The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - American Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Your hoops. The Houston Rockets. Your hits. And the Astros. And your honest opinions. All the chickens play. All in for Houston all day. This is Sports Talk 790.

It is 131 on the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790. We have non-Florist stories coming up at 2.30 this afternoon. We have a chance to go over what J.J. Watt had to say if you'd like to do that in a couple of minutes. But right now we are very pleased to be joined here on the Matt Thomas show by the Commissioner of the American Athletic Conference. And I have been trying to get Mike Oresco to join us for the last handful of days.

But needless to say, these college administrators are very, very busy. And today, turn to be a great day because, Mike, your conference made an announcement about testing. First of all, thanks for joining the show. And could you explain what you guys decided to do today when it comes to football testing this fall? Well, thank you, Matt. And sorry I couldn't join you earlier in the week. It's been, you know, it's been Groundhog Day every day. Oh, for sure.

We have to go over a lot of the same things, and we get new information, and then, of course, new things crop up as well. But thanks for having me. As far as the testing, we weren't to hear this. You know, we didn't want anyone to think. We knew that the NCAA-a-5 might be issuing, you know, the guidelines. And we've been aware of those, and we have a pretty good idea of what they are. haven't been formally published yet. But we wanted to get ahead and show people that we are doing as much or more than they are going to be doing.

Because, again, we're at a disadvantage because, you know, we're not technically, you know, a P5. And I have not, Matt, wanted to, you know, embark on, you know, or do things regarding the P6 campaign during the pandemic. You know, he just didn't think it was appropriate. but we're not like some of the conferences that really can't afford to do this or have other issues. We are like the P5. We just are, period. And we have major medical centers and we have access to the best doctors and testing. And we wanted people to know that and get ahead of this because we don't want any issue regarding anyone playing us who might think that we don't, you know,

aren't doing the kinds of things that the A5 are going to be doing. to keep doing everything they're doing, and we may even exceed their standards in certain areas. Mike, the question that was asked to some friends of mine when they found out I was going to have you on was, you're talking about these young men getting tested 72 hours prior to kickoff. What is the protocol? What's the strategy for hours zero, zero to 71? Well, again, you try to create a bubble, and it's not going to be perfect, but, you know, it's going to mean, you know, a certain kind of, I don't want to use the term isolation,

but, you know, trying to keep everybody in a certain protocol where they wouldn't be come in contact with people and they wouldn't who are not in the bubble and therefore, you know, ultimately would be safe and wouldn't have a risk of picking up the virus. Might not be absolutely perfect. Although if you pick it up very late, you know, our doctors are not really sure if you would be transvisible.

But that's, we don't want that to happen. Now, look, what we'd like to do testing even prior, you know, even closer? to the game, but right now, you know, with the, you know, the PCR test, which is the, you know, the standard one, it's the most reliable. That's, you know, 72 hours gives you enough time to get the results back. You know, you've got to have the results back. And you also have to have an accommodation, Matt, in case tests get lost for whatever reason or something happens, or there's a potential false positive and there has to be a retest. There are things that, this is, testing is complicated. You know, it's not simple, but we've got really good doctors. and we've got really good labs. And we've been testing all our student athletes coming in and there's been some monitoring and other testing of them. So we already have been doing it.

And again, will there be more rapid response testing that will be as reliable as the molecular PCR test down the road? There might be. And if there are, of course, would we adopt them? Yes, we want to get closer to the game time. But we're going to do the best we can. to create what we call the bubble and keep the integrity of it. And again, I've said all along, Matt,

that I think our student athletes in a controlled environment will be safer than if they were just out there or gone home and weren't being tested, didn't have the kind of health monitoring and health advice that they're getting on campus. So we'll see. But a lot of other issues, of course, surrounding whether we play or not. But testing has been critical. And we just wanted to make sure that, we're doing the best we can and 72 hours right now.

I know we think that'll be the, you know, we don't have the document yet, but we think that will be the A5 standard. And again, if you can do it, you know, within 48, within 24 day of the game. And you have rapid response tests, you know, the antigen tests that are getting better, but they're not there yet. They're not as reliable as they need to be. Mike Oresco, the American Athletic Conference Commissioner, joining us here on The Matt Thomas Show.

So, Mike, we're all vested in this, not only as sports fans, but as human beings on this. And I was telling the audience yesterday that on my Twitter account, I'd like to go to a lot of aggregate sites. And to me, it feels like I could get 25 Division 1 athletic directors, and they give me 25 different responses. If I grabbed every conference commissioner, I probably would get different responses on this. Taking your commissioner head off, do you kind of feel the same way I do, that there are. is so much uncertainty. There isn't a level playing field. And I think that maybe, Mike, if I talked to you a week ago, you'd have a different

opinion about the future of college football as you maybe do today. You might even have the different opinion a week from today. Matt, there's no question. There's uncertainty. But, you know, life is filled with uncertainty and you have to navigate it, you know, and you have to try to do the right thing. We've been trying to use, you know, best practices. We've been as diligent as we can possibly be.

it's all been about health and safety. That's it. We've been concerned about that from day one ever since we canceled basketball. And our feeling is that if you're doing things for the right reason, you'll ultimately come out with the better policy decisions. It's not going to be perfect. You can't eliminate all risks. But then again, let's not look at this in a strictly one-sided way.

In other words, if you play college football, for example, or fall sports, Okay, if you don't play, what are the alternatives? What's going to happen to the student athletes? Are they going to be better off if they didn't play? If students are on campus, and that really has been pretty much a key, you know, a factor in whether we can play, you know, college sports. But if they are, and our student athletes are in, as I mentioned, that controlled environment where they're getting tested each week,

they're getting medical advice or getting all sorts of other things, sanitation and hygiene are far better. If they're home and they're going to a gym that doesn't have the standards, we have if they drop out of school or if they stay in school but they live in an off-campus apartment or even if they're on campus. They're not necessarily being monitored the same way. They're not being tested the same way. What's going to happen to them?

Would anyone track them? What happens if we don't play and we could have played in a safe environment? But there's student athletes who will be depressed about that. Our student athletes want to play. Our football players want to play. And I think studies around other conferences show that it's close to probably. it's clearly between 90 and 100%. It's probably closer to 100%.

They want to play and they feel we've done things to keep them safe. But if they're not playing, you know, there could be depression and that could be an issue and there could be other things. It's not that simple. What I've been asking for, Matt, is, you know, I don't know what our ultimate decision is going to be. The virus will obviously, you know, have a big, you know, impact. And obviously it's had an impact in Houston.

But in the end, what we want to do is make rational decisions. all I've been campaigning for is let's think about this rationally. I don't want to engage in any hysteria. You know, there's still some things we don't know clearly, but we do know a lot more than we did four months ago. And we have to, the pandemic may be with us for quite a while, and we may not have a vaccine. You know, we may not be able to, you know, guarantee 100% safe,

but nothing is guaranteed 100%. And there are other risks that we do accept, and we have to accept them. but, you know, we're doing everything we can to mitigate risk and to make this safe. And what's the alternative? Are the student athletes, are football players, our fall sports, or soccer players, you know, obviously basketball will be starting up? Are they better off, you know, not participating in sports if you can do it, you know,

in a reasonable and safe way? That's the question we're posing to ourselves. We've got a medical advisory group. They haven't told us not to play. If they said, we don't think you ought to play, I think our presidents and chancellors would take that very seriously. Ultimately, it's their decision. They have to weigh the risks, but they haven't said that.

And right now, you know, we'd like to buy as much time as possible, Matt, because I think you learn more and maybe things in Houston will start improving and maybe things in Dallas will start improving. We've got two states, obviously, Florida and Texas. You know, we've had some issues in Pennsylvania, but those seem to have subsided. So, you know, let's find out if we, you know, in a couple of weeks, we all agree that we probably have to make some initial decisions about whether we move the season back. Do we, you know, postpone play for a while?

And then we probably have another few weeks to make a decision as to whether we have the season. But I wouldn't, you know, I don't think we could make a decision based on, well, we can play in the spring because I think that's going to be very problematic. I really do. I mean, to play, you know, 20 to 25 football games in a compressed time period. If you, you know, account for the 2021 season is something that is really something that's got to be that carefully. So you're opposed?

Yeah, so Mike, you're opposed to playing spring football? Well, I'm not opposed to it, but I think it's a absolutely. I agree with Sandy Barbara. It is a last resort. And then I don't know how practical it's going to be because what you don't want to do, Matt, is jeopardize the 2021 season in any way. And if you play in the spring, you know, what happens to the, you know, practices in the summer?

In addition, you know, it could be counterintuitive, but what you'd be indoors practicing in the winter. the virus spreads more easily. And, you know, one of the theories, I'm not a doctor, but, you know, in the warm weather, most people in the south and in the southwest are indoors, right, a lot of the time. And I guess maybe that, you know, to some extent, helps cause the spread. We don't know. I mean, the doctors, I'm not a doctor, but, you know, you hear a lot, you know, you read a lot.

This is not that simple a situation. And, you know, the two-thirds, if we lost the 20 football and the 21 football season, that would be, you know, utterly catastrophic. It would be very difficult even to navigate through if we lose the 20 season. We'll do it. Our conference is healthy enough, but it's going to be a very tough situation. And there'll be the economic toll is really a human toll if people lose their jobs and we have to furlough people or, you know, these communities that rely on football, people lose their jobs. That's a human toll. And that's something that, you know, if you can play safely, then then obviously, that toll is mitigated, but that's the key to everything. Can you do it safely? Can you test? Can you, you know, isolate? Can you quarantine? Can you trace?

Can you do the things you need to do? And again, would these student athletes, you know, be safer if they weren't in a controlled environment? They weren't being tested. They weren't, you know, having access to facilities there, you know, as clean as they can possibly be, you know, whether it's temperature checks, wearing masks, you know, social just, all the things that will be by the coaches who are taking this very seriously. Those are the questions you have to ask, Matt. Before I let you run, and we've got Mike Oresco, the Commissioner of the American with us, and I'm vested in your conference. I have been since the day.

It was born. I'm a monitor to the University. Houston is involved, obviously. He's been there since day one, and Chris Pezman does a great job as our athletic director. We've already lost one game. Yeah, we've lost the Washington State game, it sounds like for sure.

The BYU and the Rice games, and maybe non-conference is just a moot conversation, but is there any thought and the reason why I ask you this is because our league is still spread out and a lot of leagues are frankly have become much more spread out than the year's past with all the different mergers and whatnot but does your league have a consensus could you see navy play primarily teams in the eastern half of the country could you see u of h being asked maybe you play two or three other non-conference games that aren't involved in the league so it cuts down on your travel it cuts the kids away from hotels and airplanes planes or is it you've got to go all in and play at least a conference schedule to have a

2020 season? We plan on playing a conference schedule for sure if we play. And Matt, in terms of non-conference, that would be up to the individual schools. And they may, you know, they're going to lose some games and they may decide to, you know, substitute games that are closer by. Obviously, it might involve bus trips. But we charter, though, for football, so there's not the same risk as commercial air travel. and we're still investigating the risks of commercial air travel

because that, you know, Olympic sports, you know, that figures in more heavily there. And so we're going to have to really review that, you know, carefully. But in terms of football, it's your charter and basketball too. And so consequently, our plan is to play a conference schedule. Could we play, you know, our normal 12, we don't know yet? If we couldn't play 12, would we play a hybrid eight and then have two non-conference games?

right now we didn't view an all-conference schedule as something we'd prefer to do you know we would like to keep we have some key non-conference games that we'd like to keep army plays Navy Navy plays Notre Dame obviously TCU SMU is a key game

you know Houston obviously losing the Washington State game maybe there's a game closer to home that Chris can substitute you know I know he's looking at that BYU has just lost five games three pack 12 and then two big ten and they might be looking to play some of our teams.

Army might be looking to play some of our teams. But again, the charter travel really makes football, you know, in that sense, safer. And again, we're, you know, speaking of Olympic sports, as I mentioned, you know, we are looking at more regional schedules there and seeing what we can do. We haven't finalized plans. But it's, you know, it's a fluid situation. We talk to our ADs regularly. and we're trying to figure out, you know, what the other, you know, P5 are going to do who have not said they're not playing non-conference games.

You know, we think the Big 12 will play. I can't speak for them, but we think that they're going to play some non-conference games. As I said, TCU, SMU, it seems to be on. We have a Texas USF game, you know, no sign of any cancellation there. We don't know. We don't know whether SEC and ACC will want to keep some non-conference games. They have some important rivalries. are also close by.

You know, Georgia, Georgia, Tech and South Carolina, Clemson, and Florida, Florida State. And, you know, we don't play as many. We have Mississippi State game this year. We don't play as many SEC games. And the other thing, Matt, is we only have five P5 home games this year. Last year we had nine or ten.

And only half of our games, roughly, with the P5, our home games. Not this year. For some reason, we have, I think, 14 or 15, and more 10 of them or so are away. So we've lost some big 10 games. We lost four there. We've lost a Pact 12 game. And our schools are looking to potentially replace those.

And again, it's all continuing on playing at all. And right now, you know, there's real concern. But on the other hand, there's still cautious optimism that if we buy time, that things might, you know, be such that we can play. We'll leave it at that. Mike, thank you very much, Commission. It's a pleasure to have you on my show. You're in a very difficult position, my friend.

There's really no other way to say it. And I wish you and the rest of the ADs a lot of success. Hopefully numbers will start to drop, and we can get thinking about a schedule at some point down the road. Again, Mike, thank you very much for joining me on my show this afternoon. Well, thanks for your support of the conference, Matt. You know, our president and chancellors have an even bigger job opening their campuses. No question.

Who is our board member and, you know, one of our real valued counselors. And, you know, Chris Pezman does a great job. And my best to Dana and everybody in the Houston area. And also just for everyone's help, safety. I know you've had a tough time recently, and so I hope everybody, you know, things improve there and stay well. Thank you, Matt, for having me. Thanks again. Mike Oresko, the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, joining us here on a Sports Talk 790.