The season was canceled because, despite five months to work things out, the Big Ten had no plan for player safety

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Hilltop said:
Ravage? an entire team.  You mean like has already happened or you mean kids will actually get sick?  The vast majority of kids who have had this didn't even get symptoms.  Maybe some of those will have side effects?  I guess that remains to be seen.

If you take 200 random college age kids and split them into the following 2 groups, who is likely going to fare better over the next 4-5 months?

Group 1 - Attend normal in person college classes.  Eat out because it's almost impossible to cook all meals.  Go to at least the occasional social gathering.  Most kids in this age bracket aren't afraid of the virus so is it really necessary to social distance?  What is their motivation to even try?  I know some of these kids - they don't care about the virus.  

Group 2 -  Be part of a football team with serious motivation to stay Covid free.  Have at minimum bi-weekly testing along with the best physician care at your disposal.  Have excellent food available to you in a safe setting.  Be surrounded by peer and coach leadership to help keep you safe.    

It is very easy to see what group will end up with fewer cases and be less likely to have a serious problem even when they do get a case.   

They THEY you refer to are the presidents and the comish.  They know what I stated above is true 100%  They made this decision 100% to avoid liability.     
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I don't disagree with your assessment regarding two groups. Football players with a consistent testing mechanism may be safer than the general population. We don't have solid evidence to support that. If you're aware of some, please point me to it.

But stop minimizing the severity of what can happen to COVID patients.  We STILL don't have a good idea of long-term effects. Worst case scenario is severe heart and lung damage that can last a lifetime or just straight up killing you.

Of course this is being done to avoid liability. When potential outcomes include permanently impaired cardiorespiratory function and death, are you surprised they're not f#&%ing around?

 
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As the decision settles, it seems more coaches and ADs are coming out to say they want to play and express frustration with how the Conference has handled this.  Does that mean:

a) Desmond Howard and Wilbon will call all of those schools traitors as well? (ok I know the answer to this, but its fun to think about Howard saying the Big Ten should kick OSU, PSU, etc. out as well - particularly if Mich comes out and says they working on a way to play)

b) The Nebraska fans screaming "Go Independent/Back to the Big XII" will still say every school is against us?

Ironically, if Nebraska just slow plays this (thinking in terms of not trying to play a game until October), they may have public support from many other Big Ten schools. If Nebraska plays this right, they could actually improve their standing with the other schools, for being the first one to speak out on this. 

I understand our fans being frustrated with how this broke and the (apparent) conference attitude that Nebraska's wants don't matter, but think about it like the old Tom Osborne approach - he used the 1st quarter to set teams up so that he could dominate them in the 4th.  By Nebraska being the sounding beacon, but not making any rash statements, they could actually come out of this looking better in the eyes of the other main powers in the conference. 

And they could fall flat on their face if they rush to schedule NDSU by Sept 5 or something like that and don't really have an interest in going to the Big XII (or an invite, for that matter).  Once the Big XII got the approval to go back to having a championship game despite a 10 team league, it probably made them less motivated to add another 2 teams to get back to 12.

It looks more and more like this is a disconnect between different parts of the other schools.

By next week will every school say "I didn't vote to cancel."

 
Rochelobe said:
a) Desmond Howard and Wilbon will call all of those schools traitors as well? (ok I know the answer to this, but its fun to think about Howard saying the Big Ten should kick OSU, PSU, etc. out as well - particularly if Mich comes out and says they working on a way to play)
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Seriously, it's so true.

I force myself to remember that people like Desmond Howard are paid to say things that get the companies they work for views, clicks, & ad space payments. It's possible that roughly half the sh** these guys say is intentionally stupid anyway.

 
Danny Bateman said:
But stop minimizing the severity of what can happen to COVID patients.  We STILL don't have a good idea of long-term effects. Worst case scenario is severe heart and lung damage that can last a lifetime or just straight up kill you.
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How did I minimize anything?  The vast majority of kids who have gotten this have suffered no long term problems.  That's just a fact.  In a severe case, there are complications.  The flavor of this week is the heart condition.  Myocarditis has been around a long time and is caused by many different things - possibly Covid but that hasn't even been proven yet.  There are effective treatments and severe cases are rare, especially in young, in shape adults.  Would you rather be a part of on organization capable of diagnosing and treating a problem like this or just an average citizen that has no idea they even have anything wrong?

 
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Guy Chamberlin said:
Not to defend the Big 10, but their failure to effectively deal with this unprecedented and continuously unfolding scenario is shared by pretty much every other conference, sport, school board, municipality, state, and U.S. President. 
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I would agree with you.  I honestly am not frustrated with them for cancelling, or not having an effective plan, but rather for ultimately blocking individual schools from playing some form of football this fall.  If a school is prepared and willing I believe they should be able to play- similar to what The Big South conference is doing.  

 
Danny Bateman said:
What if there's no non-bubble situation that would've worked?

We haven't had an event like this in more than a century. Situations have developed swung rapidly and wildly since February.

Personally I'm getting a bit sick at hearing the "players are safer inside the program playing ball than they are on their own" rebuttal. It infantalizes the players and frankly we have no way of knowing how well that would work in the fall until we actually tried it.

Everybody seems so sure there's some clear cut plan out there that could've been devised that could've prevented the season from eventually imploding. Given all the moving parts are we really sure that's the case?
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You bring up an excellent point. I guess my counter or Devil's Advocate question would be... why not admit that?

The question is a bit rhetorical by nature; but, if you're the B1G and you hypothetically busted your a$$ for months to develop some kind of plan to make football work, why not hold a press conference to talk about it and answer questions? At the moment, the appearance is that they've done very little outside of a) converging with their lawyers about the potential lawsuit risks and b) referencing some of the standard/canned medical guidance provided by the CDC/WHO.

To be clear, I'm not saying the B1G's decision is entirely without base. It just feels a bit lacking overall.

 
Again, MLB may end up being the model. There is no bubble and little social distancing, but constant testing and instant quarantines.

Suddenly there's an outbreak with the Marlins. Then another with the Cardinals. And the season seems to be hanging by a thread -- about to be shut down any second. But next thing you know, some players come back while others go into quarantine, the games go on and the Miami Marlins are leading their division. It still looks and feels like baseball, and the stats and standings still count. They even had a dugout clearing brawl just for fun. If they finish their 60 game season and crown a world champion, then team sports can successfully be played outside the bubble. A serious illness or death....maybe not.

This works with multi-millionaires sharing the risks and revenue. It gets a lot sketchier when you ask the same of amateur athletes, most who will never taste a penny of pro ball. I think coronavirus just flushed out the problem that the NCAA has wanted to avoid for years. 

 
Hilltop said:
Makes complete sense.  No reason all B1G schools couldn't do the same.  In event a kid does have a serious side effect, it is caught early and they get the best treatment possible.  The same can't be said for the average college student.
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Tuition will skyrocket at Big 12 schools if they really do all of that. Regular COVID testing is taking about 7-10 days in many places, the fast test used by the White House has up to 30% or so false positive rate (3rd stringers will get lots of PT and redshirts will start wildfires). Big12 is not accepting reality.

 
bigredjeff said:
Tuition will skyrocket at Big 12 schools if they really do all of that. Regular COVID testing is taking about 7-10 days in many places, the fast test used by the White House has up to 30% or so false positive rate (3rd stringers will get lots of PT and redshirts will start wildfires). Big12 is not accepting reality.
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Look at this guy flooding the board with his six posts in 14 years. :D

Don't be a stranger!

 
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