BIG 10

[Indian72]

Just voted to cancel the season - breaking news here

[MarshallCounty]

Source? I am not seeing anything official.  Purdue practiced today, so some are carrying on as business as usual. On the Dan Patrick show, sources said a straw poll was 12-2 to cancel with Iowa and Nebraska wanting to play.

 

[cw13]

https://onwardstate.com/2020/08/10/report-big-ten-votes-12-2-to-cancel-fall-football-decision-not-final-yet/

 

[cw13]

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2020/08/10/big-ten-cancels-2020-fall-football-season-due-covid-19-pandemic-coronavirus-spring-football/3332501001/?fbclid=IwAR2b1c7VSIZR0BQz4s063dDcsc9S8Pd6gCuWbwnxPRFCjipaf2qwh5tE5eA

[Titan32]

Not yet:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-says-no-vote-has-been-held-despite-expectations-league-will-cancel-fall-2020-season/amp/

[gonzoron]

49 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

Not yet:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-says-no-vote-has-been-held-despite-expectations-league-will-cancel-fall-2020-season/amp/

They have to wait for all the argument threads to get shut down before they can make a final decision.

[Muda69]

Doyel: Big Ten swings and misses on a brand-damaging Monday, looking dumb and weak

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2020/08/10/college-football-chaos-big-ten-sparks-big-monday-cancel-talk/3341215001/

Quote

On Monday, the biggest day in college sports since the 2020 NCAA Tournament was canceled in March, which was the biggest day in college sports since ever, nothing happened.

The Big Ten didn’t cancel the upcoming football season, as we were told it had. The Pac-12 didn’t follow and do the same, as we were told it would. No teams switched conferences. No players, far as we know anyway, entered the transfer portal.

Nothing happened on Monday.

Nothing, except for college players rising up as one and claiming ownership of a sport that has used them and abused them for the price of a scholarship.

Nothing, except for Big Ten college coaches rising as one – even Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh – and speaking out against their bosses, the league’s university presidents, who are very much leaning toward canceling the 2020 season.

Nothing, except for one school from a smaller league – Old Dominion of Conference USA – and one entire smaller conference, the Mountain West, canceling the season out of coronavirus concerns.

Nothing, except for President Trump retweeting Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence at lunchtime, then tweeting out his own college football hype video after dinner.

Other than all that, I mean.

Nothing happened Monday.

President Trump trolls B1G

The Big Ten damaged its brand on Monday. Irrevocably? Oh, probably not irrevocably. People forget things.

But it will take some time for people to forget what the Big Ten did on Monday, when it allowed word to get out that its presidents had voted – informally, apparently – to cancel the 2020 season. We didn’t just have the results, but the score. It was 12-2 in favor of canceling the season. We even had the scorecards: The presidents of Iowa and Nebraska were the two in dissent. Everyone else, including the bosses of Michigan and Ohio State, and of IU and Purdue, voted (informally) to cancel.

But then the coaches got wind of it. They read Twitter, same as you and me. Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh put out a statement lauding the UM athletic department’s handling of the coronavirus, and it has been rather successful: just 11 positive tests outs of 893 administered, and none in the last 353. Ohio State’s Ryan Day put out a statement of his own, saying: "Swinging as hard as we possibly can right now for these players!! This isn’t over! #FIGHT"

Nebraska’s Scott Frost suggested – no, he came out and said – the Cornhuskers would look to join another league if necessary: “We want to play no matter who it is or where it is. We'll see how those chips fall. We certainly hope it's in the Big Ten. If it isn't, I think we're prepared to look for other options."

And then Ryan Day went on ESPN and suggested – no, came out and said – the same thing: "We need to look at every option. And if (another league) is the only option, we need to explore it and see if that's something we can do."

Imagine that: Ohio State joining the SEC for a year. Hey, Notre Dame already joined the ACC football race this year. What’s so weird about Ohio State to the SEC, Nebraska back to the Big 12, and so on?

The Big Ten, though. You look stupid, and weak. People against canceling college football – the SEC, in other words, your main competition for elite recruits – for years will use the league’s premature evacuation of the 2020 season against it for recruiting. No matter how this season plays out, even if (when) it gets canceled eventually, the Big Ten will always be the first domino that tried to fall, tried to go its own way, and was so influential that exactly nobody followed.

And then the other people, those on the side of canceling the season – and canceling on-campus college classes this fall, too – are now down on the league. The Big Ten lost those folks by backing down when the heat got too hot. President Trump retweeted Trevor Lawrence’s plea for a season and even his request for solidarity – President Trump: pro-union? – by adding: “The student-athletes have been working too hard for their season to be cancelled. #WeWantToPlay.”

One hour later President Trump tweeted, “Play College Football!” And then at about 7 p.m., he tweeted a 29-second hype video on the upcoming season.

The Big Ten is alone on an island, mocked by other conferences, trolled by the President, scorned by those who actually agree with its initial premise of canceling the season.

Well done, folks. Now step aside and let the adults in the room handle this.

Follow the money

So, um, are there any adults in the room?

Yeah, there are. But they don’t have the power to do anything. They’re in the room, same as a potted plant is in the room. They’re there, but making no noise at all. Here I'm talking about the Football Championship Subdivision (what we once called Division I-AA), as well as NCAA Division II and Division III.

Those lower rungs of college football have mostly, if not unanimously, decided not to play this fall. Seven of the 13 FCS leagues have said they won’t play football this fall, including the Pioneer League, home to Butler. Division II and Division III have announced they will not hold football championships this fall, because both divisions have dropped below the 50% threshold needed to compete.

It’s an easy decision for those lower levels of college football – the silent majority, you could say – to cancel the season, because they don’t have all that money to distract them. College football generates money for those schools, but it doesn’t exactly make a profit. Most FCS schools depend on subsidies from their university to bankroll such a large undertaking. Most FCS schools, you could argue, would be better off financially without football.

Not so, the Power Five schools. They need football to pay the bills for an entire athletic department. They’d like the revenue of attendance from home games, but they need that TV money. They need games, whether played in an empty stadium or not.

What can you reasonably make of a situation where the only schools still wanting to play college football are the ones with the most money at stake? Where most of the schools without any financial incentive to play are shutting down to protect their students?

Here’s what you can make of it: If we get college football, we’ll get it for the wrong reasons. We won’t get college football because student-athletes are safer on campus than off it, the absurd fallacy floated by Trevor Lawrence and then clung to by those who want this season to happen. Damn near half the Clemson team tested positive for the coronavirus this summer. How safe were they? And soon, when they leave the football facility – college does not happen in a cocoon – they will be in classes and bars and restaurants and maybe even, who knows, parties with thousands of students who don’t have the same protocols as the football team.

And they’re safer on campus than off it?

No. Of course not.

But the coaches are saying the same thing, whether they believe it or not. Michigan’s results are impressive, but what happens later this month when the campus is full of kids who don’t play football, who don’t have Jim Harbaugh and Co. leaning on them to wear a mask, get tested, do the right thing hour after hour, day after day? You know what happens.

And now we know that, even though COVID-19 doesn’t kill college students at nearly the rate that it kills older folks, it can and does leave permanent heart damage. An ESPN report found that five Big Ten athletes who battled the coronavirus were left with a life-altering parting gift: myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. IU lineman Brady Feeney was diagnosed with COVID-19 and has an undisclosed heart condition.

When the Big Sky Conference announced last week that it was moving football to the spring, it defended its decision like so:

“The health and safety of our students is our top priority, and ultimately that concern guided our decision-making process,” said Andy Feinstein, president of the University of Northern Colorado and chair of the Big Sky Presidents’ Council.

Easy for him to say. The Big Sky doesn't cash checks from ESPN.

Mr. Doyel once again doesn't pull any punches.

 

And then there is this headline from the Lafayette Urinal & Courier (story is behind a paywall): No College Football? Purdue Athletics Projected To Lose $50 Million.  

Edited August 11, 2020 by Muda69

[FarmerFran]

I'm assuming since it is unsafe for these student athletes to compete in sports that the universities will be shutting down this fall and not allowing students on campus? These players are safer being with their teams than the kids on campus crammed into dorms and into their non social distanced frat houses and classrooms. 

[Titan32]

 

[Titan32]

The Big Ten has sealed its fate...it will never recover and it really didn’t have room to slip to begin with.

[Muda69]

It is official:  https://bigten.org/news/2020/8/11/general-big-ten-statement-on-2020-21-fall-season.aspx

Quote

The Big Ten Conference announced the postponement of the 2020-21 fall sports season, including all regular-season contests and Big Ten Championships and Tournaments, due to ongoing health and safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
 
In making its decision, which was based on multiple factors, the Big Ten Conference relied on the medical advice and counsel of the Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee.
 
“Our primary responsibility is to make the best possible decisions in the interest of our students, faculty and staff,” said Morton Schapiro, Chair of the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancellors and Northwestern University President.
 
“The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward,” said Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren. “As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.
 
“We know how significant the student-athlete experience can be in shaping the future of the talented young women and men who compete in the Big Ten Conference. Although that knowledge made this a painstaking decision, it did not make it difficult. While I know our decision today will be disappointing in many ways for our thousands of student-athletes and their families, I am heartened and inspired by their resilience, their insightful and discerning thoughts, and their participation through our conversations to this point. Everyone associated with the Big Ten Conference and its member institutions is committed to getting everyone back to competition as soon as it is safe to do so.”
 
The fall sports included in this announcement are men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey, football, men’s and women’s soccer, and women’s volleyball. The Big Ten Conference will continue to evaluate a number of options regarding these sports, including the possibility of competition in the spring. Decisions regarding winter and spring sports will also continue to be evaluated. 
 
The Big Ten Conference is proud of its 14 world-class research institutions and has leveraged their resources and expertise to address this pandemic over the past five months. The Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee have engaged in extensive research and sharing of materials and conversations with federal, state and local government agencies, and professional and international sports organizations in order to track and better understand the daily updates surrounding this pandemic. Their advice and counsel have been invaluable as they have worked tirelessly over the past several months in their efforts to create and maintain a safe environment for athletics.
 
The Big Ten Conference will continue to work with medical experts and governmental authorities to gather additional information, evaluate emerging data and technologies, and monitor developments regarding the pandemic to make the best decisions possible for the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes.