For college football to begin on the traditional Labor Day weekend, a decision would probably have to be made in early July, Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson suggested today.

Thompson made his comments on a video released by the conference office in Colorado.

Asked about key dates for insight in determining a start for the college football season, Thompson said, ”Potentially, if you go back to an eight-week preparation for college football to resume and the historical Labor Day weekend opening in college football, that might be the first barometer. So, sometime early in July, a decision would need to be made that we were going to start the season on the Labor Day weekend.”

The University of Hawaii is scheduled to open its season Aug. 29 at Arizona, six days in advance of the Labor Day weekend.

UH competes in football in the Mountain West with most of its other sports playing in the Big West.

Asked how concerned was he that fall sports were going to be impacted by COVID-19, Thompson said, “Oh, I think they will be impacted.”

Discussing how much of a voice campuses will have in determining when it is safe to resume college sports, Thompson said, “That’s, maybe, the most simple answer we can provide. The campus will have all the say. Unless they are in full mode with dormitories and housing and all the other facilities that are open, we won’t have college athletics. We will not have college athletics until the campuses are open.”

On Monday Thompson said, “The matter of the fact is, if there is no college football this fall there’s very little likelihood there will be any other sports because 85% of the revenue derived in college athletics comes from the sport of football.”