9/16/2020 football Edit

Game on! Big Ten votes to play in 2020

Tom Dienhart • BoilerUpload

GoldandBlack.com, Associate Editor

Jeff Brohm will soon be leading his team onto the field for the 2020 season. (Krockover Photography)

Finally! There will be Big Ten football in 2020.

The Big Ten announced this morning that football will resume Oct. 23-24. Presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to move forward with a season this fall after a league medical subcommittee quelled concerns about playing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By returning in mid-October, the Big Ten will be able to be a part of the College Football Playoff.

"I think that’s a real possibility," said Northwestern A.D. Jim Phillips. "... incredibly exciting."

And the conference will maintain some sense of normalcy with a fall season, allowing it to avoid having a winter or spring 2021 season that could have impacted the fall 2021 season.

The Big Ten said the schedule will be released later this week. According to Wisconsin A.D Barry Alvarez, teams will play an eight-game-plus-one schedule--nine games in nine weeks. The plus-one game will feature cross-division games pitting East No. 1 vs. West No. 1; East No. 2 vs. West No. 2; East No. 3 vs. West No. 3, etc. Fans will not be permitted at games, but family will try to be accommodated.

A major reason for the Big Ten's willingness to move forward: The evolution of rapid testing, which is a new variable in controlling the virus that wasn't in place when the Big Ten announced its postponement on Aug. 11.

"The medical opinion changed," said Northwestern president Morton Schapiro. "There have been a lot of advances in understanding the pandemic and myocarditis.

"It wasn't about political pressure. It wasn't about money. It wasn't about lawsuits. It wasn't about doing what everybody else was doing. It was the unanimous opinion of our medical experts."

The Big 12 and Pac-12 already have announced partnerships with a company to provide rapid testing, which is cheap, easy to administer and provides quick results. And concerns about myocarditis also have been quelled to the satisfaction of school presidents.

“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,” said Dr. Jim Borchers, Head Team Physician, The Ohio State University and co-chair of the Return to Competition Task Force medical subcommittee.

“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.”

The conference will enact strict and comprehensive health and safety protocols in hopes of players and school personnel avoiding being infected with COVID-19. The highlights:

• Daily testing will begin Sept. 30.

• Each institution will designate a Chief Infection Officer (CInO) who will oversee the collection and reporting of data for the Big Ten Conference.

• All COVID-19 positive student-athletes will have to undergo comprehensive cardiac testing to include labs and biomarkers, ECG, Echocardiogram and a Cardiac MRI. The earliest a student-athlete can return to game competition is 21 days following a COVID-19 positive diagnosis.

• In addition to the medical protocols approved, the 14 Big Ten institutions will establish a cardiac registry in an effort to examine the effects on COVID-19 positive student-athletes.

The conference's ambitious plan to begin playing on Oct. 23-24 will give Big Ten teams five weeks to get ready for the first game. Alvarez told Yahoo! Sports on Saturday that the Badgers would need just three weeks to get ready despite the program--along with Maryland--currently being paused until Sept. 24 because of the infection.

“(Coach Paul Chryst) and I are on the same page on this,” Alvarez told Yahoo!. “We can have our guys ready. We could have a team ready in three weeks. We feel comfortable with that.”

Since the postponement was announced, Big Ten teams have been limited to 12 hours of practice each week with no contact. Five of those hours could be spent on the field. Those practice hours figure to be increased to 20 now that a season has been given the green light.

The Big Ten had jettisoned its 12-game schedule model in July and built 10-game, Big Ten-only schedules it released in August. League officials felt Big Ten schools would have similar resources and standards for testing, thus lessening the likelihood of infection. Now, the Big Ten will have to alter its schedule again. Stay tuned.

While the Big Ten is just getting ramped up, the Pac-12 has no imminent plans to play but is eyeing a late-November return. The other three Power Five leagues--SEC, ACC and Big 12--have forged ahead during the pandemic. The ACC and Big 12 saw action this weekend. The SEC is slated to begin Sept. 26.

The Big Ten announced on Aug. 11 that it was postponing the 2020 season, with league presidents and chancellors voting 11-3 to not proceed. Since then, the conference has come under scrutiny for a lack of transparency in its decision-making process.

On Saturday, the Big Ten medical subcommittee presented new COVID-19 testing programs to an eight-person subcommittee of conference presidents and chancellors. It was the first of a two-step process last weekend as the Big Ten moved toward a return to play.

On Sunday, the eight-person subcommittee of conference presidents and chancellors presented the Big Ten's plan to return to play to the full Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COPC), who made the ultimate decision to proceed.

“Our focus with the Task Force over the last six weeks was to ensure the health and safety of our student-athletes. Our goal has always been to return to competition so all student-athletes can realize their dream of competing in the sports they love,” said Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren. “We are incredibly grateful for the collaborative work that our Return to Competition Task Force have accomplished to ensure the health, safety and wellness of student-athletes, coaches and administrators.”