The main article in Thursday’s Madison, Wisconsin newspaper detailed how the local fitness branch was so hit with COVID-19 cases that it may simply not stick to its popular contact search protocols. Meanwhile, the Badgers receive Illinois on Friday night.
In Indiana, there were 180 new hospitalizations on Wednesday, the maximum since August 31, and 412 intensive care patients, the maximum since May. The Indianapolis Star reported that the state announced on Thursday 2880 new coronavirus cases, setting a record, as well as 42 more deaths The Hoosiers and Purdue, whose coach cannot participate because he tested positive for COVID-19, playing house games on Saturday.
And in Ann Arbor, Michigan, things have deteriorated so much in recent years that local fitness officials have issued an order to stay in the house for the next two weeks, but of course school football is exempt because the Wolverines have to prepare for a large one. . Minnesota.
Welcome back, Big Ten football! At least now we no longer have to pretend you’re another sec, LA CCA, the big 12, or any other convention that continually changes targets to what was going to be needed to play in the middle of a pandemic.
If I had told Big Ten officials and school presidents on August 11 that Upper Midwest would be the worst COVID-19 access point in the country until mid-October, they would have felt more than justified in their resolve to postpone football season until early. 2021 And yet they are here, not only after reversing the course a month later, but the season in which the coronavirus scenario is as bad or worse than ever in so many places within its footprint.
We’ll probably never know if replacing the Big Ten center was the right way forward. If the style follows other conferences, there will be significant demanding situations from week to week, postponed/cancelled games and other people will get sick.
But at the end of the day, they will be able to play football this fall, which for many is a good fortune in itself. There are many other people who believe that no matter how complicated and what effect they have on public health, it’s worth having anything that looks like a season.
If most big ten presidents believed that, they would never have voted to postpone the season in the first place.
They knew the monetary cost; they knew the reaction of coaches and amateurs; and they knew the demanding situations that would come from other people with a political interest in organizing a football season to keep the ghost that things were returning to normal. They probably even expected tension from President Trump, who has electoral interests in Michigan. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
What they underestimated the FOMO – for those who are unaware of their jargon, is the worry of missing.
BIG TEN ARE RETURN: Five big questions school football faces in week 8
ANALYSIS: Big Ten to play for the national title. Is that possible?
PREDICTIONS: USA TODAY School Football chooses for week 8
INREGARDER: National televised school football calendar for the 2020-2021 season
It turned out that photographs of school football games played on September 12 in places like Norman, Oklahoma, were much more difficult than the actual effect of COVID-19 on those school campuses; South Bend, Indiana; Austin, Texas; chapel Hill, North Carolina. Once it has become transparent that everyone would simply pass and deal with the obstacles that the coronavirus might present, the threat assessment replaced by the Big Ten. It’s not just about the physical condition and protection of players or what’s most productive for their communities, it’s about falling behind.
The presidents and commissioner of the Big Ten, Kevin Warren, made one mistake: they assumed that when they spent the entire month of April, May, and June on the need for more and more extensive testing, case rates were declining. and the desire for face-to-face courses to have school football. They were telling the truth.
But in the end, the goalposts had to move, in a different way there was no way to play school football this fall. Finally, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the Big Ten was bullied to move with others. of the throne of King Football.
Thus, school football continues in the Midwest, but so does the COVID-19 crisis. If we are on the right path to stick to European countries, where the arrival of colder climate correlates with a peak in cases, this does not bode well for what is happening in the ten great countries.
Iowa has already set hospitalization records in recent days and peaked at 31 deaths on Wednesday. Hospitalizations in Nebraska have been low throughout the summer, but have surpassed 300 on October 11 and are about to reach 400 soon.
Meanwhile, the return of football this weekend means that other people have an explanation of why meet to watch the matches, even if enthusiasts will not be allowed into the stadiums. Ten campuses signed a letter to the league this week requesting that matches not be played overnight or late in the afternoon and verify positivity rates for the network to make a decision about whether it is harmful to do so.
But at least the state of Ohio will have a chance to win the national name this year. For better or worse, that’s the priority, even if no one would dare say it out loud.
It is imaginable that betting this fall was the most productive of a series of bad options feasible for the Big Ten. We’ll know in time. But for a league that seemed to care deeply about their public duty of fitness a few months ago, is a season beginning in which the pandemic is affecting their communities more than ever?