Actual Big Ten Football for 2020! Discuss....

[THE_WIZARD_]

Fucking Idiotic Pussies

[Hannibal]

Very interesting, if true.

It's not too late to reverse course.

[iam416]

Temporarlly, it's not too late. Pride-wise, it's too late. Those arrogant fucks cast the die.

[lineygoblue]

The six who voted yes should be allowed to play.

Play a mini five game season and take the top two teams to Indy and play a Big Ten Championship game.

Then contact the ACC, Big 12, and SEC, and set up a "champions" tournament without the NCAA if necessary, and have play off to a national champion.

[iam416]

This whole thing is almost breathtaking in its sheer incompetence and bungling. I mean, holy fuck. If Ohio State said today that they were off to the SEC then I honestly wouldn't care. And I can't imagine ever feeling that way until the last week. But jesus fucking christ -- fuck those guys.

[Tom W]

The six who voted yes should be allowed to play.

Play a mini five game season and take the top two teams to Indy and play a Big Ten Championship game.

Then contact the ACC, Big 12, and SEC, and set up a "champions" tournament without the NCAA if necessary, and have play off to a national champion.

I'm pretty certain that Michigan wasn't among those 6, so it would be infuriating to see Iowa, Nebraska, ohio and three other programs with spines playing while we are stuck watching the leaves change color.

[Hannibal]

I'm sure that Michigan voted "no". We are a program that has perfected the art of sniffing our own farts and patting ourselves on the back for how virtuous we are.

[lineygoblue]

I have no doubt that Schlissel voted no, because his nose is so far up Whitmer's butt that he can save her from having colonoscopies for the next 10 years of her life.

But, Harbaugh definitely wants to play, and I get the impression from Manuel's comments, that he can be persuaded to play. So the decision to NOT play is 100% on Schlissel.

Lots of players' parents are upset about this. They want the kids to play. Some very influential people like Steve Hutchinson and Ed McCaffery (Dylan's dad, and former All Pro) are on the "let them play" train.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2020/08/17/michigan-football-parents-demand-reversal-big-ten-decision-letter-mark-schlissel-kevin-warren/5598358002/

From the article, some are saying legal action is a possibility.

Could the players and their families take legal action? Potentially. According to a Sports Illustrated story Saturday, lawyer Tom Mars, familiar to Michigan fans after he successfully secured immediate eligibility for two-year quarterback starter Shea Patterson in 2018, said he was contacted by the parents of several Big Ten players seeking help to find a way to play immediately.

Mars then wrote a two-page document, “Action Plan to Mitigate Concerns and Legal Risks of Playing Fall 2020 Football.” The first step would be to get the NCAA ban of liability waivers overturned. If that were to happen, lawyers could then draft liability waivers that essentially would prevent players and parents the ability to sue the school if their son contracted COVID-19.

[Hannibal]

Fear of lawsuits is a bullshit reason too. When Jordan McNair died, Maryland didn't go bankrupt. It honestly feels like a contrived reason to try and come up with some way to frame the "no football" decision as a rational self-serving one, and not one made out of fear, virtue-signalling and panic.

[Whitley]

So for all those that are for playing football---where is the line for you (if there is one?)--- how many cases does it take to shut down: a) a team from playing and b) league to suspend play. 2) what do you do if a gov/state government will not allow a team to come play in their state because of numerous cases on the team visiting?

[Jeff Buchanan]

1 & 2) The number of players that contract SARS-CoV-2 is immaterial. What is material is how they are manged. If I understand the COVID protocols at M and assuming that they are similar to those that I have seen from the U of FL and U of Miami, M's football players, possibly coaches and key staff, live, eat, sleep, go to school, meetings and practice in as close to a bubble as it can get.

When you're talking under 200 or so "bubbled" people, infection can absolutely be controlled/contained. I can see the potential for leakers and the potential of infection from them but, even that can be identified and controlled when you are, as I suspect M and other BT programs are doing, repeatedly screening the bubbled group. I don't know how or with what tools that screening is being conducted. However there are a bunch of rapid tests out there that in a closed circumstance could be used to ID contageon like home pregnancy tests are used to detect pregnancy.

The BT could conceivable back track - and I wouldn't rule that out this week - and lay out criteria for starting and stopping play. Again, I think most experts would agree, it's not the number of cases that should determine that but rather how outcomes are managed, by incident and by team. I'd be somewhat wary of the league setting arbitrary and unreasonable criteria and I'd want outside experts not tied to any allegiance to the Big front office to set them.

3) Get an injunction and mount a legal challenge to such action.

Finally, I don't have to tell you that the risks to players of serious illness, long or short term are ridiculously low. That the BT pretty much all by themselves created the worst possible circumstances for student athletes they could have produced in light of their alleged duty to protect is just incredibly unjustifiable.

[iam416]

I would have thought that after 5 months to think about this the B10 would have specific protocols. They were never going to play. Such bullshit.

If it falls apart because teams have 60 cases then it falls apart. But to not even try out sheer cowardice is unacceptable. The cold, timid souls who never know victory nor defeat. Fuck them.

The current situation is easily playable. Keep moving forward until it isn’t.

[Tom W]

. But to not even try out sheer cowardice is unacceptable. The cold, timid souls who never know victory nor defeat. Fuck them.

This.

[lineygoblue]

I think that a Big Ten football season would look a bit like MLB right now. In MLB, you have teams travelling, staying in hotels, flying on planes, riding on team buses, etc. Those are the same things that a Big Ten football team would do.

Except for the early breakouts on the St. Louis Cardinals, and some for the Florida Marlins, there has been no mass outbreak in Baseball. If CFB followed/follows procedures that are similar to Baseball, they should be fine.

They should at least try.

Go with a "mini" season. Play 4-6 games and put a bye week between each game. Do something. Don't just throw in the towel.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Clusterfuck of fucking epic proportions. Period. This rivals the Coca-Cola 1985 move to "New Coke"...in fact probably more damaging...both were from flawed data but at least Coke fixed it and honestly ended up solidifying its place in the cola wars...the B1G seems intent on resting on its dumbfuck decision.