INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Now that Big Ten has a postponed start weekend, coaches and players can start the race until the opening day.
Wait for a crazy race.
After canceling spring football, restricting and interrupting offseason workouts, disrupting full contact workouts, and despite everything postponing the season, the league’s 14 college presidents and presidents gave the groups five weeks to completing what normally takes months: getting into football shape by the end of October. for the start of a most unusual season.
“We’ll be in a position to play on October 24,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said of the new opening weekend. “You know, acceleration and 20 hours (weekly training), and putting pads was a good idea. So we’re going to be in a position. We’ll play with depth. “
Vocal criticism from school leaders who voted 11-3 to postpone all fall sports amid a sudden increase in COVID-19 instances in August was largely silenced through the unanimous vote that put Big Ten football back on the calendar throughout the CCA. Big 12 and the SEC.
Those who play, teach and watch the game almost universally expressed their joy and relief on Wednesday, knowing that football will return. However, like those conferences, Big Ten football will be another in many ways.
Stadiums will usually be empty and tickets will not be sold to the public. The season was reduced from 12 games to 8 with the opportunity for a ninth around the convention championship game on December 19.
Players will go through daily antigenic tests before education and if two tests verify a positive result, the player must sit 21 days before being allowed to play. Those who hire COVID-19 must be authorized through a school-designated cardiologist Teams will have support plans if the primary coach or assistant becomes ill.
Not everyone follows the same situation either, Indiana University plans to conduct daily testing starting Thursday and the league may not want it until September 30.
And while everyone understands rules and policies, coaches can spend more time over the next few weeks thinking about how to disinfect educational facilities, meeting rooms and locker rooms well than in game plans, because the healthiest team can be the league champion.
“My first considerations were how you feel, how you practice, how you keep social distance in your training, but (also) in meetings and in all the conditions where you have close relationships,” said Barry, Wisconsin’s athletic director and former football coach. Alvarez, who said he was confident this could be achieved. “For me, it was the hardest part, adjusting your players and coaches to a replacement in the way you conduct your daily routine. “
In the field, there are dangers such as injuries.
While the Big Ten have allowed groups to run and lift weights, as well as to make soft paints with helmets for 12 hours a week during the following month, the intensity of full-touch practices will increase rapidly.
Purdue coach Jeff Brohm and Indiana coach Tom Allen have no plans to win much this week or next.
“I think the following week, on a Tuesday – at the moment I don’t think it’s written in stone – is probably the first day in the shells,” Brohm said, referring to September 29. “This Wednesday, the next day, it would possibly be our first day in the towels, I don’t know if it’s entirely written in stone. “
What else will be on the coaches’ plates?Discussions about intensity maps and game guides, and some non-traditional recruiting.
Day believes he can convince offensive lineman Wyatt Davis and cornerman Shaun Wade to play after everyone in the past said they would decide not to focus on their NFL hopes. Penn State’s closed wing, Pat Freiermuth, has shown that he plans to play while Brohm plans to see if Rondale Moore, one of the league’s top electric players, can return to the Boilermakers.
“We will take any resolution you have to take and the direction you should take,” Brohm said. “But yes, we’ll actually take a look at the factor and see where it’s going. “
The schedules will be different.
By betting nine consecutive weekends, the Big Ten may end in time to be in the combination of playoffs and ball hunting. Friday night broadcasts are likely to return, while classic Thanksgiving weekend rivalries such as Michigan-Ohio and Indiana-Purdue can simply locate new dates and then there’s the end of the cross-section opposed to a Week Nine opponent yet to be determined.
“I have to give a lot of credits (to Michigan coach) Jim Harbaugh because he came up with this idea,” Allen said. “We argued for a long time how we opposed this ninth game, whether it was a blind tie opposite someone from the other division. But he figured out a way to have parity in that last game. That’s where we got hit along with No. 7 playing No. 7 and so on. “
But despite all the unknowns, all the fears and no time to waste, there is unifying hope that everything is going well.
“Our players need to play, our coaches need coaches and our enthusiasts need to watch,” said Nebraska Sports Director Bill Moos. “Let’s do all those things now, that’s why it’s a celebration. I think, and very firmly, that the state of Nebraska wants football. In the world I live in, football wants Nebraska. We’ll do it and I’m very excited. “
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School football editors AP Ralph D. Russo and Eric Olson and AP sports writers Steve Megargee and Mitch Stacey contributed to this report.
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