Lots to think about here. Lots of "ifs". From my viewpoint it starts with the individual, their family and situation. If I'm putting my oldest son in this situation, I know he would have been fine with distance learning because of the way he learns. I think a lot of this is about how does your kid learn and what is he/she comfortable with. For example, I had to go to class to reinforce the lessons in the books. My son is very different.
Once you get past that education hurdle then it is onto to the athletic decision tree of the NCAA, Division, Conference and the college itself....what are their policies and what are they going to allow. Yesterday Harvard announced all-remote learning for 2021, so I think this is going to send a ripple across the Ivy. I don't see many situations where all of this is going to line up perfectly anywhere. There was talk about moving Ivy football into the Spring, and reducing the schedule. This is just one example of a conference trying to adjust to all the "what ifs" of the NCAA. To "hang your hat" on specific current & future gap year policies across all of this is an absolute crap-shoot. It is possible you may see some students forego athletics at some colleges because they don't want to deal with the hassles and "what ifs" of transfers and gap years. They'll stay where they are or transfer as students.
JMO