Something would be better than nothing.

That, in essence, is James Franklin’s view of the various proposals to restart college football and play some sort of season during the 2020-21 academic year. With the course of the COVID-19 pandemic unclear as the weather starts to warm up and some states begin to ease their restrictions, there’s no consensus as to what form the upcoming season will take, if there is one. Most the scenarios that have been floated would necessitate major compromises, but Franklin said on Wednesday that if it’s possible to have a season of some kind, taking whatever precautions are necessary to protect players, coaches, support staff and fans, the NCAA should find a way to make it happen.

“I’m just open and flexible to doing whatever we possibly can to make it work,” he said. “Because if we don’t make it work, there are going to be major impacts across the board. Even if we get to the scenario that’s as extreme as not having fans, I do think allowing people to watch Penn State football – not just Penn State, but all these programs across the country – [requires] you to be flexible and open to any of these things, any of these scenarios. Because at the end of the day, we’ve got to find a way to make it work if we can, as long as everyone is going to be safe and healthy. That could be a shortened season. It could be a full season. It could be a full season with no fans, a full season with partial fans. … We just have to have an open mind to whatever this is going to look like and trust the experts. We have experts on Penn State’s campus who are doing a phenomenal job for us. We have that at a conference level as well, and then nationally, all the way up to our government.”

One of the potential obstacles is the uneven nature of the outbreak. While some states have been eager to reopen due to their relatively light caseloads, others have been battered. Even within conferences, there’s a wide disparity between schools that are in lightly impacted areas and schools that are in hot spots for the virus. In the Big Ten, for example, Nebraska had reported only 6,371 total cases as of May 5, while New Jersey had reported 130,593.

Franklin said that if there’s going to be a season, it might not be realistic for everyone to begin preparing at the same time.

“With the Big Ten, say we have two or three schools that at the end of the season are part of the playoff conversation, while the schools we’re competing against in other conferences, they were able to open before we were and the Big Ten held back certain schools for a school that maybe is in a hot spot in our conference,” Franklin said. “I think we all grew up in an NCAA that tried as much as it possibly could to level the playing field. This would be one of those things. But I just don’t see how that’s going to happen with climate differences. Arizona is going to be very different than New Jersey. Florida is going to be very different than Maryland, and so on. I don’t think you’re going to like it. I don’t think people are going to be happy about it.

"But in reality, I don’t see how you’re going to be able to hold up 10 or 12 schools in one conference [when there are] two states that are opening up a month later. And I think that’s the same thing by conference. … I think there’s got to be some type of guidelines nationally from the NCAA making sure that conferences aren’t pushing to open earlier than they should. But I think if you get into it more than that, you’re going to do more damage than you’re going to do good.”

There’s also been some talk of playing the season in the winter and spring, rather than in the fall. Last month, Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour said that she would be open to having a season at a “nontraditional” time of year. That plan would require schools to scrap spring practice and would shorten the off-season heading into the 2021 campaign, but Franklin said that would be a reasonable trade-off if it would allow for a real football season during the upcoming academic year.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to do whatever you can to save this season and then worry about the effects and come up with those solutions as the next step,” he said. “If that means that we move this season back and lose spring ball, I think if people had to choose between losing this season and losing spring ball, they would give up spring ball. Maybe that means we have to adjust next season back a little bit, I’m not sure. My point is that we have to do everything in our power to make this work and be flexible and open-minded. Are there going to be challenges and impacts that affect other things? Yes, no doubt. It’ll screw with the recruiting calendar, it’ll screw with spring ball, it’ll screw with a lot of different things. But that’s where the next problems come, and we have to come up with the next solutions.”

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