less than the number of people 22+ off campus -- so it is indeed dramatically safer for them to be on campus in effect quarantined from the world than it is for them to be home and then walking the streets with the general population.

Missing from your post is how easy it is for ND to prepare the people on campus that are over 22 to be in contact with these players. It's not like they are mysteriously arriving and no one has any clue its happening.

If you can go to Home Depot safely, you can figure out how to protect workers on a college campus. It isn't rocket science and I am beyond tired of so many people making things far more complex than they really are.

I think that society as a whole is better off putting 18-22 year olds on islands of college campuses, housed with each other, as opposed to housed with people who are statistically far more likely to be at-risk. Not all colleges are set up this way, but even in the urban campuses where students mostly live off campus, society is likely better off with them living there, with other young people, than with their parents.

If there are at-risk faculty, take special precautions. At-risk staff would need to be dealt with differently. Ultimately, the working-age population that can't safely return to work probably need to be put on disability.

He is stating that athletes are safer at school than at home, not that administrators and teachers are safer. It is possible that he is correct given that the athletes generally come from urban, poor communities with higher risks of COVID and non-COVID deaths.

I suspect we will find some more practical approaches to risk mitigation that isn’t all or nothing, and isn’t the same for every demographic. Proper risk management, rather than political risk management.

...The commissioner's point is narrow enough to be useless without considering the wider context.

29% of the US population (55 and older) is the highest risk for the most severe COVID result. They have experienced 93% of the deaths, with the increasingly higher age demographics having increasingly larger percentages (55-64 = 12%, 65-74 = 21%, 75-84 = 27%, 85+ = 33%). If the highest risk of the university population also represent the smallest percentage on campus, then it seems reasonable that one could devise some common sense practices to protect those demographics - social distancing, protective equipment, no in-office visits, etc. It seems pretty easy to keep 10-15 foot separation between students and any administrators or instructors that fall in the at-risk groups or have comorbidities.

Again, all or nothing and one size fits all approaches are not good policy. Students don't need to be held hostage, and it can be done with safety and common sense.

Whether there needs to be intercollegiate games is a separate matter that should be considered separately based upon entirely different risks and mitigation approaches. Extracurricular activities are certainly not critical to the mission of a university, and they aren't critical to successfully earning a degree.

Edit to avoid going too far off-topic: the PAC 12 commissioner was addressing athletes because his the commissioner of PAC 12 athletics. It seems reasonable for him to stay in scope, and his statement is fairly common sense if one looks at the wider context.