If college football is going to return this fall, we now have a structured set of guidelines for schools to follow when it comes to student athletes’ health and well-being.

The NCAA has released its third set of guidelines for the resocialization of college sports. The first dealt with guidance for phasing sports back in, while the second emphasized personal and institutional considerations related to preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The recommendations were developed in collaboration with several groups including the NCAA COVID-19 Advisory Panel, American Medical Society for Sports Medicine COVID-19 Working Group, Autonomy-5 Medical Advisory Group, National Medical Association and the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports Prevention and Performance Subcommittee.

The guidelines are designed to extend the already established previous guidance and provide updated recommendations about the protection of athletes and prevention of community spread.

Because many sports, such as football require close, personal contact these are specifically crafted guidelines that are meant to help curb the spread and keep players safe.

Among those measures included if West Virginia is going to be able to play football this fall include:

—Daily self-health checks.

—The appropriate use of face coverings and social distancing during training, competition and outside of athletics.

—Testing strategies for all athletics activities, including pre-season, regular season and post-season.

—Testing and results within 72 hours of competition in high contact risk sports.

—Member schools must adhere to public health standards set by their local communities.

You can view the full report here: https://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/resocialization-collegiate-sport-developing-standards-practice-and-competition

It is essential that for a safe return to sports, including football, it will depend entirely on the national trajectory of the spread of the coronavirus.

“The idea of sport resocialization is predicated on a scenario of reduced or flattened infection rates,” said Brian Hainline, NCAA chief medical officer.

This is essentially a roadmap based on the advice of health care professionals as to how college sports can resume if an environment where COVID-19 rates are manageable. That last part is especially important with football rapidly approaching and the hourglass running out of sand.

But this is a significant step in regards to being able to safely play the games, still the rest of the country and the spread of the virus will almost assuredly ultimately dictate things in the end.

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