Opinion: The Big Ten panicked

Five days ago the Big Ten made the decision to cancel its fall football season. The news came only five days after the conference…

The Big Ten panicked.

A headline short and simple, and it’s all that needs to be said here.

Five days ago the Big Ten made the decision to cancel its fall football season. The news came only five days after the conference released an updated schedule and seemed to be planning towards starting the season on time.

Five days. Not 4-5 months or even a few weeks. Putting aside the decision itself and whether football should be played this fall, the timeline of the conference’s decision and incomprehensible lack of transparency behind the decision points towards one option: the conference panicked.

Were they hoping the other Power Five conferences would follow them in cancelling the season? Probably, but who knows.

 

Related: What the NCAA can do to fix the structure of college football and save the sport

 

But with the season a month away the least they could’ve done was push back the start of the season and wait for more information to become available

Just in the last 24 hours there have been reports of a new cheap and efficient saliva testing method getting approval from the FDA, one of the apparent centerpieces of the conference’s decision–a paper citing long-term health effects of COVID-19–being questioned and taken apart by a prominent Michigan cardiologist and even parents of the players and others opening up about the lack of transparency surrounding the decision

None of it makes sense. The timetable, the fact parents of the players still feel out of the loop. None of it.

It’s beyond me at this point why the conference didn’t delay the season or delay their decision and either work with other conferences or wait until new information–exactly what is listed above–came out.

First, the saliva testing.

If you read the thread the new method is both a cheap and efficient way for groups like a sports team to test and receive timely results.

One of the biggest question marks about playing? Inconsistent testing. In the last 24 hours that question appears to be on its way towards being solved.

 

Related: Badgers tackle Cole Van Lanen had strong words about the Big Ten’s decision to cancel the season

 

Second, the medical report.

One of the biggest factors that played into the conference’s decision to cancel the season was reportedly a study proving COVID-19 to be the source for long-term helath consequences.

Yesterday Michigan professor of preventative cardiology Venk Murthy took to Twitter to explain the inadequacies of the paper.

His final tweets from the thread: “In the end, I’m not sure whether college football should be played or not. To me there are more substantial and important things in the world. That said, papers like this should not be used for policy decision. At least until they are fixed/corrected.”

Third, and finally, this piece on the parents of Big Ten football players still looking for answers on the sudden decision to cancel the season.

Here are some quotes that stick out:

“The decision just came too quick,” said Freiermuth, mother of Nittany Lions tight end Pat Freiermuth. “I totally believe in medical experts and think we should be listening to them—if the right thing to do medically is not to play, I’m fine with that. But to go from releasing the schedule to the start of practice to stopping the season, without explanation, is just wrong.”

From Tim Ford, father of Illinois tight end Luke Ford: “I think the way this was handled was atrocious. As if they didn’t have three-four months to figure something out.”

“It’s devastating news, it really is,” Goodson said. “I get it, I really do—we all want our players to be in good health. We just want to know why, what changed, and for the Big Ten to provide those answers to us.”

The fact that the conference hasn’t even provided answers to the parents of the players is extremely concerning.

 

Again, all of this is being said purely about the timetable and lack of transparency surrounding the decision, not about the decision itself and whether the sport should be played because I don’t know if they should play in the fall and not many realistically do.

But after releasing a new schedule on August 5, cancelling the season five days later on August 10 without expressing to the parents why the decision was made doesn’t make much sense at all.

Had they elected to push back the start of the season or delay the decision even one week there would have been more information available–significant information I may add–to make a plan for the best path forward.

You can chalk it up to the lack of leadership atop the NCAA, the lack of a medical consensus or to many other things. But it all comes back to the apparent truth that the conference panicked in making their decision, hoping other conferences will follow and also make the decision to not play this fall.

All I know at this point: in the end if three of the Power Five conferences play the season without a hitch while the Big Ten and Pac-12 sit on the sidelines there will be ramifications for years to come.