Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowPresidents of universities in the Big Ten Conference were presented a comprehensive plan Sunday to conduct a fall football season, but a final decision is still to come.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that the full Council of Presidents and Chancellors heard from all the subcommittees of the conference’s Return to Competition Task Force over 2-1/2 hours. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the Big Ten was not making its return to competition plans public.
The person said the meeting broke up without the presidents and chancellors voting and with no set plans for them to reconvene.
Still, if they act quickly, Big Ten football could kick off as soon as the weekend of Oct. 17.
The medical part of the presentation focused on what has changed since the conference postponed its entire fall sports season on Aug. 11 because of COVID-19 concerns and how football could be played safely. The emergence of daily rapid-response COVID-19 testing, not available when university leaders decided to pull the plug on the season looms large.
If the Big Ten can start by late October, an eight-game season and conference championship game in mid-December is still possible. That schedule could set up Big Ten teams to be part of the College Football Playoff.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
Let it go… Lets plan on a safe Spring season and not rush the safety of the STUDENT athletes. Rushing = disaster.
agree completely. how foolish they will look after making a decision not to play if they turn around and then change their mind. they are bowing to political pressure now.