It's a trying time for Florida State Athletics Director David Coburn.

The loss of much of FSU's spring sports schedule, the NCAA and ACC basketball tournaments and the potential jeopardization of the 2020 college football season have forced Coburn and his staff to plan budget hypotheticals for the upcoming fiscal year.

Addressing the FSU Board of Trustees on a teleconference Friday afternoon, he laid out exactly how grim a situation it could be.

"We are planning to develop several different budget scenarios for next year. I don't think any of them will be pretty," Coburn said.

"One of them will be a scenario without football and I would just say God help us if that is the scenario."

For FSU, the timing of this couldn't be much worse. It comes at the end of a year where it had to unexpectedly fire a football coach and make a new hire, already cutting in reserves.

He estimates each ACC school will lose between $2.2 million and $2.5 million from the lack of ACC and NCAA basketball tournaments. He did not present a potential loss from the lack of a football season despite discussing the hypothetical.

Knowing how bad the loss will be each school in the conference, the ACC has already started working on ways to save money. FSU has done similarly in a separate way.

"There are current cost-saving analyses underway both here and at the ACC level. The ACC has set up a working group to explore possible conference-wide initiatives for departments and entire sports to potentially save money across the board for all teams," Coburn said.

"These would include things such as travel, scheduling guidelines, practices. There are also potential across-the-board NCAA cost-saving changes coming and I don't know what those would look like, but we're anticipating those."

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On football specifically, FSU football coach Mike Norvell is a part of the ad hoc committee the ACC has launched to help prepare for the possibility of a spring football season if it comes to that and the hurdles that would come with that.

Coburn also discussed the upcoming vote on a one-time transfer rule across all sports set for next month. He said there's a discussion surrounding the name, image, likeness bill that would allow college athletes to be paid for their name, image or likeness at next week's NCAA Council meeting.

With the NCAA formally extending another year of eligibility to all student-athletes in spring sports, Coburn said around 20 FSU seniors across these sports have expressed interest in another season.

Through all this unprecedented adversity, Coburn has come away incredibly impressed with how everyone surrounding FSU Athletics has handled it.

"I do want to say thank you to our coaches, staff, student-athletes, they've been wonderful going through this situation. They've been very understanding, flexible, very supportive," Coburn said.

"I know there's a lot of anxiety, particularly from coaches and student-athletes, about when we will be back and how that's going to work. They've been very, very supportive and understanding and I wanted to say publicly how much those of us who are trying to put this thing together here appreciate that."

Virtual spring game set for Saturday

While Saturday was supposed to be the end of Norvell's first spring at FSU capped off by the Garnet and Golden Spring Game at 5 p.m. at Doak Campbell Stadium, that obviously won't be the case.

The coronavirus pandemic shut down FSU practice weeks ago, canceling the game in its traditional format.

Although far from a fitting substitute, FSU will play the spring game virtually on social media Saturday at 5 p.m.

Using the video game NCAA Football 14, FSU offensive line coach Alex Atkins will play against former FSU defensive lineman Walvenski Aime in a simulation of the scrimmage. Atkins will play as the garnet team while Aime will rep the gold.

The game will be played live and broadcast on FSU's social media with both players on microphone throughout. It will be broadcast on FSU's Facebook and Twitter accounts and on Seminoles.com.

FSU exploring addition of Master's in Athletic Coaching

Another part of the call today, led by Dr. Sally McRorie, FSU's Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, dealt with athletics in a different light.

As an early phase of the degree approval process, McRorie proposed a motion for FSU to potentially add a Master's degree program in athletic coaching. The motion unanimously passed by the FSU Board of Trustees.

The degree program, which would be operated through FSU's college of education, would be for both current and prospective coaches. It would be offered in an online capacity, allowing anyone to pursue the degree while working in some capacity as a coach.

"As it turns out, only 10% of coaches today have formal training to be a coach," McRorie said.

"Coaching as a profession has become much more complex. Coaches of children's and adult sports must be prepared to deal with all kinds of issues. Medical issues such as concussion and other injury prevention, optimal nutrition and physical development and performance, safety from sexual exploitation and many other legal issues."

The list of schools currently offering this degree is limited, especially when considering schools with a level of athletic prowess close to FSU.

Michigan State offers a Master's in sport coaching and leadership and West Virginia offers a Master's in sport coaching.

As for in-state options, the University of Florida offers a Master's in sports management with a concentration in high-performance coaching while the University of South Florida offers a Master's in physical education.

Reach Curt Weiler at cweiler@tallahassee.com or follow him on Twitter @CurtMWeiler.

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