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Mountain West Will Play Football This Fall
There will be Mountain West football after all.
Contact/Follow @JeremyMauss & @MWCwire
League feels it is safe enough to play.
The Mountain West has changed course and has voted to play a college football season this fall. The league initially postponed its season back on Aug. 10 but now the league has announced it will play a season which will feature eight games and begin on Oct. 24.
https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1309316938972225537?s=19&fbclid=IwAR2eyOWngpSrwSjag-ezL32g63pZxKcPEBwag9qPDFL4q1W8E6JcCFq4OTs
These dates mean that the Mountain West title game will be played on Saturday, Dec. 19 and it will allow for the conference to be considered for a New Year’s Six bowl game.
https://twitter.com/MountainWest/status/1309317197152440320
Also, an unknown is if there will be a “champions” weekend that other leagues are doing with crossover games featuring cross-division games by order of finish.
The Mountain West announced its testing protocols.
The Mountain West has partnered with Quest Diagnostics to implement testing protocols across all member institutions. The agreement with Quest delivers frequent testing with rapid results, providing a major step forward for sport competition to resume. The Mountain West will require all football student-athletes, coaches, trainers and other individuals that are on the field to undergo testing three times per week. Test results must be completed and recorded prior to each game. Student-athletes who test positive for the coronavirus through point of contact (POC) testing would require a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to confirm the result of the POC test.
“The health and well-being of our student-athletes continue to guide all decisions,”said Dr. Mary Papazian, San José State University President and Chair of the MW Board of Directors. “The availability of rapid testing addresses one of the main concerns that was expressed by our Board, the MW Health and Safety Advisory Committee, as well as by student-athletes and coaches. Our student-athletes have voiced their desire to compete, and it is the Board’s shared opinion that football can be conducted with appropriate mitigation. We continue to learn more about the virus each day and will continue to monitor the pandemic moving forward. We will be ready to change course if necessary should new information come forth, or we feel an appropriate environment cannot be sustained on our campuses.”
https://twitter.com/MountainWest/status/1309315758132846592
While the league is returning, not all of the conference is really all that safe. San Diego State had a two-week pause of any campus activities, Fresno State still has allowed basically zero students on campus, Colorado State is still being investigated for not following health protocols, Hawaii is strict and required either a two-week quarantine or a negative test within 72 hours, and New Mexico currently has no sports being played outside of its soccer club New Mexico United.
So… there are a lot of things standing in the way of playing college football healthily. We also didn’t even mention San Jose State that is in a high-risk area in Northern California.
Mountain West football will be played this fall with games starting in one month.
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