Yahoo's Pete Thamel Talks 2020 Season, Brian Kelly & More
Yahoo! Sports national writer Pete Thamel joined ISD’s podcast over the weekend. You can listen to the full interview here, but for those who may not have had the time to listen yet, here are some of the key takeaways.
Thamel has contacts at universities across the country with assistant coaches, head coaches and athletic directors, so he has a good handle on the outlook of the 2020 college football season from within.
Probably the most important thing Thamel acknowledged is that “nobody knows” exactly how COVID-19 is going to impact the upcoming season.
“The best quote I’ve seen about this is Greg Sankey echoing Dr. Fauci,” Thamel said, referencing the SEC’s commissioner and NIAID director Anthony Fauci.
“This isn’t our timeline, this isn’t football’s timeline. This isn’t college sports’ timeline. This is the virus’s timeline. The virus is setting the timeline and we just don’t know how it’s going to be set right now.”
Thamel advised ISD listeners the return of college students to campuses may be the best indicator of how close football is to returning.
“I wrote a column last week that said, ‘Without college, there won’t be college football,’” said Thamel.
Thamel noted the various scenarios professional leagues like the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball have floated such as keeping all of the teams quarantined in Las Vegas, Florida, Arizona or North Dakota.
“There is not going to be some weird quarantine version of college football,” he said. “There is no scenario like that for college football.”
Training camp could take place under those conditions, but that would be unlikely unless there was a good chance of a season.
Thamel quoted Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick in that article about the need to have college students in order to have college football and Swarbrick pointed to the summer events as “mile markers.”
“If a major university – not named Liberty – has some sort of on-campus summer school right now, I would consider it a surprise,” Thamel said. “Now, it would be the happiest surprise because that would mean some sort of return to normalcy.”
Thamel acknowledged being more pessimistic than some others, but sees significant hurdles ahead.
“At its core, college football is antithetical to everything we’re supposed to be doing during the coronavirus,” he said, pointing to advice from health experts to avoid physical contact, mass gatherings and travel.
“I’m rooting with every fiber in my body for a vaccine to come, for somebody to figure it out, for that curve to get flattened and maybe some return to normalcy, but I’m pessimistic that we will see football in a conventional fashion that we’re accustomed to seeing it in the fall,” he said.
But, the future is unpredictable and like NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Thamel says things could change by the end of the month.
“Let’s get out of some peaks here in April, see what happens at the end of the month and move on from there,” he said.
In terms of recruiting, as Brian Kelly has noted multiple times in the past, Swarbrick spoke to Thamel about how this national pause could impact Notre Dame as much as any other school. Thamel explained Swarbrick’s reasoning on the podcast and you can read his full story here.
And while some college coaches have been forced to backtrack on statements they’ve made during this crisis, Thamel isn’t surprised to see Kelly handle things properly.
“Brian is one of the five smartest college football coaches I’ve run across in my whole career doing this,” said Thamel, who has had multiple sit-downs with Kelly over the last few years.
“He’s much more of a citizen of the world than many of these other coaches.”
When he was still writing for Sports Illustrated, Thamel did a large feature on Kelly following the 4-8 season of 2016, where Kelly talked about the changes he was making for himself.
During the podcast, Thamel referenced the difficulty Kelly had with letting go of coaches he was very tight close with personally.
“When you look back, he pressed all of the right buttons,” he said. “Notre Dame is now winning double-digit games a year and it’s not like a big deal, it’s not like this huge celebration.”
Thamel sat down with Kelly again several weeks back and is confident if the 2020 season is played, Notre Dame will be in the mix.
“This will be a really good Notre Dame team, it should be. The Clemson game would obviously be the arbiter of can this be a special Notre Dame team?”
Again, you can listen to the full interview with Thamel HERE.