There won’t be Big Ten in the fall.
On Tuesday, the convention announced that it would be holding an autumn season due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said:
“The physical and intellectual fitness and well-being of our student-athletes has been at the heart of all the decisions we have made about the ability to move forward. Over time and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Working Group on Emerging Disease Infections and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it has become very transparent that there is too much uncertainty about the potential medical dangers to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.”
The Big Ten also announced that it “will continue to compare a number of features for those sports, adding the festival in the spring.”
This comes after Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated reported on August 9 that “high-level meetings are planned this week on the school football landscape with the expected solution of postponing sports from fall to 2021.”
Forde and Dellenger noted that Big Ten was preparing to cancel the fall season and discussions with Power Five meetings about the option to do the same consistently.
“It has reached a critical stage,” said one convention commissioner. “I think we’ll all meet in our forums in the next few days. We have pictures to make it fun.”
Another industry source said, “In the next 72 hours, college football is going to come to a complete stop.”
Heather Dinich, Adam Rittenberg, Mark Schlabach and Chris Low of ESPN echoed the issues in their report the same day, noting that Power Five Commissioners held an emergency assembly amid the “growing concern” that there might be no autumn.
ESPN reported that Big Ten presidents were “ready to break the record for their fall sports season” and whether the other Power Five meetings “will align with them.”
There is also a sense that the cancellation of the season seemed “inevitable” among many resources ESPN spoke to, and several of them said they were waiting for a Power Five convention to take the lead as the first to make an official move.
“No one was looking to be the first to do it,” a Power Five coach told ESPN, “and now no one will have to be the last.”
Despite those developments, there were voices to play a season among many notable names and sports schools. Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence turned to Twitter to defend the season, and noted what school football has to offer some of its players:
People take so much risk, if not more, if we don’t play. All players will be sent home in their own communities where social estrangement is highly unlikely and medical care and expenses will be charged to families who hire covid19 (1)
Players are and take all necessary precautions to avoid getting a covid because the fate of the season/companions is at stake. Without the season, as we have already seen, other people will not take social distance, will not wear a mask and will take the necessary precautions.
#WeWantToPlay https://t.co/jvQhE7noGB
Ohio State Quarterback Justin Fields echoed Lawrence’s feelings:
#WeWantToPlay https://t.co/NgKG9Nab9c
Elsewhere, some parents of Ohio State football players shared a joint letter that read, in part, “We are firmly convinced that our children need to play next season and we have complete confidence that the university and training staff, as well as medical experts, have figured out a way to do this. to get there.”
The conference’s most sensible medical adviser believes schools can ‘reduce the threat of bringing COVID into the football field’
Coach O says the Tigers are in a position to play: “There’s no plan B here at LSU. We’re moving forward’
@kenyondavid BFC’s lack of leadership has left the game in trouble