College football is still set to be played on 76 FBS campuses this fall, but Miami coach Manny Diaz said he doesn't think that means the sport can't operate in a bubble to protect athletes.
While the NBA and NHL have found success amid the coronavirus pandemic by isolating all competitors in just one or two locations, Diaz said college football programs can largely create similar -- albeit more -- bubbles on their own campuses.
"There are people you've chosen to allow to get within 6 feet of you -- whether that's at work at ESPN or when you go home or when you go to the grocery store," Diaz said in an interview with SportsCenter on Friday. "We all have a bubble, and that bubble is who we allow in close contact with us without a mask. Now, certainly, we can think of the NBA bubble or going to Orlando and being completely isolated -- we can't do that. But we can determine who we allow into close contact with us, and for how long we allow them to be in close contact."
At Miami, that has translated into some strong testing figures of late. University president Dr. Julio Frenk, a former minister of health in Mexico, said that the athletics program has not had any positive tests in its past three rounds of testing, despite the city of Miami being one of the most active COVID-19 hot spots in the country.
Diaz and Frenk both shared the opinion that football could be played safely this season, and that playing the game wouldn't necessarily correlate to a higher number of cases.
"We always tell our guys, we're only as good as our next test," Diaz said. "We've had a good run now of negative tests, but it doesn't matter. It takes one decision -- it might be one member of the team -- and we've gotta keep coronavirus out of this building. You cannot catch coronavirus playing football, but you can catch it outside of this building and bring it into the building."
Diaz conducted a study of Miami's pre-pandemic practices this spring to get a sense of how much close contact players actually experienced in an average session. Looking at contact drills as well as seven-on-seven and 11-on-11 sessions for two players at each position group, Diaz's staff found that a relatively high amount of social distancing occurred naturally.
In about 35 reps' worth of work -- or about half a game -- Diaz said no two players came within 6 feet of each other for more than 3 minutes, 22 seconds of total time (between two offensive linemen) and more than half were within 6 feet for less than 1 minute. The CDC's guidelines suggest limiting personal contact to less than 15 minutes.
"Obviously having a conversation for 15 minutes vs. blocking each other, there's a big difference," Diaz said. "But this has been a battle against the virus but also a battle of narratives, and nowhere were you hearing how many players on the field were putting another player at any type of risk."
Diaz said the data would be helpful in contact tracing if a player were to test positive for COVID-19 and could translate to far fewer teammates or opponents being forced to quarantine. Diaz shared the data with the rest of the ACC, and Virginia Tech repeated the study using practices from fall 2019 and found similar results.
"There's a perception that a practice is two hours with 22 guys in a pile. That's really not the case," Diaz said. "What it comes down to is your bubble is a lot smaller on the field than people think."
That type of data-driven approach has been critical to Frenk as he has worked with the league's presidents to decide on the sport's future for this fall.
Frenk told ESPN on Friday that he has tried to avoid binary narratives -- safe or unsafe -- when evaluating the possibility of playing this season and that so far he feels comfortable with the encouraging testing numbers coming out of Miami's locker room, while weighing the variable risk between playing football and turning student-athletes loose to fend for themselves outside the football facilities.
"If we're making decisions on the basis of fear, we're not going to get it right," Frenk said. "If we take a very conservative approach, we may think that's right for the students, but that's not necessarily the case. We may unwittingly be putting our students at higher risk by not allowing them on campus. I know that's not how the discussions have gone, but it's the responsible, careful analysis that reassures you you can actually do it."
Frenk met with other ACC presidents and chancellors Thursday for a regularly scheduled update, and he said their medical professionals reviewed the latest data, including discussions about the heart condition myocarditis, which has been tied to some cases of COVID-19.
So far, Frenk said, the league is unified in pushing forward, though he cautioned that decisions could change as more testing is completed upon the return to campus of other students.
Frenk also said he's not surprised that other leagues, including the Big Ten and Pac-12 decided against playing football. Calling this the "toughest" decision process of his career, Frenk said the information about the virus is so dynamic that it's difficult to find agreement on key issues.
"We're learning about this virus every day," Frenk said. "It's entirely possible that, in the face of a rapidly changing situation, different people with the same level of reason and evidence and thoughtfulness may reach different conclusions."