Washington coach Jimmy Lake said Tuesday in a video conference with reporters that he would prefer for all major college teams to begin six weeks of preparation for the season at the same time.

“I’m of the opinion it would be great if the NCAA made a blanket rule for the whole nation of when we would start, and I understand some states may be less hit by this than most. And I’m sure there’s going to be some different opinions on this,” Lake said. “In my opinion, I believe the NCAA should step in and say, ‘OK, here’s the date when everybody can start.’”

Chaser.

The NCAA won’t mandate or oversee a uniform return to college sports, NCAA president Mark Emmert said Tuesday, leaving decisions on start dates to state officials and university presidents.

College athletics came to a halt in mid-March, when the NCAA canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, along with all remaining winter and spring championships, because of the evolving threat of the coronavirus pandemic. There is still no timetable for a return, and Emmert said it isn’t the NCAA’s role to determine one in this instance.

“Normally, there’s an agreed-upon start date for every sport, every season,” Emmert told ESPN, “but under these circumstances, now that’s all been derailed by the pandemic. It won’t be the conferences that can do that, either. It will be the local and state health officials that say whether or not you can open and play football with fans.

“We already saw the Oregon governor offering her views on what’s likely to happen in September. The Pac-12 can say, ‘Gee, we’d all like to open up on this date,’ but whether or not you can is going to be ultimately up to the state and local health officials and the campus itself making a decision whether or not they want to go forward.”

A man’s gotta know his limitations.  If only the coronavirus had a history of molesting boys in the shower, then we might see Emmert moved to act.