Our friends at Buckeyes Wire collected the letters written by parents of players at four different schools — Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa and Nebraska — demanding answers from the Big Ten.
There is real momentum from parents and some schools inside the conference to reverse the Big Ten’s decision to shut down fall football. Why is this happening?
A few reasons.
For one thing, a professor of cardiology at the University of Michigan has claimed that recent research on COVID-19 and its effects — painting a grim picture of the severity of the virus and the health complications it could cause — is flawed and inaccurate:
The Big 10 report on COVID relies heavily on this paper which found rampant abnormalities among normal controls and had many statistic that make no sense.
Time to retract or correct this paper. https://t.co/JY86C3zBBQ
— Venk Murthy (@venkmurthy) August 14, 2020
Another very explosive development was the NBA-Yale partnership leading to SalivaDirect’s claimed ability to create a simple, cheap, widely accessible, easily distributed saliva test which can be mass produced and lead to the level of contact tracing which can assist medical professionals in studying the coronavirus and how it works.
The creation of this test has led many people in the college football industry to think that the Big Ten lacked patience and pulled the plug on fall football too soon. Commissioner Kevin Warren, who is still relatively new to the job after replacing Jim Delany, is immersed in controversy. It might be too extreme to say that his job is on the line right now, but he certainly has to show that he is capable of providing leadership in a moment of crisis. He needs to provide reassurance and real answers to the parents and athletes who have written to him and the Big Ten Conference.
This development — with parents and players in the Big Ten voicing their confusion and their displeasure with the conference — took another turn early Sunday morning. Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, likely a top-three NFL draft pick in 2021, released a #WeWantToPlay petition asking the Big Ten to reinstate the season and reverse its decision to shut down fall football:
This cause is close to my heart – please sign: https://t.co/yFKlYE7pP0
— Justin Fields (@justnfields) August 16, 2020
The year 2020 is simply not going to calm down or become less complicated — not in college football, at least. August and September are going to be crazy, regardless of whether any conferences wind up playing football or not.