Who knows what college football will look like now, but surely schools can find solution

Seldom, if ever, has a leader of a Southeastern Conference school managed to delight both his own constituency and those of his rivals. But Auburn University President Jay Gogue did just that Thursday with this simple statement:

“We’re going to have football this fall.”

So everyone can exhale.

But please, into your facemask, if you don’t mind.

What Gogue didn’t say was exactly what that will look like. That’s because no one seems to know for sure during this coronavirus pandemic.

Will stadiums be 50% full? 30% full?

Will athletic directors have to scramble to fill dates suddenly left vacant by schools that — whether by choice or by mandate of their states — have decided to just redshirt this whole season?

The delicate nature of the subject compels me to offer a disclaimer that should be self-evident: No football game justifies taking elevated risk of someone’s life.

Think back to last November and the Georgia-Auburn game. Play was suspended for several moments after Chamberlain Smith, a UGA student photographer shooting the game from the sidelines, was knocked out when Brian Herrien accident ran into her. All that mattered at that point was giving the medical team space to get her stable and onto a stretcher.

So ensuring public safety is a given.

That said, everyone should hope that this football season is played, because that would mean that the risks associated with playing have been minimized. Toward that end, it almost seems certain that even if college and pro football are played, things won’t be business as usual.

Tailgating most likely will be substantially limited if not eliminated completely. Even on those days when Georgia or Auburn are playing the University of Nobody, there’s still 80,000-plus fans in seats and another 10,000 or more roaming around outside the stadium without tickets. I can’t imagine that’s going to happen this fall.

But as important as the atmosphere is to college football, what matters is the game on the field and the TV product. Or, more importantly, the TV revenue. The SEC’s cut of the College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six bowl games last season was $139.5 million. That’s $66 million base payout that each Power Five conference received, plus $6 million for LSU’s Peach Bowl CFP semifinal appearance, $40 million for Georgia making the Sugar Bowl and $27.5 million for Florida going to the Orange Bowl.

In addition to that, the conference raked in millions of dollars for the other bowl games, the SEC Championship Game and the regular season package.

That revenue is the lifeblood of entire athletic department budgets. Smart people can figure out a way to keep the games relatively safe for the players, coaches, officials, administrators and the fans and still play the games.

Some decision makers have expressed doubts about staging games in empty or mostly empty stadiums. Last month, Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick told ESPN that the games should not be played if seating is significantly limited.

“I don’t see a model where we play, at least any extended number of games, in facilities where we don’t have fans,” Swarbrick told ESPN. “College football is about the cheerleaders and the band and the campus environment on game day. We’re interested in solutions that allow us to have a traditional game-day experience.”

North Carolina coach Mack Brown agreed with Swarbrick.

“I don’t think we can have football without fans. I can’t even fathom it,” Brown said. “That’s not even something I think about or talk about.”

It’s also hard to fathom schools not finding a way to figure this out.