MUNCIE, Ind. — If you're a Ball State University student, athlete, alumni or big fan, you have a lot less to cheer about.
Football and other fall sports are victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Mid-American Conference is concerned about the safety of athletes, coaches and communities so it is postponing fall sports until the spring.
The Ball State football season is now over before it even started. The MAC postponed the seasons of all seven fall sports.
Athletic Director Beth Goetz called it the right decision but not an easy one.
"It is certainly devastating because you know what it means for student athletes to be together, to represent the institution and to something are so passionate about, something they really worked hard for," Goetz explained.
Presidents of the MAC's 12 universities voted unanimously to cancel the season.
Jon Steinbrecher said 2020 will be remembered as a horrible year.
"This is a miserable decision," Steinbrecher said. "This is a decision that effects roughly 25 hundred student athletes who live for the moment to compete."
Ball State hasn't said whether any of its athletes have tested positive for COVID-19. The virus has infected athletes at Indiana University as well as other universities and high schools around the state.
Goetz supports the decision to push fall sports back to spring and said it wasn't a surprise.
"The information we continue to receive, we can't create an environment that is going to be safe enough at this time to allow our student athletes to compete," Goetz said.
The MAC's decision buys time for the country to get the pandemic under control or perhaps discover a vaccine - or even a cure.
But rescheduling the entire sports season will be difficult.
"We don't expect it will look the same, you can't just pick up those seasons, the length of them and number of games and neatly fit them into that time frame," Goetz said.
2020 will be remembered for it's painful lessons in overcoming adversity.