Mizzou AD Jim Sterk talks football possibilities

With the scheduled start of the 2020 college football season less than two months away, there seems to be less clarity than ever about whether teams will be able to play or what the season could look like. Missouri athletics director Jim Sterk met with several members of the local media via Zoom on Thursday afternoon to discuss the possible scenarios for the football season, as well as Missouri's testing policies and the financial ramifications of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Opening statement: “I don't have any big announcements, but do just want to circle back. We haven't talked in a while. A few thoughts first, and then we'll open it up for questions.

“So back in May, you know, we took our budget cuts and personnel and operations and travel and we were kind of ahead of the curve and had been getting good advice from the university, and based out on 20 percent, what we felt would be 20 percent reductions in revenues, and so we're evaluating. We'll evaluate and continue to do that, and probably by August may have to make adjustments up or down. Should know a little bit more by how things are going.

"As you know, we got our student athletes and teams back on campus and started to repopulate. Us and med students were kind of the first in athletics to come back. We’ve tested over 370 or more, Nick (Joos) may have the exact number, and have had 10 positives, but from our tracing, none of those positives are connected to workouts or being in our facilities. It's everyday life of going to social gatherings like weddings and other gatherings outside of athletic activities. And so we feel very good about our screening and our testing, cleaning and the protocols we have in place. It's those hours outside of those most times where things are happening, I guess.

"SEC football update, that's kind of a big one. We’re still having our SEC bi-weekly calls with the 14 ADs in SEC leadership. We’re getting advice continually from the medical task force of the SEC, and then our campus, we have an athletics working group as well led by Tim Hickman, but we're going to continue and plan on meeting until further notice through July here and in August. And then as we get closer towards the end of July, we'll be coming up with plans that we can present to the chancellors and presidents on what we think fall can look like. But there's a bunch of different models for football. There's a lot of things out there in the public. But we’ll be prepared to adjust if necessary to a schedule that best accommodates what we're hearing from the medical officials and and campus officials at the time. Test protocols are driving a lot of that discussion with the Football Bowl Subdivision, and we're being updated on that with the Power Five and the FBS, and we're looking at different models internally with our staff as far as what we could do with the stadium. I think the ticket office has 13 variations of configurations and we're spending a lot more of our time on a 50 percent model because we can adjust and go up or down on that. We've been working with a third party leader polling our fan base as well as incorporating national trends into our plans as we move forward. So, as we've said from the start, the health and safety of our student athletes, our staff and our fans is the number one goal, and so we'll be looking to manage all of that.”

Question: Couple questions. First, if you could just comment on the great news of the eligibility next postseason for baseball and softball. And what is the bare minimum, the best-case scenario in terms of how many fans could attend football? What’s the low number that would be okay for you guys?

Sterk: “So obviously, really excited to hear the news on baseball and softball. We thought that would be the case but it ended up being the right decision, and so I know both the coaches and head coaches and coaching staffs and student athletes are ecstatic about that, and so we can finally move forward with that. As far as bare minimum, if we truly did a six-foot radius around everybody, I think you could fit — our folks have looked at it, it's about 18 to 20 thousand or something like that in the stadium. And that's not counting the media room, so I don't know what Nick would do with all of you. But that's kind of the bare minimum as far as what we can do in the stadium.”

Jim I know you said end of July you guys want to be able to present some sort of plan. Two things, first what is the date where there has to be some sort of plan? Not this is what we’re talking about, but this is what we want to do. And then can you just assess the mood, because the mood we all get from talking to people at various schools is there’s not anybody in the country that feels better about the chances of playing than they felt a month ago. Please tell me if that’s wrong.

“No, I think that's an accurate statement, but I guess I'm an optimist from the standpoint of, you know, three weeks ago we were really optimistic and people were saying they were gonna have full stadiums and all of that, and now the pandemic has kind of re-surged a bit, if you will, and and pro sports have stumbled as they've started out of the blocks. But i think it's positive for us that we can see what's working from their standpoint and apply that to decisions we make. But I think it continues to change daily and weekly, and in a month, in two months, I'm hopeful it's a heck of a lot better and things are better than what we have. If not, then we have to pivot and adjust our plans.”

Jim, Boone County and Columbia have had restrictions on re-opening themselves, and part of that is a restriction on mass gatherings, and there had been some indications that maybe with local virus cases spiking a bit, that we might see some of those limits into the future. Do those sorts of limits apply to your sporting events, indoor, outdoor or otherwise?

“So, obviously we take advice from the medical and the county health officials are kind of the preeminent — obviously state and everything apply from there. So we'll be taking advice from them and working with them. We've been in contact with them and they understand what we're doing and what we're trying to do, and so I think we're in a good place with them.”

How viable is this talk of only playing conference games for football this year? Is that a model that’s been discussed? And then where are you guys in terms of your four non-conference games? Has there been discussions from any of those schools that they're not sure they can play those games?

“So, I think I've said before, we’ve looked at about 12 different models of what we could do, and so depending on what occurs we’ll make adjustments on that, and by the end of July we should be — I guess we are in July — we'll be making those decisions on what we try to implement. As far as non-conference, I’ve had some conversations, just texts and they’ve sent examples of their protocols and things like that, but it’s been mostly the conference commissioners at this point talking a lot as far as what are our expectations and trying to come up with standardized levels, and then we'll drill down with individual schools. But yeah there's been conversations on on all those fronts.”

If you guys aren't able to play this fall, or if you're only able to play with no fans in the stands, will there be a way to avoid cutting some of the non revenue sports?

“Well, we're going to, as I said, we'll adjust our budget as we go through this calendar year, and so we'll have to look at our budgets and what we're doing. I think that there's there's all kinds of scenarios, from full stadiums to no fans or no TV, and those are big numbers and we'll have to deal with them. But as far as looking at individual sports, we're not doing that at this time.”

The Big Ten just announced, or sources are reporting, that they’re only going conference games. How much do you consider other conferences in what you all are doing?

“Well, it's all taken into account, but I haven't seen anything on the Big Ten and I'd be surprised if they were announcing that right as we speak. I don't think so. I think people are trying to gather as much information and make those decisions, although, you know, the Ivy (League), they’ve made decisions on their own in the past and have their group that they work with closely, and respect the heck out of them and know some of those coaches, and so that's a decision that's separate. Our conversations have been with the Power Fives, and we'll have another meeting tomorrow. Commissioner (Greg) Sankey will update us on what the latest is. I’ve seen some that are saying no competition possibly until the first of September. All those things are on the table and will be discussed and made at the appropriate time.”

With everything going on and players going home for the Fourth of July, players leaving and doing other family events, weddings, like you were talking about, has there been recommendations as far as testing when they come back? Is there sort of a protocol in place for all that?

“Yeah. There are, if someone goes away, there’s self isolation. We continue to do — actually they're testing is oxygen levels or whatever, we stick our finger in, and also temperature testing. So we're doing that in each of our facilities as people enter, and so the good thing, we were able to catch a lot of those positives before they got in the building or we're around other athletes. But yeah, it's the social side. The four hours or so they're eating or they're working out with our staffs, it's the other hours of the day that could cause havoc.”

Nick Joos: “If they leave for more than 12 to 24 hours, when they return to campus, they have a five day self-isolation period. And then I would anticipate some time down the road, before practice starts for fall camp, that we would re-test.”

With the ACC reporting that no one is going to play until September 1, are you anticipating anything on the horizon with that with the SEC with volleyball or soccer?

“We have not discussed that, but I’m sure it will be discussed tomorrow, next week, as we move forward, as we get closer. As I said, we’re trying to make those decisions as late as possible. Some of them may have to be made before July 30th, but as many as we can, we’re going to try to keep those as late as possible.”

All the players we’ve talked to have all been positive about wanting to come back and be back on campus. Has anything changed and have you heard any concern from players now that cases in Boone County have gone up?

"Actually not. I think they understand that probably the safest place they can be is working out with their teammates who have been tested, who are screened, the facility’s being sanitized. The ones I talked to had big smiles on their face working out. I’ll have to check them tomorrow and see how it’s going because as you continue to work out, I’m sure they’ll be ready for a little bit of a break before fall camp starts.”

During the season, say someone got a test and it was positive would they get tested again in case they felt they may have a false positive?

“We’ve had the conversation as far as from Dr. Whitt who’s our lead physician on the SEC task force about testing and there are false positives. So I think he’s hopefully that the tests become more accurate and they continue to get better and better. From what I understand, there’s a mouth swab as opposed to digging deep in your brain, the one that was initially used. They’re continuing to evolve and I think it will continue to get better and better and more accurate. But I could see that situation where someone tests positive, but they feel great, get another test tomorrow or whatever and see how it comes out.”

I know that the positive numbers for Mizzou have been low relative to other schools, but do you have a number where if you reach that number you would consider shutting down camp or workouts?

“No. You know, we’ve talked about that at a campus level as far as campus threshold and what is that? The advice from the medical professionals is let’s read the data, let’s understand what’s going on before we make decisions like that. We would be referring to the CDC, county health officials, through the University, through MU Health Care. We’d be taking advice from all of those folks before we made decisions like that.”

Three hundred sixty-seven of your 377 tests were negative. How did you view that number? Is that manageable, low, expected?

“I’d prefer zero. But I think given what we’re seeing across the country as people are being tested and our lines out at our softball stadium test site, there’s a heck of a lot more people that are in those lines than there were a few weeks ago. We’re seeing more and more positive tests, more people getting tested so it wasn’t alarming. It was kind of expected that there would be one or two positives per team, if you will and maybe a larger one having more. It’s kind of as expected, but still wanting to make sure that we take each of those very seriously and with the tracing and isolate that person so that we don’t have a continued growth or spread from our folks and our student-athletes that have tested positive. A lot of work is being done with that and I just appreciate the heck out of the people that helped us design what we’re doing and are implementing it and are continuing to stay on top of it.”

On the potential conference only schedule which it’s expected the Big Ten will announce today. Can you explain if that’s the way it goes, why does that make sense? What’s the rationale behind it?

“Probably it’s a comfort level of how protocols are being enacted, how testing is done and then keeping it within that family if you will, it’s an expanded social circle or social pod. You might be able to control things more that way or feel like you can anyway versus the unknown of people coming from outside of our 11 states that are our footprint of the SEC. Those might be reasons why. I don’t know. I’d have to hear from them.”

How helpful would it be for you guys if the NCAA had more oversight, more rules and regulations, rather than leaving it up to everybody to kind of make their own decisions?

“Yes and no. I think the conferences do a really good job and maybe a better job in a lot of those areas. It’s tough to make a decision in one size fits all. There’s programs that have different numbers of people, different resources and all those things so I can see where it’s difficult to have rules. Now from a health and safety standpoint, it’s easier to dial down and get into that. You may see, I think you’ll probably see more from the NCAA coming on that as far as health and safety, maybe some testing. Even just our 11 states of getting folks together and you have 14 counties that these schools are in and they all have different situations. It makes it difficult and then when you add those non-conference, then you’re adding someone new into that mix. At some point, yeah, I guess maybe the Big Ten is thinking about doing that, but we’re not there yet.”

Wisconsin and Northwestern announced they weren’t going to play at Wrigley Field. Was there any discussion of the game against Arkansas at Arrowhead and the possibility of moving that?

“We’ve been in discussions with the Chiefs and we’re kind of in the same boat as far as trying to determine exactly what we’re going to do. As of right now, we plan on playing that game there.”

For these schools that don’t have as much of a budget, is there a minimum amount of testing they would need to do for you to feel comfortable with Mizzou playing them?

“I would take that advice from our SEC medical task force as far as what they feel is the best model for people to use. They’ve given us great advice so far and I would look to that group. We have Dr. Whitt on there and I would look to him. I haven’t asked that question. It’s coming quickly I guess in the next few weeks as we determine how the schedules could play out, testing will be a big part of that.”

When you see a league shut down, even if it is the Ivy League, does that raise a red flag?

“I think the Ivy was more institutional decisions. They were making decisions based on what their institutions, I think, that’s what I’ve heard and read a little bit on it. I need to dig into it further as far as their reasons why, but I had heard it was more related to institutional decisions and gatherings and how they were going to manage their institutional challenges so they felt it was best not to try to have sports going on. I can stand corrected and someone can correct me on that, but that was my initial (thought) and I haven’t seen any list of reasons.”

I know that nobody wants to see a football season in the spring, but if that became reality, what would be the biggest challenges?

“I haven’t asked Tony Wirkus that question yet. He’s bald already—or balding—so he would not have much hair left trying to do it. But I really haven’t spent much time thinking about that because it’s out there. It’s one of those 12 scenarios, but we haven’t spent any time on that. That’s a truthful answer. I wish I had a better one for you.”

If the conference only model is the way you’re going would you be interested in adding more than just the eight games on the schedule?

“Again, I’ll go back to our 12 scenarios. Those are all part of the 12 scenarios out there of what we could do. Yeah, it’s a possibility.”

For those contracts of the non-conference games, is there any sense that the protections in the contract favor anyone or how that money would work for those games?

“That’s a great question and I’m going to throw it to Nick because he actually does our football contracts and knows them better. One I can tell you, COVID-19 pandemic is not in the contracts that we currently have. No one really prepared for that as far as other legal terms that it may fall under, Nick, I’ll just toss it to you.”

Nick Joos: “All these contracts were done before I got here and before Jim, but the word epidemic is in there as I recall. We’ve also asked our general counsel, they’ve asked us to go to each of the four schools and put the global pandemic in there, not only for the games this year, but moving forward and most of the schools certainly moving forward have already returned those. The four schools this year, only one of the four has done that so far. I was talking to an AD friend earlier today and I do think that that’s one of the challenges in this thing is if you’re going to play conference games, okay, that’s great, but how are you going to unwind the non-conference piece of this for all of this. You’re right, the lawyers could become very busy here depending on how this all shakes out in the coming months. One opponent, said we could try to move, they didn’t necessarily like the language and we could maybe move the game down the road, which is fine. We’re obviously scheduled pretty far out so it would be a long time before we play the game in that regard. Some people have also suggested that if the opponent that you’re playing non-conference doesn’t necessarily have the testing level that you require, that the host institution, the Power Five in this case, would pay for the testing and it would come out of the guarantee. That’s another option that has been discussed as well.”

There’s been some talk nationally about basketball season and moving it forward. I know it’s not the priority right now but how much talk about basketball has there been at the conference level?

“Dan Gavitt mentioned moving the games, but it was in context, Commissioner Sankey said he had shared that with the conference commissioner, but in the context of having I don’t know how many different scenarios. It was one of I think five or six different scenarios that they threw out there. We haven’t spent much time at all other than that came out and we discussed it for a little just that they’re looking at different models as well.”