Football | 8/5/2020 7:30:00 AM

UCONN FOOTBALL ANNOUNCES CANCELLATION OF 2020 SEASON DUE TO RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH COVID-19

The University of Connecticut Department of Athletics today announced that its football program will cancel all competition for the 2020-21 school year.

"After receiving guidance from state and public health officials and consulting with football student-athletes, we've decided that we will not compete on the gridiron this season," director of athletics David Benedict said. "The safety challenges created by COVID-19 place our football student-athletes at an unacceptable level of risk."

Members of the team will remain enrolled in classes, either virtually or in person, as full-time students at UConn. The team members will also retain access to facilities and support services in accordance with NCAA rules, ensuring that student-athletes remain on track academically and developmentally.

While the Huskies began spring practice on February 4 and were one of the only teams in the country to complete a full spring schedule, the opportunities to condition and train as a team have been limited in recent months. The team has been on campus since early July with zero student-athletes testing positive for COVID-19.

This season's games against Illinois, Indiana, Maine and Mississippi have already been taken off the schedule by those schools' respective conferences and uncertainty surrounded the contests against North Carolina and Virginia.

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U-Conn.’s move to cancel could signal the beginning of the end for college football in 2020

By Chuck Culpepper
8/5/2020, 5:19:16 p.m.

Wait, there goes another one of those whispers from New England.

It murmured Wednesday morning out of Connecticut. It came moments after Randy Edsall, the University of Connecticut football coach who formerly held the same role at Maryland, threw down the caps lock and tweeted “DARE TO BE DIFFERENT.” The Huskies would become the first of the 130 Football Bowl Subdivision teams to cancel the 2020 football season outright because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, and the reaction seemed two-pronged.

Many in the country may not have cared so much that the Huskies will not play football. Many might have spent years walking to tailgates — and then stumbling from tailgates — without realizing Connecticut still played top-tier football. The Huskies went 6-30 the past three seasons. They had gone from the American Athletic Conference to independent. Their home crowds in 2019 numbered from a high of 23,108 on Band Day (the Saturday after Labor Day) to a low of 12,084 on Senior Day (the Saturday before Thanksgiving). The fans of Connecticut got to savor some football goodies from 2006 to 2009 during Edsall’s first go-round there, but they are less inclined than other places to see college football scoreboards as elements of self-worth.

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