it re-opened for workouts last month tested negative for coronavirus. About 70 of the 102 athletes who have been tested are football players.
Barbour said some Penn State teams have had schools reach out to cancel scheduled games but none yet in football. Barbour offered a broad promise to make good but was short on specifics on how fans who bought tickets will be refunded if and when games are canceled and/or played at a reduced capacity.
Barbour was adamant athletes in all sports are being permitted to opt out of playing this coming season, and their scholarships would be honored if they do. Athletes also will have access to university-provided medical care for any issues related to covid-19. PSU is not requiring athletes to sign liability waivers, as has been the case at some universities.
Football’s importance to the athletic budget was acknowledged primarily through an acceptance from Barbour that paycuts for coaches and staff was “probably unavoidable.”
But to what lengths will Penn State go to stage a football season this academic year? Would it, for instance, consider playing in the spring?
“It would be a last resort,” Barbour said, citing the proximity of two seasons being played just months apart.
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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