I'm going to take your post by paragraph.
To me, I'm not sure how you socially distance a football team. Sure, you can spread them out in terms of those living on campus, but that's a sport where it's pretty tough to avoid saliva transmission on the field, and who knows what else in the locker room before and afterwards. It seems to me that staggering locker room time before and after would also require disinfecting the place after each "shift". I know Dr. Fauci said that it wasn't transmitted through sweat, but the virus is found in saliva (obviously), snot, urine, and fecal matter.
Secondly, the economics isn't lost on me. But I also know that there are plenty of colleges in the US that don't ever play football, and somehow their locales still manage to thrive economically...and before I get slammed for not being a real football fan...the joke in my household is that those aren't "real" colleges since they don't have football. Not saying those places wouldn't take a hit...they would. But, I also know that 8 members of the SEC, as well as 4 members of the PAC 12 (Pacific Coast Conference then), and Michigan State (among others) didn't play football in 1943...and somehow those schools and cities recovered.
And, let's be honest. How many people on here are wanting football in order to protect the economic impact on Lincoln? If a conference decides to have football, but with no fans, isn't that still going to negatively impact the local economy?
Lastly, never mind deaths....you will see players with asthma, high blood pressure, etc. get seriously ill...possibly permanently ending careers, if they contract this. And, I don't care how good of "game shape" a 6-4, 320 lb. lineman is, they are not healthy heart wise. To me, it seems that extra screening needs to take place if we want to avoid those situations.