Mississippi delays start of high school football season due to COVID-19
The Mississippi High School Activities Association announced Tuesday that is delaying the start of the football season for two weeks due to concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Football practices are now scheduled to start on Aug. 17 and opening games will take place on Sept. 4.
The high school football season was originally scheduled to begin Aug. 21. Unless schools are able to reschedule contests later in the season, games that were scheduled for the first two weeks like Moss Point-Pascagoula and East Central-Gulfport will be called off.
Whether fans will be allowed in the stands to start the season is also unclear.
Gov. Tate Reeves has indicated that large crowds are unlikely to start the 2020 football season.
“It’s going to be problematic in the fall unless we see a dramatic decline in the growth rate of the number of cases we have in Mississippi,” Reeves said Monday. “There’s no other way to couch it other than that. We are currently in the middle of July. We have been able to move toward more normalcy in June and the early part of this month, but we’re seeing rising cases and we’ve got to be smart about what we do going forward.”
The state’s top health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said he thinks it can be safe for games to be played, but added “Crowds are never safe right now.”
Dobbs said that a big challenge will be managing coronavirus outbreaks that require multiple players to be quarantined.
“It’s going to be a very different fall than we’re used to, no matter what,” he said.
Pascagoula football coach Lewis Sims is supportive of the MHSAA decision.
“We’ll be able to see how things are going after 14 days of school,” Sims said. “It gives us time.”
Preseason football scrimmages will be allowed on Aug. 28.
High school, cross country and swimming will start practicing on Aug. 20 and matches will begin on Aug. 24.
Junior college season may be postponed
While Mississippi high schools are moving forward with an attempt to play this fall, most of the nation’s junior colleges appear likely to attempt to attempt a season during the spring.
The National Junior College Athletic Association voted Monday to move most of its fall sports, including football, to the spring, but it remains to be seen if Mississippi community colleges will do the same.
Region 23, which represents Mississippi and Louisiana, abstained from Monday’s vote, giving Magnolia State officials more time to make a final decision on whether to play football games this fall.
“While we are very concerned about the health and safety of our student-athletes, personnel, and fans, we believe they are best served by waiting for other conferences and organizations to make a final decision regarding fall sports,” the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges said in a statement.
The NJCAA’s decision would move all close-contact sports to the spring, including football, soccer and volleyball.
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 3:25 PM.
