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On Monday night, the tenor of my Twitter timeline was one of complaints and petulance.
There’s the crowd eagerly awaiting the return of college football in the Big Ten, anxious about the outcome — especially on the heels of reports by the likes of Dan Patrick noting that Michigan may sit the season out regardless. Then there’s the group who don’t believe the conference should return to play, excitedly mocking those who do, noting that no decision has come down the pike.
So many anticipated that we’d have the vote and its results by now, just because so many reporters said it ‘could’ happen by end of day Sunday, not ‘will’ or ‘would.’ I could have told you it was going to be a process.
Last time around, when the Big Ten postponed the season just six days after announcing the revamped fall schedule, the timeline went like this: rumors of no college football (none at all, not just the Big Ten) came on Saturday, they became Big Ten-specific on Sunday, the #WeWantToPlay movement started in the early Monday hours, Dan Patrick shared that there was a Big Ten vote come Monday morning, and on Tuesday afternoon, the conference pulled the plug.
Does that timeline look familiar?
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This time around, it’s looked like this: Friday, reports surfaced that the conference was having a medical presentation about a return to play on Saturday, talks would continue on Sunday with a vote being possible, then Dan Patrick said something (which I don’t agree with, at all) on Monday morning.
So it’s basically the same, just with a return to play instead of ceasing it.
I don’t know if the vote is coming today, Tuesday, or not, nor do I have any kind of firm prediction of how it will go. What we do know is that one appears to be forthcoming. Many have blasted the media in this considering we do not yet know of a vote — ‘I’ll believe it when I see it!’ those people cry — but we’re now getting the information from reputable reporters. Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel, The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg and Heather Dinich. Those who anticipated a vote earlier were relying much more heavily on faulty intel or all-out fake news by basement dwellers who have been making everything up as they go along for the attention. Note that the latter and the former are not even close to the same.
Listen, the Big Ten has been an absolute clown show throughout all of this. The conference, regardless of whether it was right in its decision to postpone when it did or not, and also regardless of whether it would be right to reinstate the season or not, has done itself no favors in terms of its reputation. It’s been rudderless and an inverse of cohesion. So to bring football back and restore any little bit of shine, it’s going to have to come together with a plan — unlike last time. That means it could take a minute for a potential October start to come to fruition, assuming the league is self-aware of its missteps thus far.
So give it time to come to whatever its decision is. Because that’s the reality of how this will go, not some Veruca Salt-paced frenzy, hastily returning players to the field without a plan.