There will be Big Ten football in 2020. A little over a month after the Power 5 conference announced it would postpone its fall slate to the spring, that decision has been reversed.
Per Adam Rittenberg and Heather Dinich of ESPN.com, Big Ten presidents and chancellors unanimously voted to begin play on October 24. Each team will play eight games in eight weeks in advance of the conference championship game on December 19 (the teams not participating in the championship game will play a cross-division game on the same day). Selection Day for the College Football Playoff is scheduled for December 20.
Although we are only one week into the NFL season, the pros have shown that, with daily testing and attention to detail, there is hope that sports can proceed more or less as normal. Indeed, from September 6-12, the league administered 40,479 COVID-19 tests, and there were only two confirmed positive tests among players and five positives among other personnel (Twitter link via Mark Maske of the Washington Post). Given that success, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that the NFL is likely to continue daily testing all year.
The daily testing capabilities and stronger confidence in the latest medical information were among the reasons given for the Big Ten’s decision to start play next month. A few notable Big Ten players, like Ohio State CB Shaun Wade and Purdue WR Rondale Moore, had already elected to opt out of the season and begin preparations for the 2021 draft, but today’s announcement will generally be a major boon to players with professional aspirations who will now be able to put together more tape for NFL decision-makers well in advance of the draft.
With that, the Pac-12 is now the only Power 5 conference that won’t be playing this year. However, the Pac-12 is undertaking steps to change that, as conference commissioner Larry Scott explained in a statement. If the Pac-12 does end up playing in 2020, the NFL may be able to move forward with its offseason schedule without any major adjustments.
Yesssss!!!!
big life riskers
I know you are making an easy joke, but living right off campus in Columbus, Ohio and being a student at Ohio State I feel very confident about this. Gov DeWine here has done a great job this whole time dealing with the virus and taking it seriously and even with school returning and some restrictions eased we are only at a 3-5% positive rate. The school is also very serious in their rules for on campus students and are quick to discipline.
Even the state with The Team Up North is doing a great job. Right now the only concerning Big 10 states are Wisconsin, Iowa, and possibly New Jersey. I really think with all the craziness going on I think a lot of props have to go around.
We’ll be good here in Iowa. We like football too.
that doesnt matter. eaxh conference should be playing at the same time and the spring was the easy choice, but they chose TV revenue over doing so.
The kids deserve to be paid
Agreed
will the other big ten sports be played? if not, pay the football players.
Big Ten presidents and chancellors thinking: ‘lose money or deal with a cough?’
Once they saw other pro leagues playing and other universities as well, it was a no brainer decision.
Your recurring negative stance on colleges is suggesting you were once expelled for being a bad boy JJ.
Nope. Never enrolled. Went into the Marines at 18. But if you don’t think economics played into this decision, you’re wrong.
There’s 200,000 people who no longer have to “deal with a cough”. Not to mention the countless others that have had their health compromised, perhaps permanently
Yet you’re excited to have sports back. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be on sports sites.
200,000.
Yes 96% of those had underlying health conditions.
42% of those were linked to nursing homes.
The flu can also cause lasting effects for weeks, months. years, or even a life time.
Let’s be realistic about things here.
If they wanted money they would open their stadiums to fans which they are not doing and they would allow big game days which I doubt will happen.
They can’t open the stadiums. No pro league has more than 25-30% capacity and many have zero fans. That’d be a major backfire. But they are getting TV revenue and add revenue; as well the universities.
I am happy this is back. White or black, Democrat or Republican, the only think that really matters at the end of the day is that we all cheer on the Buckeyes to win The Game vs those evil Wolverines!
Why don’t we all look at this video before deciding which team is the evil one?
link to youtube.com