Good morning. Say it with us: Big đđ» Ten đđ» football đđ» is đđ» back.
Thank you. Thatâs the dominant news of the week, and weâre looking forward to resuming our preview coverage with five weeks until the kickoff of what promises to be the weirdest season many of us have ever seen. Weâll be there every step of the way. Make sure to visit our website, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
Today, like always, weâll highlight some of our articles from the past week, some of the craziness that took place in the college sports realm as well as some random enjoyable stuff we found on the internet.
If youâve come to expect anything from Inside NU, itâs that we donât like to take ourselves too seriously. If this is your first time reading, the Inside NUsletter should come off as informal but informative. Letâs get into it.
What weâve been up to
Thanks to the sudden reversal in all of our fortunes, a lot. And now weâll continue to be busy!
The NFL returned this past week to artificial crowd noises and Mitch Trubisky dimes, with six former Wildcats taking the field during Week One. Fixtures Justin Jackson, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Tyler Lancaster, Sherrick McManus, Dean Lowry and Anthony Walker, Jr. all saw snaps. Walkerâs six tackles stood out among his fellow alumni despite his squadâs loss to Gardner Minshewâs Jacksonville Jaguars.
In other news, the staffers at Inside NU established a fantasy football league. Team names range from Clayton Thorson 2020 (Lia Assimakopoulos and Colin Kruse), Purple Line to Linden (Eli Karp and Joe Weinberg) and Malort Bowl 2 (Matt Albert).
Basketball guru Dan Olinger analyzed one Patrick Baldwin, Jr., who he claims is the next Michael Porter, Jr. Will the son of the former Wildcat throw on the purple and white in 2021? Probably not, but 2020 has been a crazy year, and a commitment date has got to be around the corner.
Of course, the major news of the week was Wednesdayâs announcement that Big Ten football will return on the weekend of October 24. Teams will play an 8-game + 1 schedule with the Big Ten Championship Game scheduled for December 19, leaving no bye week and no wiggle room for the conference to postpone any games. The official schedule could be released as early as today. Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez, chair of the scheduling subcommittee, threw in a wrinkle when he announced the nine-game slate. After the eight games, teams in each division will face off by seed to make for an exciting Championship weekend, as explained by the below Tweet.
The idea, proposed by Jim Harbaugh, is genius if not beautifully chaotic in a couple of ways. For one, there may be several squads fighting for bowl eligibility or better bowl quality who could use the extra game. Of course, it makes sense Michigan would want an extra game, since assuming theyâll lose to Ohio State and miss out on the Big Ten Championship Game, the Wolverines would want another quality game against presumably the West division two- or three-seed.
We wouldnât be sitting here, happily writing about the return of the B1G if it werenât for rapid antigen tests. Believe what you want to believe, whether it was public pressure, lawsuits, local politicians or President Trump (or a combination of all four) influencing this decision. Those may have helped to accelerate the Big Ten presidentsâ timeline, but the fact of the matter is enough new testing technology became accessible, and the medical advisory board provided a path to screening for and dealing with potential post-recovery heart issues, namely myocarditis, to make the decision makers comfortable.
The conferenceâs guidelines are specific and stringent. Everyone who is at the facility on a given day will be tested. Players will not be able to return to game competition for 21 days following a positive test, and teams will have to alter or suspend activities if the test and team population positivity rates reach certain thresholds. Those who test positive will go through comprehensive cardiac evaluation by a university-appointed cardiologist before being cleared to return to play.
Athletic director Dr. Jim Phillips, head football coach Pat Fitzgerald and team physician Dr. Jeff Mjaanes spoke to the media via Zoom upon the announcement of the return of Big Ten football. Hereâs Phillipsâs opening statement, which conveys both the excitement and uncertainty revolving around the recent influx of news:
âWeâre excited for our student athletes, coaches, and staff. I know how anxious theyâve been to start our season, especially since our postponement announcement on August 11. The decision was very directly driven by our medical subcommittee and our medical experts across the Big Ten...I want to reiterate that this is a first step. We have a lot of work to do between now and kickoff, on October 23 and October 24, but Iâm proud of how weâve come together in a difficult time...and that weâve been driven by the medical experts. We said we were going to, and thatâs where we find ourselves today.â
Things that happened this week
Do we even need to give you this one? Weâll zoom through it. Now that the Big Ten is back, there are many questions surrounding both the leagueâs return and the 2020 college football season.
One major reason the Big Ten came back and in this sudden haste was the pressure from Ohio State, which has a consensus top three team in the country. Ryan Day had been adamant about wanting to give his guys, a number of whom would opt out and declare for the NFL Draft if their season didnât give them a chance at the College Football Playoff, a chance to play with the rest of the leagues. So the thought is, a 9-0 Big Ten champion Ohio State would get into the Playoff, even against teams whoâve played a game or two more.
Of course, this will likely be an incredibly chaotic year for the selection committee, which really wonât be able to compare apples to apples. We donât know if the above scenario would be enough, but when asked the exact question (without Ohio State named), Jim Phillips said itâs absolutely a possibility for a Big Ten team to make the four-team playoff. Committee members from other conferences may hold grudges from how the Big Ten has handled itself over the last six weeks, but nobody knows who will have the scheduling upper hand come December 20.
Teams from the SEC, ACC and Big 12 may not complete their set 10 or 11-game slates. 14 games have already been postponed, and itâs seemingly inevitable there wonât be more. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has said he thinks each week there will be some kind of postponement or cancellation. Itâs just what it is in 2020, and I wouldnât be envious of this yearâs selection committee.
Itâs been amazing to see the domino effect of the Big Tenâs reversal. The Pac-12 situation is now changing, but even with its rapid testing partnership and local health restrictions in California and Oregon being waived, it seems unlikely coaches could have their teams in game shape by the end of October. Bruce Feldman wrote a very good piece on the differing states of various programs in the conference, which included some candid quotes from one unnamed Pac-12 head coach. If you dislike profanity, this is your warning. Otherwise, carry on.
âI donât wanna hear health and wellness out of anybodyâs mouth,â one Pac-12 head coach said Thursday morning before adding that his team had at least six injuries in one day in the training camp run-up in the late summer. âThe We Are United players, they have a fucking point. Itâs not fucking ping pong. You donât just open the garage door and go play.
âI donât think people know that when the seasons were postponed, the Big Ten and Pac-12 took completely different paths. They kept going like it was still training camp. They kept the same schedule like they were gonna play. We didnât. Half of our schools couldnât. Our nose is so fucking far up the Big Tenâs ass. Letâs just do whatâs best for the Pac-12. Why do we work out in the summer (usually) if we only need a few weeks?â
Before, it was the Pac-12 who looked smart and the Big Ten who looked dumb when postponing. Now the tables have turned as leagues attempt to play.
Meanwhile, the Mountain West and MAC are also feeling giddy and left out of the party as momentum builds for a potential fall return. These leagues have fewer resources, so they probably wouldnât administer daily testing, but testing options now are much cheaper and plentiful than they were in early August. Itâll be interesting to hear from Northern Illinois AD Sean Frazier should the Mid-American Conference return, since he cast a lot of doubt on playing until there was a vaccine and was quoted as saying you could test until the cows come home but it wouldnât make a difference in preventing one getting infected and doesnât help someone whoâs already sick.
Iâm sure heâll be a vocal participant in the conferenceâs meetings.
Okay, back to the Big Ten. Everything you need to know (of information thatâs currently available, which will soon change as details get ironed out) is in this article by ESPNâs Adam Rittenberg and Heather Dinich.
What got the conference to this point? Let Scott Dochterman help you re-live the last two months of hell and Nicole Auerbach take you through the science that guided the Big Tenâs return. From Ohio State head team physician Jim Borchers, co-chair of the Big Tenâs Return to Competition Task Force medical subcommittee and the man to thank for bringing football back:
â(It gives us) an ability to detect those folks who are positive and then use confirmatory PCR testing rather than just using PCR testing which may require a long turnaround time in some places, at best, 24 hours or maybe longer,â Borchers said. âWeâre very likely to reduce infectiousness inside practice and game competitions to near 100 percent. You can never say 100 percent, but we feel very, very confident that with that approach, weâll be able to make our practice and competition environments as risk-free as we possibly can with this testing approach.â
Schapiro said the presentations he heard from Borchers and the medical subcommittee over the weekend served as a turning point for him. With clarity on the access to daily testing and the return-to-play measures to address the risk of myocarditis, the medical team was no longer divided. The Big Tenâs Council of Presidents and Chancellors looked at multiple scheduling models â one that was presented would have started a week earlier, on Oct. 17 â and chose the one that started the weekend of Oct. 24. That would allow teams more than a month to ramp up and be ready for games from a physical safety standpoint. It would also allow for more than three weeks of daily testing prior to kickoff, so schools can see how it all works.
Now, the conference has confidence and a solid plan that will become even more clear as the days pass by. The B1G has what Iâd call the safest plan of any league playing this fall, and fans who were hesitant to support their team under prior protocols may feel a sense of relief now (just like the presidents). College football isnât the same without the Big Ten, and neither is 11 am on a fall Saturday.
And yes, while it was demoralizing to watch last weekendâs slate of Power Five games knowing there was no Big Ten, but it was still an entertaining if not weird Saturday. Leave it to the Big 12 to lose thrice to the #FunBelt. Takeaways from what felt like a more normal day.
Wednesday was really a huge day. On top of the Big Tenâs announcement and the Midwest collectively jumping, the NCAA Division I Council approved November 25 as the official start date for the basketball season. With the positive momentum around COVID tests, confidence on the hardwood is also at a peak.
We have no idea, though what a season looks like. Itâs going to be wacky, from early-season tournaments being moved from the Bahamas to South Dakota (I guess itâs now the Bahamas of the Great Plains) and Disney seemingly needing to rename itself as an athletic bubble. Reports indicate that the majority of conferences want to play some non-conference games, and those would most likely occur at these tournaments during Jon Rothsteinâs Golden Windowâąïž between Thanksgiving and New Yearâs, when students at most universities wonât be on campus.
Teams will play slightly fewer games and only need to play 13 games to be tournament eligible (a nod to the Ivy League and Pac-12, both of whom may not start seasons until January). More details from Dana OâNeil here.
Good Tweets
You bet there were a ton this week, and this is merely a sampling. Hereâs a call to action for our readers: if you see a Tweet you like, DM us on Twitter and we may feature it in an upcoming issue.
This first one came after University of Nebraska president Ted Carter was caught on a hot mic Tuesday morning telling someone they were getting ready to announce the return of Big Ten football that night. That BLEW up college football media for a day, only for the decision to come Wednesday morning. Either way, this video is hilarious, as you can only imagine his reaction under the mask. Someone in the comments said to put this video to Curb Your Enthusiasm or Veep music, and I couldnât agree more.
Thank god the season rumors are done (for now). Because this sums up well what weâve all been feeling since about August 8.
On the subject of fans, the Big Ten said no public sale of tickets, though they expect to accommodate the families of players and staffers. I personally expect that to change as the conference gets a look at how successful or unsuccessful other schools are at hosting crowds, and I have a feeling certain schools will lobby hard for some kind of attendance.
I personally like the Notre Dame model of allowing only students, faculty, staff and player families. Having students relatively spaced out in an open-air environment is safer than having them congregate at peopleâs houses and at bars, where many would likely go to watch the games anyway.
So two tweets!
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See you next week.
Written by Eli Karp and Colin Kruse.