Screw-up after screw-up, mis-calculation error after mis-calculation, the Big Ten collapsed in the last week of the normal season after wasting their ultimate valuable game, having jeopardized the chances of their only competitor’s College Football Playoff and whose leadership will come out of COVID -19 to be remembered for their arrogance, mismanagement and naivety in the midst of a crisis.
Other than that, things are going well.
The main motivation for the Big Ten to pitch in combination this failed fall season is because Ohio State had enough gear to win a national championship. At the end of the day, there is still a chance that this will happen.
While Tuesday’s announcement that the Ohio State-Michigan game would probably not be played for the first time since 1917 is certainly overwhelming, it is so far the most valuable property of the Big Ten, adding the convention championship game, which does not necessarily eliminate the Buckeyes. . .
“We want to make sure we remain fluid and agile during those periods,” Commissioner Kevin Warren said Tuesday.
That includes asking whether other groups’ schedules should be rearranged to locate an Ohio State opponent 5-0 this week. One more and potentially debatable query is whether athletic league administrators will vote to get rid of the rule they implemented in August. groups would not be eligible for the Big Ten championship if they played less than six games.
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In the end, this factor is not assertive of the way the state of Ohio will be evaluated. The Playoff is, through design, a good-looking contest and not a tournament that distributes automatic tickets. Ironically, in building the CFP format, former Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany argued that only convention champions deserve to enter. Fortunately for his league, Delany lost that argument.
The fact that the Buckeyes play in Northwest or Iowa on December 19 and that this game is called the Big Ten Championship turns out to be of little importance here. The variety committee rated Ohio State as one of the 4 most sensitive groups to date. it’s 6-0, chances are they’ll come in.
But the Big Ten didn’t make it easy for him.
In fact, it was not an ideal circumstance for Warren to have a pandemic on his lap in his early months of paintings after Delany’s retirement.
But Warren and the ten presidents who hired him misunderstood the room in each and every shift this crazy year.
When the Big Ten announced on August 11 that they would not be gambling this fall and that they would seek to catch up on a football season in the spring, it was thought that other meetings would stand and underestimate the number of setbacks they would get from their own ranks at schools like Ohio State and Nebraska.
Then when they changed course on Sept. 16, after Warren’s Aug. 19 that the resolution to shut down “will not be reviewed,” the plan for groups to play 8 games in 8 weeks so that they can be eligible for the playoffs. foolishly left no room to postpone games.
Meanwhile, Big Ten was used as a political accomplice through a president whose re-election crusade targeted winning states in the Midwest, with a little luck he instituted a daily quick check plan that obviously did not save him COVID-19. propagation teams and have put into position the maximum competitive set of protocols of any conference, forcing players to sit for 21 days if they test positive.
That is not to say the Big Ten were wrong to be careful, as COVID-19 remains a harmful virus with potentially negative effects whose long-term effects are unknown. But when he doesn’t stop the virus from spreading through groups and can’t play a representative season, his plan just didn’t work. And this is not a single team that has struggled to control COVID-19. There have been primary outbreaks during the season in Wisconsin, Minnesota (which had 49 cases in 3 weeks), Maryland, the state of Ohio, and now Michigan.
No wonder there are a number of taunts between the directors of the SEC, the CCA and the big 12, leagues that actually had their own ups and down, but were on the same wavelength and seem to be about to play almost all of their scheduled games.
At the end of all this, big ten will probably plant their flag on the ground and rate the season as a good fortune compared to mid-August, when they planned not to play any games. But the way the league has been run. in a discordant way and the credibility it has lost by being bullied to bet on such an ill-conceived schedule this fall will be difficult to rebuild once we are in the other aspect of the pandemic.
The only thing the Big Ten can do now to make up for the rehearsal and mistake of more than four months is to do whatever it takes to help the Buckeyes save the playoff offer. At this point, it’s the only thing that can be recovered. .
Follow USA SPORTS columnist TODAY Dan Wolken on Twitter @DanWolken