Trevor Lawrence sparks united #WeWantToPlay movement, players association goal as 2020 season hangs in balance

Trevor Lawrence, a projected top pick of the 2021 NFL Draft with more than 100,000 Twitter followers, seemed to spark the #WeWantToPlay movement. The 2020 college football season appears to be crumbling before our eyes amid the covid pandemic. Power Five conference commissioners held a meeting Sunday to address the viability of playing football in the fall, and there will be another meeting Monday.

Some Power Five conferences appear to be leaning toward not playing this fall, perhaps with the hopes of postponing the season until the spring. That led some of college football’s biggest stars to speak up Sunday in an effort to save the season, channeling the NFL players’ #WeWantToPlay movement. Clemson quarterback Lawrence explained his position in a three-post Twitter thread that kicked off a round of tweets from other stars following in his footsteps.

By midnight, #WeWantToPlay joined with #WeAreUnited in a call to not only play college football in the fall but do so safely while ultimately creating a college football players association. The demands of the joint effort are not numerous in length, but the push to create a college football players’ association representing the power conferences is massive. Players are at just as much, if not more risk, if they do not play.

Players will all be sent home to their own communities where social distancing is highly unlikely and medical care and expenses will be placed on the families if they were to contract covid.

Not to mention the players coming from situations that are not good for them or their future and having to go back to that. Football is a safe haven for so many players. Players are more likely to get the virus in everyday life than playing football. Having a season also incentivizes players being safe and taking all of the right precautions to try to avoid contracting covid because the season and teammates’ safety is on the line.

Without the season, players will not social distance or wear masks and take the proper precautions. As one of the sport’s most recognizable names, Lawrence may be the unofficial face of the movement. However, more than a dozen players with representatives from all Power Five conferences had a part in its creation. Sunday was the starting point in the dialogue. Soon thereafter, a Zoom call featuring Alabama running back Najee Harris, Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard, and Oregon lineman Penei Sewell, among others, was organized.

The players spoke for about 30 minutes before agreeing on the points listed on the #WeAreUnited x #WeWantToPlay graphic, including “universal support” for a players’ association for all college athletes. The sudden, late-night development was, the “crown jewel” of what players from all over the country had been demanding over the last couple of months. Other college football players began issuing the same statement in a midnight tweetstorm that trended No. 1 in the United States.

How the power conferences respond to #WeWantToPlay remains to be seen, though Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yuracheck has tweeted his support for it.

The Big Ten is considered to be the conference that may start the domino effect among the Power Five leagues of postponing or otherwise canceling the season. But that has received pushback from players and their parents who are not exactly thrilled about that idea. Corey Teague, father of Ohio State star running back Master Teague, tweeted a letter on behalf of the Football Parents Association at Ohio State (FPAOS).

As parents, they strongly believe their sons want to play the upcoming season and have the full trust of the university and coaching staff long with medical experts have found a safe way for that to occur. The parents believe that this age group represents some of the healthiest individuals, while they recognize the risk can not be eliminated, they believe the risk is minimal and the season can safely and responsibly occur. Players from the Big Ten and Pac-12 have already formed groups to demand reforms to benefit the health, well-being, and financial stability of student-athletes.

That is just the latest item in an offseason that has shown players that they have the ability to enact change and make their voices heard on a variety of issues. If the players are successful, the members of the #WeWantToPlay movement could be seen as the people who saved the college football season. More than 400 players participated in the #WeWantToPlay Twitter storm that resulted in immediate concessions of no preseason games and daily testing.

Embraced by the game’s most prominent players, the #WeWantToPlay push took hold and was trending on Twitter with more than 72,000 tweets by late Sunday night.