The college football season begins play this weekend, and Ohio State kicks off its season in a little over a week when it travels to Minneapolis to take on Big Ten foe Minnesota. It’s an on-time start, and that’s a lot better than what we were dealing with last year with the on-again, off-again, kind of on-again, abbreviated COVID-19 Big Ten football season.
But the pandemic is far from over. The delta variant has resulted in a rise again in case counts, hospitalizations, and fear that life is not as close to back to normal as we all hoped in the early summer. That of course makes many wonder what will happen to sports in general, and college football should an outbreak occur.
The Big Ten finally, mercifully, came out with its stance on the matter just a few days ago, falling in line with other conferences and mandating a forfeiture if a team can’t play because of an outbreak of COVID-19. If both teams have an issue, the game will simply be a “no-contest.”
So what does that mean for Ohio State? The good news is that fully vaccinated players do not need to test this season. The unvaccinated must be tested twice a week, and quarantine if positive, but that’s not the case with vaccinated players. So, there will be less testing, less isolation, fewer cases, and less of a chance of disruption to games and a season if a large enough population of players are vaccinated.
And, according to Ryan Day, that’s exactly where his Buckeyes are. In fact, when meeting with the media, Day confirmed that only about ten players are unvaccinated at this point.
“Some guys jump on daily, but I think we’re right around ten, or just under ten now of guys that are unvaccinated,” Day told the media on Monday.
That’s good news. First and foremost from a health standpoint, but from the ability to get games played each week knowing that there is less chance of an outbreak, and any mild disruptions are unlikely to result in a game needing to be canceled or forfeited by OSU.
Ryan Day says there are about 10 Ohio State players who are still unvaccinated, though more and more players have been vaccinated.
— Dan Hope (@Dan_Hope) August 23, 2021
We don’t have the numbers on other teams in the Big Ten, but rest assured that it looks like the 2021 season is going to look a lot more like what we’ve seen in years not named 2020.
Let’s put the ball down and go play.
[listicle id=57802]
Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes, and opinion.