HuskerFever

@aphilso1 @49r I hope you both made your coffee early and started the SKC match on time this morning.

Not sure where to put this, but it's worth bringing up. Here's an example of a top high school prospect who will bypass college and go straight to G-League:

St. Thomas just got approval from NCAA to jump from DIII to DI: The Tommies announced that they will join the Summit League for 19 of their 22 sports, the Pioneer Football League and the Western Collegiate Hockey Association for women's hockey. St. Thomas will also find a new conference home for Division I men's hockey. "We are actively engaged in assessing all options for men's hockey and will share an update once we have secured a conference invitation," the St. Thomas website said. https://m.startribune.com/st-thomas-gets-approval-from-ncaa-to-go-division-i/571780492/

This may put a damper on things too:

Although that was the initial push to merge, I'm getting a sense they're trying to built it out more into a relegation/promotion system where the top ~18 clubs (between MLS and Liga MX) would be at the top league with the other clubs in their own respective domestic leagues. Not sure on the friability, but that sure would make things interesting. A lot of this also seems to be driven by a desire to get a massive television contract. And doing this would get them to that. Particularly bringing in a huge and already established fanbase in places like Mexico, Costa Rica, and some South American countries where many of the younger players are coming from.

MLS has come a very long ways. A league that was the laughing stock of paying for near-retired international athletes, now to building a very solid pipeline for South American and CONCACAF athletes to build their talent and get traded to European clubs for big money. Miggy Almiron came from Paraguay, played in the MLS, then was transferred to Newcastle for $24M. Tyler Adams came from the Red Bulls academy and transferred to Leipzig for $3M with a 33% sell-on fee which will pay massive dividends. Alphonso Davies was transferred to Bayern for $13.5M with a potential $8.5M in bonuses. All three of those transfers occurred in 2019, alone. So a handful of that talent you're starting to watch in the European leagues are either US-based talent or has been going through the MLS pipeline. Also Liga MX (Mexican soccer) has always been the top league in the western hemisphere, but MLS is very quickly overtaking the reigns. Note the recent commentary from owners and players in the league about losing the battle to MLS.

Holy crap, that picture! At times in this nightmare year things feel deja vu to another era and another pandemic, and no more so illustrated than in this picture, it seems like it could be taken today if people were ballsy /stupid but also wearing masks completely, as if for a stunt (?) Very interesting, right? Guess I'd be remiss not citing a source. The story behind it provides interesting perspective as well: https://www.ajc.com/sports/college/captivating-photo-georgia-tech-from-1918-and-the-story-behind/XOukYT9082wGyHDyP27XVL/

There's really no standout team right now in the league. Everybody had some pretty glaring cobwebs to take care of. I'm curious to see which teams step it up in the next two matches.

And Memorial Stadium at full capacity is nearly equivalent to the population density of Boston. Viruses don't discriminate. Be safe out there.

Wrong sport. He plays baseball and is currently on playing first base. What's on first base?

Who?

I'm not here for a big debate, nor do I think there's a clear right or wrong answer in these uncertain times; there's still so much to learn. But there is one thing that I do want to add to your point on simply looking at the death rate. More about that in a minute. Based on what I've read about previous pandemics, patterns, and behaviors of the virus (no, I'm not an expert at all; I encourage you to read up on it as well) this pandemic will be defined by the number of deaths that result. And at this point in time the number of tests really don't mean anything other than to help with contact tracing, which we've failed miserably at. Part of that is just due in part with the way our freedoms and protections are set up in this country versus some other countries who have been very successful at it. I've also seen that previous pandemics saw the worst of it in the first six months and the virus itself lasted a couple of years. But back to my point on deaths. Although the percentage may be low for actual deaths, I have personally started to hear from friends, and have started to see more and more studies being published, that a large majority of people who have had COVID are still exhibiting symptoms 60+ days after contracting it. Whether that's losing sense of taste and/or smell that entire time, having major migraines, seizures, etc. And there's also studies out there on previous SARS outbreaks with this being a big area of focus. I'm not saying I'm bought into it at this moment, but the growing number of empirical research on the topic is becoming more pronounced. So when you start talking about long term respiratory effects, and long term brain effects, I'm going to take more precautions beyond "the death rate is low" until more research comes out debunking that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/07/08/brain-damage-and-hallucinations-associated-with-even-mild-covid-19-coronavirus-infection/

Speaking of the SEC (or the SIAA at the time), Georgia Tech managed to play football during the 1918 pandemic.

That wreaks conference-only hoops to me. Very very early though. We have to remember to put into perspective that we are 4 months into this, talking about a basketball season that is originally scheduled 4 months from now. A lot will happen between now and then.

Two MLS teams have already dropped out and we're not even a week into that restart, one NWSL team has dropped out, NBA is seeing some spotty results already, and some top MLB players are refusing to play right now. So there's a lot up in the air right now.

Possibly. But at the very least, it gives the conference more control and less uncertainty with other conference participation. So they can focus on building their own scheduling, travel plans, and safety procedures now.

It looks like Dallas high school football might not happen this year:

...can we just consider last season as our cancelled season?