Following the footsteps of the Big Ten

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Mountain West football is back?

That escalated quickly.

The Big Ten announced they are returning to play college football this fall and will start in late October and then the Pac-12 quickly changed courses after some blaming back and forth between Governor Gavin Newsome and commissioner Larry Scott.

The Pac-12 is looking more and more likely to play football this fall.

Now it is the Mountain West’s turn is looking at “aggressively exploring” playing a 2020 college football season, per Stadium’s Brett McMurphy.

This is not entirely shocking that the Mountain West is following suit as the Big Ten, and especially the Pac-12. With California apparently figuring something out to allow to practice in addition to playing games, this gives some leeway for the three Mountain West schools: Fresno State, San Jose State, and San Diego State to play football.

The most interesting thing from the tweet was that three schools might not play and some are a head-scratcher. Hawaii makes sense since that state still has restrictions but those are easing a bit in the middle of October. People traveling to the state either need to quarantine for 14 straight days — which is a no-go for football. The way to have no restrictions is to have a COVID-19 negative test within 72 hours of arrival and then there is no restriction.

Fresno State makes sense as they are not even on campus for school or any athletic practices. Plus, at the moment that part of the state is literally on fire and orange-like skies with beyond unhealthy air quality.

Air Force is odd to be listed since they officially are playing Navy on Oct. 3 and are still scheduled to play Army in November.

New Mexico’s governor has been very strict on sports on all levels but the state is considering easing restrictions to sporting events, so them not being noted is odd.

The same goes for San Diego State which has had a lot of restrictions and is about to end a two-week break from in-person classes and all voluntary athletic activities.

Playing college football at the moment during a once a century pandemic does not really seem to be safe, and there are a lot of risks in playing football for a number of reasons.

The only reason to even try to play college football within the Mountain West is if the league has access to the rapid testing that provides results within the hour, and that testing is done basically every day. Specifically, testing day of games plus day of travel for teams coming in from out of town is a must. Nothing is full-proof as we have all seen.

If it happens, it happens, but the league must provide the best possible care during and after the pandemic, and especially so for those who contract COVID-19 because that will happen.