Imagine summarizing the last five months of Big Ten football in two photographs for a viral meme.
The way it started dates back to July 9, when Big Ten was the first of 10 FBS meetings to cancel non-convention games. Instead, his initial plan to play 10 games within the convention from Labor Day weekend to the weekend before Thanksgiving, with the championship convention still scheduled for its general place on the first Saturday in December.
This calendar was published on the morning of August 5, and considering Thanksgiving weekend as an “emergency break” before the B1G championship, it would have given each team thirteen weeks to play 10 games.
(In retrospect, it would have been fantastic. Most likely, The Big Ten would also have taken their convention championship to December 19 when the other Power Five leagues did, which would have given schools 15 weeks to play 10 games. Groups may not have played more than 8 or nine games yet, but 10 out of 15 would have been much more feasible than the eventual plan of 8 out of 8).
Less than a week after the release of the 10-game show, Big Ten ended operations on August 11, indefinitely postponing the season, much to Nebraska’s chagrin, we could add. No one satisfied with the decision, but Scott Frost and Co. launched a crisis and threatened to leave the conference.
The Pac-12 followed the Big Ten’s example by postponing the fall season, but the CCA, Big 12, and sec marched into the unknown, and as those leagues progressed, players, coaches, parents, and enthusiasts called for and protested the Big Ten resolution for Even President Trump was concerned about the attempt to regain Big Ten football.
Despite primary COVID-19 outbreaks among athletes in Iowa, Maryland and Wisconsin and although “myocarditis” might have been the most sought-after word in the country in recent weeks, it became transparent in early September than now or ever for Big Ten Football. Power Three was going to play, and a spring football season for Big Ten and Pac-12 would have been a maximum productive farce, a complete injury and disinscription crisis at worst.
Advances (and increased availability) of antigenic testing and the trajectory of new instances at the national point played a key role in resolving the Big Ten on September 16 to start the season on the weekend of October 23, resulting in an innovation approach when the 14 groups would play the championship weekend instead of only the department’s two winners.
So began the total plan of “games in weeks”.
How are you? It’s not good.
Penn State, which opened the season ranked in the AP’s Top 10, had six attempts to nevertheless win a game. That victory came over Michigan, which was a crisis in itself and may be on the edge of a house wins for the first time in the show’s history.
Northwestern Minnesota has already been erased from next weekend’s board, which will last six weeks in a row with at least one canceled Big Ten.
Minnesota now joins Maryland, Ohio State and Wisconsin in the list of groups that have lost multiple games due to COVID-19. Wisconsin has already been eliminated from the Big Ten championship because it can no longer succeed at the minimum threshold of six games played. More importantly, the state of Ohio is one more cancellation that is also not eligible for the naming game.
This week’s game against Michigan State is somewhere between “a little in doubt” and “seriously endangered,” as the Buckeyes are still running into their existing epidemic. Next week’s game against Michigan is also quite lively, with the Wolverines stopping the team’s activities Monday after positive presumptive tests.
It will be discussed here that if big ten has a minimum gambling requirement for their championship, there are no preconditions for bowling games or school football playoffs, and if the state of Ohio does not qualify for the B1G championship, it would still be allowed to do so. participate in the rest of the interdivision event designed through Big Ten on December 19.
In this situation, it’s most likely Northwestern vs. Northwestern. Indiana for the championship with the state of Ohio attracting Wisconsin or Iowa as the flagship billboard game, and that situation would be very funny given the number of Big Ten a enthusiasts) insulted the PSC’s resolution of the variety committee to give Alabama the number four spot in 2017 when it did not even participate in the SEC championship game yb) said that a Pac-12 6-0 champion would not deserve a place in the playoffs this year.
For all it’s worth, I think Ohio State would end up in school football playoffs if it stays undefeated, either 7-0 with a Big Ten name or 4-0 with five cancellations. enthusiasts from groups like Florida, Texas A
But the fact that we even have the debate shows how bad things have gone for the Big Ten.
Adding a literal injury to the insult, Indiana quarterback Michael Penix Jr. suffered a torn ACL in the third quarter of Saturday’s win over Maryland and will miss the rest of the season, ruining one of the wellness stories the league has had in the afterlife few months.
Then, to repeat, things go well in the land of the Big Ten, and they look even worse during the remaining weeks.
The resolve to change course and play the season this fall made sense at the time. Nationally, the seven-day moving average for new instances of COVID-19 was higher from approximately 67,000 in mid-July to approximately 37,000 in mid-September. (There are still many cases, but it is still a noticeable improvement). But that number has remained above 150,000 for more than two weeks, and cooler states have been affected.
Ohio and Michigan were doing well until a few weeks before football returned, which is part of the explanation for why everyone was so disappointed with the resolve to postpone in the first place.
From June 5 to October 4, Michigan’s seven-day moving average remained consistently below 1,000; has been above 6,500 each and every day since November 13. until October 14.
Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania are no better, all of which recorded a 600% increase in the seven-day moving average from the day the Big Ten made the decision to return (September 16) to Thanksgiving. about 1200% on this window from 564 to 6751.
Everyone wonders what will happen if the state of Ohio can’t play for the Big Ten championship, but I’m starting to wonder if there will be two big ten groups healthy enough to play a game on December 19.
Because, and to be transparent here, I’m not an epidemiologist, I doubt we’ve even scratched the surface of COVID-19’s inevitable Thanksgiving peak. It’s probably still the consequences of Halloween parties and things or treats. Things keep getting worse in the rust belt, even “the state of Ohio will have to prove it belongs to the PSC” might not be an explanation enough to keep playing.
I hope I’m wrong, because I too would like to see as much as you can imagine the implosion of Justin Fields, Jayson Oweh, Rondale Moore and Michigan in 2020, but if the Big Ten had known in September what he knows now, he stayed the original plan to play maybe in the spring.
Kerry Miller covers school football and men’s school basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.
Saturday between Terps and Wolverines cancelled due to COVID-19 issues
@KerranceJames uses viral meme to sum up the last five months of B1G football