New Mexico announcing that high school football would not take place this fall, and would instead move to the spring was the first domino to fall. While a handful of other states are considering doing the same and making a final decision in a few weeks, Virginia appears to be heading down the path of no football this fall as well.
Virginia High School League executive director Billy Haun presented three models this morning during a special meeting with school superintendents, principals and athletic directors.
Here's a look at the models, provided by VHSL.
MODEL 1
Leave sports in their current seasons, but only golf and cross country would be allowed to start in the fall because they fall into the lower to moderate contact category.
As high-risk sports, field hockey, football, volleyball and cheerleading would not play.
MODEL 2
Switch the fall and spring seasons, which means the following low and moderate sports would be allowed to compete in the fall: track and field, tennis, soccer, baseball and softball. Fall sports would be scheduled for the spring.
The high risk-sports, boys and girls lacrosse, would not be allowed to play.
MODEL 3
All sports would remain in the season in which they are currently aligned, but a condensed interscholastic schedule would be adopted as follows:
Season 1 (Winter sports) would run Dec. 14-Feb. 20. The first contest would be Dec. 28.
Season 2 (Fall sports) would run Feb. 15-May 1 with the first contest starting March 1.
Season 3 (Spring sports) would run April 12-June 26 with the first contest starting April 26.
Notice that none of those models propose including football in the fall.
Interestingly enough, back in May high school coaches in Virginia banded together to form their own coaches association - The Commonwealth Football Coaches Association. Up until that point, high school coaches in Virginia have felt that they didn't have much of a voice in matters like these.
The football season was scheduled to start in Virginia on July 30th, but that is being delayed until a decision is made on what fall sports will look like when they reconvene to vote on July 27th.
We'll have to wait until decision day on that July 27th date, but looks like no football in the fall right now for Virginia high schools.