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Big Ten, Pac-12 conferences postpone fall sports season
AUG 11, 2020 2:38 PM CDT

The Big Ten and Pac-12 college athletic conferences said on Tuesday they were postponing all fall sports, including football, over COVID-19 coronavirus health concerns.

The Big Ten includes powerhouse programs like those of Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State in its 14-member conference...

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It’s a good thing Nebraska wasn’t kicked out of the Big Ten.

Or maybe it’s not. Depends on which side of the Big Ten debate you’re on.

Nebraska has put itself in the middle of the debate. And that’s a big story within the story.

In 10 years of Big Ten football, Nebraska has been a nonfactor. The highlight is one division title, which led to one conference title game blowout. On the football field, the Huskers have been basically invisible.

Suddenly, in one month, Nebraska has become a major player in the Big Ten.

Fearless. Aggressive. Strong.

Nebraska challenged the idea of the league shutting down fall football — twice. And while the administration backed off, that wasn’t the end. Not hardly.

Nebraska football parents, along with Iowa and Ohio State, pressed the Big Ten office for answers and transparency. The Husker parents rallied other schools’ parents. Then came the major move last week.

Eight Husker players, buoyed by a local attorney, filed a lawsuit against the conference.

Think about the idea of a Big Ten school suing the league. That’s some guts. Imagine how it landed around the league.

Now look at the result: The Big Ten suddenly talking about starting a football season Thanksgiving Weekend.

Coincidence? No way.

Nebraska has garnered respect and fans around the league, starting with the most powerful brand in the Big Ten.

“There are a lot of people at Ohio State who are Cornhusker fans,” said Bobby Carpenter, a former Buckeye and NFL linebacker who has a sports talk show in Columbus, Ohio.

“For pushing back and showing that, hey, let’s see if we can find a pathway to play and if other people can join us. Let’s do it.”

At a rally outside Ohio Stadium on Saturday, Gee Scott Sr., the father of a Buckeye player, told the crowd, “I think Nebraska and their fans are out here doing the Lord’s work.

“I thought about wearing a Nebraska hat. It’s a beautiful thing when you have conferences that work together.”

Now, understand that the University of Nebraska did not sue the Big Ten. But NU did not try and stand in the way, either.

This bold move made sense in this way: Nebraska, still relatively new to the league, is not as entrenched or loyal. NU is not afraid of the Big Ten office.

And with the current vulnerable state of Big Ten leadership, that makes more sense.

The end game of the suit was to rattle some cages at the presidential level. There was a simple aim: Have the CEOs say whether there was a vote. Expound on their reasoning and medical data. Offer some transparency to the process of calling off a football season.

The cages were considered rattled when the Big Ten’s attorney, Andrew Luger, said, “the harm would be incredible” if the board of directors’ (presidents) documents were released to the public.

That made it only seem more like the presidents had something to hide.

On Thursday night, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel had the story about possibly moving the football season up to Thanksgiving. On Friday, multiple national outlets were reporting the same thing.

Call it a coincidence. I say it looks more like the presidents are so protective of what might come out in a court discovery that they are willing to throw the parents and players a concession.

We shall see what happens. But this story is moving quickly again and Nebraska has been a major impetus.

“I don’t think anything was done appropriately in that meeting,” Carpenter said of the Big Ten presidents’ decision.

“And once you get a freedom of information act on that, you’ll find that A.) they didn’t really have a formal vote, which is ridiculous, and B.) you’re going to see the minutes and what some of the presidents were saying and they’ll be in trouble.

“They’re paranoid right now.”

The confusion about the vote is surprising. The Big Ten prides itself on being a student of history and tradition. High-level votes are part of both in the league.

When Michigan State joined the Big Ten in 1950, there was a vote by all nine schools. Carpenter says the vote was 5-4, with OSU providing the decisive vote, though at the time, the Big Ten announced the vote was a unanimous 9-0.

Then came the historic vote after the 1973 Ohio State-Michigan tie to decide who would go to the Rose Bowl. That vote was 6-4 in favor of the Buckeyes.

That was the most famous vote in Big Ten history — well, until this one. If there was a vote.

“This is a major decision and these are public employees,” Carpenter said.

Nebraska’s suit rekindled the fire around the league, Carpenter said, adding, “I don’t think it’s going to subside anytime soon. If anything, it’s going to be heightened as the other leagues begin to kick off.”

How did we get here?

A story last week in Sports Illustrated’s “Wolverine Digest” revealed some interesting thoughts.

The story quoted a Michigan source as saying, “there was a surprising lack of awareness” among Big Ten presidents that there would be pushback from around the league on their decision. The story also said Commissioner Kevin Warren was so eager to please his new bosses that he went along with them rather than being an advocate for the athletic directors and football programs.

Wolverine Digest’s Michigan and Big Ten sources said the Big Ten presidents assumed the Pac-12 and ACC would fall in line with its decision. Why the ACC? Because some of the leaders of ACC’s academic powers assured them they would.

But the story said Notre Dame (which was going to be an ACC member in football this fall) became an obstacle by pushing hard for football — and offering future games with ACC opponents in exchange for the ACC playing this fall.

When the ACC said it was playing, the Big 12 and SEC joined in.

How about that? Notre Dame foiled the Big Ten.

The SI story said that the Big Ten presidents miscalculated the pushback from its own schools and fan bases.

That made me smile.

This observer has long thought the Big Ten didn’t care enough about football. The pushback around the league — and the support for Nebraska’s actions — has offered another view.

“It’s a very football-centric region, like most of middle America,” Carpenter said. “These schools are massive, over 30,000-40,000 students. So there’s a lot of people who care about football.

“There are about six or seven schools where football is paramount to the university. It’s their best marketing tool. It’s what they’re known for, much to the chagrin of these presidents.”

Carpenter added, “Football matters more to the SEC with the people at the university and inside of it. The Big Ten has always said, ‘Football is important to us, but we’re above that. We’re elite academic institutions.’ Which is true.

“In the fans’ eyes, that’s all good, but most important to us is the satisfaction we get from watching our team on Saturdays. It was underestimated severely by these presidents and Kevin Warren.”

No matter what happens this fall, the Big Ten has a long road ahead. It feels fractured.

Who mends that? Who’s in charge? Former Commissioner Jim Delany was the man. But now the presidents seem to have stepped up. And Warren, in his first year, has been damaged.



“It will be interesting to see if this is salvageable for (Warren) because he’s completely mishandled the situation,” Carpenter said. “He misread the situation to where he thought he could build a consensus with the presidents and the rest of the conference would go along.

“I’m not one to push out commissioners. But if there’s any other issues shortly after this, I think he will be a very short-term commissioner.”

One long-term effect, however this comes out, is Nebraska will be viewed around the league through a different lens. That image on the field is a work in progress. What NU has done off it has brought with it a new respect.

“I think that’s definitely true,” Carpenter said. “They were the impetus for a lot of this stuff happening. They showed the first crack in the Big Ten’s armor. That opened it up and people started trying to peer down that hole and saw the inner workings of what was going on.

“Most people in the Big Ten were glad that Nebraska came out and did that. There was no basis for anyone saying they should kick them out of the league. That was ridiculous.”

Quite the contrary, Nebraska has never felt more “in.”

Tom Shatel, Omaha World Herald

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Ok, Michael, I’m sorry

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Big Ten football to resume weekend of Oct. 24

Adam Rittenberg
Heather Dinich

The Big Ten will kick off its football season the weekend of Oct. 24 after the league's presidents and chancellors unanimously voted to resume competition, citing daily testing capabilities and a stronger confidence in the latest medical information, the conference announced Wednesday morning.

The league will attempt to play eight games in eight weeks, leaving no wiggle room during the coronavirus pandemic before the Dec. 19 conference championship, but it would complete its season before the Dec. 20 Selection Day for the College Football Playoff. Fans are not expected at Big Ten games, which will be held on campus throughout the season.

A full Big Ten football schedule will not be released Wednesday, according to a source.

The Big Ten on Aug. 11 initially postponed its fall sports seasons, including football, because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The presidents and chancellors voted 11-3 to postpone, with only Nebraska, Ohio State and Iowa electing to proceed, sources said. League bylaws required at least 60% of presidents and chancellors to approve a return of the fall season.

Following the postponement, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren formed a return to competition task force, which this past weekend presented to the presidents and chancellors and reviewed daily antigen testing, enhanced cardiac screening and a data-driven approach to make decisions about practices and competition.

The Big Ten's daily rapid testing program will begin Sept. 30 on all 14 campuses. Test results must be completed and recorded prior to each practice or game. Student-athletes who test positive for the coronavirus through point of contact (POC) daily testing would require a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to confirm the result of the POC test. Each Big Ten team will designate a chief infection officer to report data about testing to the league, which will make decisions about practice and competition based on team positivity rate and population positivity rate.

Football players who test positive for COVID-19 must wait at least 21 days to return to competition, as they will undergo "comprehensive cardiac testing" before being cleared by a cardiologist designated by each university primarily for that purpose. Concerns about myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle caused by viral infections like COVID-19, significantly contributed to the Big Ten's initial decision to postpone the fall football season.

The Big Ten will use a color-coded system -- green, orange and red -- for both team positivity rates and population positivity rates.

If the team's positivity rate exceeds 5% or the population's positivity rate exceeds 7.5%, the team must pause practice and competition for at least seven days. If the team's positive rate is between 2% and 5% or the population's positivity rate is between 3.5% and 7.5%, the team "must proceed with caution and enhance COVID-19 prevention."

"Everyone associated with the Big Ten should be very proud of the groundbreaking steps that are now being taken to better protect the health and safety of the student-athletes and surrounding communities," Dr. Jim Borchers, head team physician at Ohio State and co-chair of the return to competition task force's medical subcommittee, said in a prepared statement. "The data we are going to collect from testing and the cardiac registry will provide major contributions for all 14 Big Ten institutions as they study COVID-19 and attempt to mitigate the spread of the disease among wider communities."

All 14 Big Ten presidents and chancellors heard Sunday from the medical subcommittee, which presented to a group of eight presidents and chancellors on Saturday. The subcommittee outlined at least four rapid response antigen testing options that could allow Big Ten teams to test daily for COVID-19 and significantly decrease the amount of necessary contact tracing, a significant concern for several league schools because of local public health regulations.

The Big Ten's initial postponement and the process around it prompted strong criticism of Warren and the league, as coaches, administrators, players, parents and politicians repeatedly questioned why the conference was not playing when others chose to do so. Several parents of Big Ten players protested the decision Aug. 21 outside league headquarters in Rosemont, Illinois, and subsequent parent-led protests took place at Ohio State and Michigan. Warren released an open letter to the conference community stating that the vote by the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors was "overwhelmingly in support of postponing fall sports and will not be revisited."

In late August, eight Nebraska players filed a lawsuit against the Big Ten, seeking to invalidate the postponement of the fall football season and to award damages. The case is still pending.

President Donald Trump tweeted his approval of the Big Ten's decision to resume football.


The Big Ten will join six FBS conferences, including the ACC, Big 12 and SEC, in playing fall seasons. ACC and Big 12 teams already have started play, and the SEC kicks off its league-only football schedule Sept. 26. The Pac-12, which also postponed its fall football season Aug. 11, has not announced plans about when it might kick off, but sources said mid-to-late November would be the earliest.

Six Big Ten teams appeared in the AP preseason poll, including No. 2 Ohio State and No. 7 Penn State.

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Originally posted by Rightwire:
Except... Per executive order in Michigan, if you play Football here you must wear a mask at all times. BIG10 included.

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Originally posted by Ackks:

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Originally posted by Rightwire:
Except... Per executive order in Michigan, if you play Football here you must wear a mask at all times. BIG10 included.

If there aren't fans I'd move games out of state.