All athletic competition for the Bucs’ fall 2020 season, including football, has been officially suspended due to ongoing safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, according to ETSU Athletic Director Scott Carter.
The Southern Conference announced Thursday that while in-conference competition is postponed, non-conference play would be allowed among league members.
Carter, during a virtual news conference Friday, said that the various athletic programs at ETSU will not be taking part.
“At this time, we at ETSU have suspended all of our fall competitions,” Carter said. “There was open discussion about non-conference availability… We don’t feel at this time that it’s our best interest to put our student-athletes in that competitive environment, when it’s been recommended by doctors otherwise.”
The Bucs’ fall sports affected by this suspension include football, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, volleyball and various spring sports that normally hold practices and tournaments in the fall.
While emphasizing player health and safety first and foremost, Carter went on to say that the plan for fall sports is to be able to play in the spring, depending on conditions.
“As of right now, all of our competitions have been suspended with a focus on executing them in the spring, and in pursuit of championships,” Carter said.
“We will continue to monitor this with our doctors [and] seek their counsel, which we’ve done from day one,” Carter continued. “If healthy and safe environments present themselves, we will evaluate them at that time.”
Carter, a member of the Football Championship Subdivision Playoff Committee, stated during the virtual news conference that a potential spring football schedule announcement may be determined by a date for spring championships to be announced by the NCAA first.
“There’s a lot of discussion [in the committee] right now about what the national championship game and the playoff structure would look like,” Carter said. “Next Friday, [August] 21, is the NCAA’s deadline to make a decision on fall championships moving to the spring.”
Still, there is no guarantee of having spring events at this time.
“We do not know yet if that will happen,” Carter said of the potential spring playoff format. “The hope obviously is that [it] will.”
