(10-29-2020, 03:34 PM)M T Wrote: (10-29-2020, 12:44 PM)Farm93 Wrote: If the outbreak is due to known violations of league or conference policies that would be different, but for a lot of these student-athletes they are already suffering the penalty of getting COVID-19. Saddling them with the loss of a potential playoff berth is just too much, too cruel if all they did was get COVID-19 living in their community housing or by visiting their assigned course tutor.
Or by getting it from playing across from or next to a player who he or his team knowingly hid knowledge of having COVID-19, or knowingly avoided or circumvented a test because they were concerned that a positive test would keep them from spreading it to others in the game or practice.
If Joe Average at State U played across from Voldemort Candidate Big Guy and played when he had reason to believe he was infectious with COVID-19, and Big Guy then got sick & missed his big rivalry or playoff game, what would you say? And of course, as we see by the nation's death toll, any of those cases could spread to others who suffer serious health issues.
Sorry, but your idea of cruel is not my idea of cruel.
Hmmm, not sure your take on my example is correct.
I was not advocating the player should get to play with COVID19. Rather I was advocating that the team should not be forced to forfeit games rather than see cancellation of games.
In Wisconsin's case they are missing a game because of a COVID outbreak. That's the proper thing to do. At this time the game is a cancellation and that is important because that leaves them on track to get into the BigTen CG.
Saddling them with a forfeit for having too many players with COVID creates an odd incentive for Wisconsin to deny the positive test so that they could play Nebraska, presumably without the positive player but WITH all of those that might need to be isolated.
The cruelty then would be for a single positive player to then have close contacts with enough other players for the team to saddled with a forfeit.
Or to give you a different version imagine a school assigned tutor that was asymptomatic and not tested daily, as only players get that benefit, spread the virus to just enough players that the contact rules forced them to miss games. Per current policy that's a cancellation, but if it was a forfeit...
Then that tutor would be blamed for causing tOSU and the BigTen from getting into the CFP.
How about that? Is that cruel enough?
The student-athletes are not in bubbles. They may get COVID because of the NCAA's desire for TV revenue. That would be cruel.
To then potentially saddle that rather innocent victim to force the team to forfeit and miss the CFP would be very cruel.
In my example the player is not actually playing in the game, so the hypothetical you laid out was not part of my observation of cruelty.
My use of the LA Dodgers was to point out how organizations could do questionable things to win if given a chance. If the penalties for a positive test are too severe then teams may try to do things to keep playing. Make the policies too restrictive and the scenario you outlined could happen.
I agree that would be cruel, but the best way to avoid that scenario is to make sure the penalties for getting COVID are not so punitive that players, coaches or schools hide positive results.
