Show an ad over header. AMP  

Coronavirus has the college football season on the brink

10 August 2020
 Dan Ackermann

Power 5 commissioners held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the growing concern that fall sports can't be played because of COVID-19.

Driving the news: The Mid-American Conference on Saturday became the first FBS league to postpone fall sports and move them to the spring, and there are rumblings that Power 5 conferences are ready to follow suit.

What they're saying: Athletic directors and industry sources do not sound hopeful about playing football this fall.

  • "In the next 72 hours, college football is going to come to a complete stop," one source told Sports Illustrated.
  • "I think it's inevitable [the season will not be played in the fall]," one Power 5 athletic director told CBS Sports.
  • "It feels like no one wants to [postpone the season], but it's reaching the point where someone is going to have to," one Power 5 administrator told ESPN.

The other side: Clemson star QB Trevor Lawrence is among several high-profile players who voiced their desire to play the fall season.

  • "Football is a safe haven for so many people," he tweeted on Sunday. "We are more likely to get the virus in everyday life than playing football."
  • "Having a season also incentivizes players being safe ... Without the season, as we've seen already, people will not social distance or wear masks and take the proper precautions."

The big picture: Following Lawrence's tweets, a dozen players from all five major conferences released a joint statement, expressing their desire to play the 2020 season, while laying out their plans to form a players' association in the future.

"We got down to talking and agreed that both of our goals are aligned with each other. We all want to play this year. We just want to make sure players have a say in this thing."
Stanford DE Dylan Boles

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.