Safety, flexibility, control were guiding forces to Big Ten schedule change
MORE: Ten-game, Big Ten-only schedule seems likely for 2020 | It's official: Big Ten punts non-league games, will play conference-only
The Big Ten has a scheduling plan for the 2020 football season. Will it be able to implement it amid growing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic? And who will play whom?
Stay tuned.
Ohio State A.D. Gene Smith held a teleconference on Thursday after the Big Ten announced it was dumping its non-conference games and opting for a truncated 10-game, league-only schedule for 2020.
The scheduling move accomplishes two objectives.
1. Safety. Smith cited “standardized protocols” across the conference that would address things like sanitation, testing and travel. Presumably, each school would have the same procedures, insuring a level of confidence among schools as they move from campus to campus.
2. Flexibility and control to handle schedule disruptions. The league is scrapping its current schedule and drawing up a new slate. The reason: To be responsive to potential cancellations due to the virus. The league feels it will be more nimble if it’s just working among itself.
“The biggest thing for us was just the opportunity for us to create the flexibility,” Smith said on the teleconference. “If we're able to play in September and something occurs in late September or early October, we can pause. We can hit the pause button and provide a window of opportunity for our student-athletes not to be put at risk. We can move games. If we're scheduled to play somewhere else and an outbreak occurs in that environment and that school has to shut down, then we can change games. The flexibility – I can't say that enough – is significant."
The league soon will be working on a new schedule.
"We have a scheduler in the Big Ten and we'll talk about our planning principles and we'll schedule games,” Smith said. “Obviously the situation, from a competitive equity point of view, everybody won't be happy. But the reality is you get a chance to compete and allow your kids a chance to play, so we have to set aside to some degree competitive equity.
"So I don't see a challenge with scheduling the games. We have to determine how many. We have to determine the divisional issues, like what was raised earlier and how we want to deal with that. We have to determine how many games we want to preschedule.”
Something else worth noting: Smith mentioned that league teams would need a six-week lead-in to the season.
“That's another issue we'll have to talk about when we get into this: The flexibility of starting Week 0, Week 1 or Week 2 based upon whatever the virus does,” Smith said. “But we have to make that decision in a timely fashion because we would have to push back that six-week window. If we decided that we're going to start September 12, we would have to push back our six-week window.”
How will the schedule look?
"We talked about it," a Big Ten head coach told GoldandBlack.com. "The Big Ten probably needs to comment on it. There is so much stuff out there. I think we've all come to agreement that there is a 10-game season for the flexibility and safety, keeping everybody kind of under the same testing policies and things like that. How we do that yet, I think that's gonna be determined here soon.
"Whether it's West (division) games first, we don't know that. I think the biggest thing is just getting the 10-game schedule set. And then as we keep talking, be able to have that flexibility of playing who we need to play and when we need to play. But there are still talks. Nobody's zoned in on anything, but there's been numerous things thrown out there."
When could games start?
"I could see it starting September 5," said the head coach. "I could see it starting September 12. I just don't know right now."
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