August 13 was the official day of reckoning for southern Utah college sports.

Both the Big Sky and Western Athletic Conferences postponed all fall sports until the spring of 2021 due to ongoing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, something both athletic departments at Southern Utah University and Dixie State University actively hoped to avoid.

It would have already been a shell of a fall season, as football was postponed for both universities, but now the lack of fall sports has SUU athletic director Debbie Corum almost at a loss for words.

“I can’t even really use the word I want to use, because it’s not appropriate,” Corum said during a zoom press conference last week. “It’s been really difficult, and I think one of the things that’s made it difficult is one thing that the information kept changing.”

As the fall approached with no end to the pandemic in sight, the Big Sky and WAC joined a plethora of other conferences in postponing fall sports.

With the official postponements come a difficult time for some, however.

Missing out on football revenue deals a big blow to specific schools, SUU specifically. The financial hole missing form what the athletic department would’ve gotten from football is difficult to make up. But this pales in comparison to what could happen if the pandemic prolongs into the winter sports.

DSU, however, finds itself in a much friendlier spot.

“It’s still not fun and not easy by any means; I don’t want to sugarcoat it,” DSU Athletic Director Jason Boothe said. “But, it’s not as daunting as some other schools are facing.”

‘The best possible time’

Unless DSU employed an expert fortune teller years ago when it was declaring its intent to go Division I, there was no way the Trailblazers’ athletic department could have seen this pandemic coming.

Still, it’s a marvel DSU athletics not only has pushed through the pandemic nearly unscathed, but it can keep pushing through.

“If we don’t play a single event all school year we’re going to be fine financially, as far as salaries, jobs, scholarships and whatnot,” Boothe said. “Granted we will lose some revenue from ticket sales, booster sales, and sponsorships, but the expenses we pretty much break even anyway.”

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Over the past few years, Boothe and DSU have been game planning the next handful of years.

The transition process to Division I involves a four-year reclassification process, which, on paper, seemed like it would make the next few years difficult. DSU cannot receive any benefits from the WAC until it completes the reclassification process, including any money the WAC gets from its NCAA Tournament automatic bid.

The money DSU has used mostly relied on up to this point, to make the $1.7 million move from Division II to Division I, has come through fundraising efforts. Those next few years have already been budgeted out, as Boothe told The Spectrum last summer, as athletics is relying upon increased enrollment for fiscal assistance.

Still, there was opportunities for DSU to help itself, such as its discussions with BYU for a football game this fall.

Boothe confirmed the two sides talked about a potential game this fall, but it never progressed past a discussion. A game against DSU would not have counted for BYU’s bowl eligibility, but even with the bowl season up in the air the Trailblazers’ schedule was taken too many hits for Boothe to rationalize playing that game.

“It turns out now, in hindsight, that would have been our only game,” Boothe said. “We certainly would not have asked the kids to just play one game.”

But. in a year where DSU wasn’t expecting much help, it turns out the university is in the best possible situation because of it.

“We don’t account for that anyway, so we’re not expecting it,” Boothe said of the WAC’s revenue share. “The pandemic and this crisis, in a way, happened at probably the best possible time it could have for us compared to established Division I’s.”

What about the established Division I’s?

When Boothe mentioned the established Division I’s, nearly every other University in Utah falls into that category, SUU included.

Up north, the Salt Lake Tribune reported the University of Utah is projecting it would lose between $50 million to $60 million without football this fall.

SUU doesn’t come close to Utah when it comes to college football revenue.

During the 2018 fiscal year, July, 1 2018 to June 30, 2019, Utah recorded $63,181,908 in football revenue according to the U.S. Department of Education. According to USA Today’s database of athletic department revenue, SUU entire athletic department recorded $15,412,859 during the same timeframe.

Still, losing football is still difficult all the same.

Athletics won’t get money from its football money game with Utah State, which would’ve brought $330,000 to the program and eased at least some of the pandemic-laden burden on SUU’s shoulders.

But, the biggest question comes with basketball. SUU is currently contracted to earn $90,000 from playing at Kansas and $95,000 from playing at Michigan. A year without basketball and football would impact any potential future sports, including a spring Big Sky football schedule.

“I can tell you that that’s one of my things it’s making me wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning,” Corum said. “Trying to figure out how we’re going to be financing the sports in the spring when we haven’t been able to get the revenue that we needed in the fall.”

That’s why SUU is beginning to turn its sights to the public.

Starting this Friday, SUU athletics will kickoff a mini-fundraising event that will run until New Year’s Eve of this year. SUU is looking to raise $120,000 for about 16 student-athlete scholarships. This scholarship fund are what program is calling its number one priority.

“We are estimating losses of up to $650,000 from the adjustment to our fall schedules,” Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs KC Smurthwaite wrote in an email to The Spectrum. “Our number one fundraising priority is and will always be our scholarship fund. It’s constant and will always be there.”

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That’s just one example of how devastating the pandemic has become. SUU has already had to drop its men’s and women’s tennis programs, and Corum loathes the idea of SUU student athletes missing on any opportunity.

Specifically, she mentioned fall sport athletes who will graduate before any type of spring season.

“We have athletes who weren’t planning on being here in the spring,” Corum said. “I was fighting like hell for those athletes to be able to have an opportunity to play.”

With both SUU and DSU’s football seasons getting postponed to the fall, T-Birds coach Demario Warren said he had no idea how a spring season would work. Those details will most likely come to light in the coming weeks for both programs.

During that waiting process, however, SUU and DSU’s goals ultimately remain the same, even if they may be in two different situations.

“We’re making the best out of a terrible situation,” Boothe said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Chris Kwiecinski covers Region 9, Dixie State and Southern Utah athletics for The Spectrum. Follow him on Twitter @OchoK_, and contact him at CKwiecinsk@thespectrum.com, or (435) 414-3261.