SEC Coaches Will do Anything but Wear a Mask

College football is finally back (at least most of it) after a long offseason that produced constant questions about if there would be any season at all due to the coronavirus. After a lot of deliberation the NCAA, individual conferences, schools, and states gathered some regulations to curb the spread of coronavirus. These regulations vary from sensible, like limiting stadium capacity, to bizarre, like banning live mascots from stadiums. Among the sensible regulations is a requirement for all coaches and nonplayer personnel to wear masks on the sideline. Wearing a mask is pretty simple, but for a high-energy SEC coach, it can present some problems. 

As I watched SEC football last Saturday I noticed that coaches have developed sophisticated methods to not wear a mask yet avoid any fines or penalties. By far the most popular loophole was a mask worn by UGA’s Kirby Smart, Alabama’s Nick Saban, and most of Alabama’s team personnel. This mask for some inexplicable reason appears to be made entirely of mesh. Now up close these masks could have some type of barrier in them, but that does not appear to be the case. Mesh masks certainly allow for more ventilation and better acoustics for Nick Saban to scream at his team and officials, but I would venture to say the holes on the mesh are bigger than the 60-140 nm range of a coronavirus particle.

My personal favorite maskdodging tactic was Tennessee's Jeremy Pruitt and the cover-everything-except-the-face approach. With a checked orange and white neck gaiter wrapped around his entire head, but his full-face exposed, Pruitt drew some fantastic comparisons to E.T, Russian grandmothers, and a medieval soldier. However,  despite the jokes, any COVID particles in him would be free to float along his team’s sideline. To be fair, he would occasionally pull the gaiter up so his nose and mouth were only slightly exposed, but he spent the majority of the game open to the elements. 

Another great effort came from Ole Miss’s Lane Kiffin Who did a better job with a bandana sporting the name of Ole Miss players now in the NFL around his face. Unfortunately, he spent most of the game with it rotated to the side so he could talk into his headset. This left most of his face exposed, but maybe the extra clarity in his communications is what almost brought Ole Miss to a huge upset over Bama. 

Some coaches did a good job like Florida’s Dan Mullen who wore a fabric mask for most of his loss to Texas A&M. His attention to COVID safety is surprising because he also immediately began campaigning to open his home stadium to its full 88,548 fan capacity as Florida Governor Ron Desantis now allows.  

There’s no doubt in my mind there were many more examples of coaches almost wearing masks, but I could only watch so many games on Saturday. Overall, I found this phenomenon very entertaining, but I would guess the NCAA and the universities these coaches represent might be less amused. As long as we still have college football, I’ll be happy, and maybe when the Big 10 joins the season later this month those coaches will have better mask discipline.