NJCAA moving football to spring

Today, the National Junior College Athletic Association announced its decision to officially move football to the spring and yet there’s still a scenario in which the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges has football in the fall.

The NJCAA’s adjusted plan of action is shifting all close-contact fall sports to the spring semester including football as well as men’s and women’s soccer and court volleyball.

Cross country and the half marathon championships will go on as planned.

As for the winter sports, those being men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling, swimming and diving, they’ll be pushed back until January as well.

All that being said, the MACC is still holding out hope for close contact sports in the fall, abstaining from making a final vote for another two weeks.

Sources close to the situation tells News 25 that the NJCAA has agreed to work with the MACC as the latter continues to monitor their decisions made by other leagues before coming to a final conclusion of its own.

Here’s part of the NJCAA statement: “Our greatest focus is and always has been providing the best opportunities for our student-athletes. Our most recent plan of action provides a path that keeps our student-athletes competing at the highest level with proper safety measures.”

Then the MACC quote: “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.”

Either way it goes, here’s the reaction from Pearl River Community College on the possibility of spring football. PRCC Head Football Coach Seth Smith said, “Today was honestly a continuation of this whole virus. You kind of get a plan in place, you feel like you’re moving forward and then something changes so if you’re not willing to adapt and overcome this thing right here it will kind of put you on your butt. So for us, the news today really doesn’t affect us because we’re going to move forward like nothing has changed until they come out and give us complete confirmation that it has changed.”

PRCC Athletic Director Jeff Long said, “I think I’d be lying right now if I said there weren’t concerns with the immediate future as far as things being normal. I think there are certainly going to be some changes to a lot of things. I don’t anticipate – I’m certainly not an infectious disease specialist but I don’t anticipate the fall, us returning to normal so quick from the folks we’ve talked to, the people we’ve talked to just kind of looking at what’s going on. But I do hope eventually, that we can make the best decisions possible to get back as soon as we can.”

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College declined to comment on the on-going decision making process at this time.

The Bulldogs are still the reigning national champions in football.