When college sports will return is the million dollar question right as the coronavirus pandemic continues. NCAA President Mark Emmert told ESPN that his organization will not make the call, leaving the decisions in the hands of state officials and university presidents.

“Normally, there’s an agreed upon start date for every sport, every season,” Emmert said, according to ESPN’s Heather Dinich, “but under these circumstances, now that’s all been derailed by the pandemic. It won’t be the conferences that can do that, either. It will be the local and state health officials that say whether or not you can open and play football with fans.

“We already saw the Oregon governor offering her views on what’s likely to happen in September. The Pac-12 can say, ‘Gee, we’d all like to open up on this date,’ but whether or not you can is going to be ultimately up to the state and local health officials and the campus itself making a decision whether or not they want to go forward.”

Previously, Emmert said that he was under the belief that students must return to campus in order for sports to return.

“All of the commissioners and every president that I’ve talked to is in clear agreement: If you don’t have students on campus, you don’t have student-athletes on campus,” Emmert said in an interview that was shared on the NCAA’s Twitter account. “That doesn’t mean (the school) has to be up and running in the full normal model, but you have to treat the health and well-being of the athletes at least as much as the regular students. … If a school doesn’t reopen, then they’re not going to be playing sports. It’s really that simple.”

Emmert told ESPN that the NCAA’s decision-making model is more similar to the federal, state and local government. He added that the NCAA’s role is to “provide guidance and support.” The NCAA president additionally said he has a formal call with the nearly three-dozen Division I commissioners at least once a week.

College athletics came to a halt in mid-March when the NCAA canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, as well as all remaining winter and spring championships amid the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

Do you think there will be sports in the fall? Do you think Liberty will play football this season?