Kirk Herbstreit would be ‘surprised’ to see college football season canceled

Kirk Herbstreit had an optimistic message for college football fans on Friday.

The ESPN analyst said he would be “surprised” to see the entire college football season canceled, believing instead that schools and conferences will simply keep postponing things if it comes to that.

“In about two weeks is when I think they’ll have to get to a deadline. By the end of July or early August, as much as they’re trying to push this thing down the road, they have to make the decision,” Herbstreit said on ESPN’s SportsCenter, via Dean Straka of 247Sports. “If they say ‘hey guys, it’s too dangerous and there are too many risks. We can’t play college football this fall,’ I don’t think — I would be surprised if they canceled (the season). I think they would keep postponing, keep pushing and hoping that at some point, the data starts to come down. Because as you know, the data, it just about seems almost every day, is higher and higher.”

Herbstreit made headlines in March when he predicted that the season would be canceled due to the pandemic. He’s obviously changed his tune since then, even as major conferences are starting to scale things down and announce conference-only scheduling for 2020.

A decision will be made pretty soon about the season, as we’re a little more than a month away from scheduled kickoff. Herbstreit is likely correct that we’ll know more within a couple weeks.