Tag: Ivy League

Ivy League announces fall sports are canceled

The Ivy League announced it is canceling all fall sports for 2020.

There will be no football or other sports in the Ivy League this fall because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced Wednesday.

The eight schools that comprise the conference could be looking at a spring schedule — possibly playing against each other. However, no decision has been made regarding that possibility.

“The feeling is that once we made the decision to postpone fall sports, we will have some time to assess the situation (pandemic) before making a decision about playing next spring,” one Ivy League source told SI.com.

The release:

With the safety and well-being of students as their highest priority, Ivy League institutions are implementing campus-wide policies including restrictions on student and staff travel, requirements for social distancing, limits on group gatherings, and regulations for visitors to campus. As athletics is expected to operate consistent with campus policies, it will not be possible for Ivy League teams to participate in intercollegiate athletics competition prior to the end of the fall semester.

Practice and other athletic training opportunities for enrolled student-athletes will be permitted provided they are structured in accordance with each institution’s procedures and applicable state regulations. The Ivy League will also issue guidelines on a phased approach to conditioning and practice activities to allow for interaction among student-athletes and coaches that will begin with limited individual and small group workouts and build to small group practice sessions, if public health conditions permit.

Fall sport student-athletes will not use a season of Ivy League or NCAA eligibility in the fall, whether or not they enroll. Students who wish to pursue competition during a fifth-year will need to work with their institutions in accordance with campus policy to determine their options beyond their current anticipated graduation date.

The question in the bigger picture is will this decision have an impact on college football as a whole.

Ivy League cancels all sporting events for fall

The league will not entertain the idea of hosting sporting events until January.

This is definitely not a good sign for the chances of college football happening this fall.

On Wednesday, the Ivy League announced that they have cancelled all athletic events until at least January 1.

In March, the league was one of the first to cancel its basketball tournament which was followed by the cancellation of all conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament along with all spring sports.

Ivy League decision could spell trouble for Ohio State’s fall sports

Could Ohio State’s football be in trouble after the Ivy League decided to cancel or try to push back all their fall sports?

One of the most distinguished leagues in the NCAA with a few of the top schools in the entire world, the Ivy League has voted to cancel their athletic programs for the fall of 2020 according to CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander.

This comes just days after Harvard declared that it would be doing online-only instruction. While it doesn’t truly mean anything for the Big Ten, some conferences will likely fall in line with the Ivy League.

That said, there’s much more at stake for a billion-dollar program like Ohio State. The future of many of their players as well as sponsorships and television deals could all go up in fumes if the season isn’t played.

If the trade-off with testing and safety precautions is worth it, the Buckeyes may move ahead with a season, but it’ll be interesting if the Big Ten would trump any individual program’s decision.

“There are also financial considerations to take into account for the Ivy League. The conference loses more money on football than any other sport,” CBS Sports’ Ben Kercheval wrote.

With COVID-19 still spiking in many areas around the country, this decision to play or not and if fans can be present could come down to the wire. With time running out, expect to hear from other top universities in the near future.

Ivy League cancels fall sports, could FBS conferences follow suit?

It was reported on Wednesday that the Ivy League has decided to cancel all fall sports.

Discouraging news continues to flow in regarding fall sports this year due to the current landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, it was announced that the State Fair of Texas was canceled for the first time since World War II. How this may impact the classic Red River Rivalry game is yet to be seen as this is a fluid situation. However, both the Texas and Oklahoma athletic directors have voiced their optimism that the game will be played as scheduled.

On top of that, it was reported on Wednesday that the Ivy League, part of the FCS, has canceled all fall sports. CBS insider Jon Rothstein stated via Twitter that the conference will not entertain any sports until the beginning of next year.

While this isn’t necessarily an indication of what is to come for the FBS, it’s certainly worth noting. What could potentially save the Power Five conferences in terms of allowing them to play football this fall is the financial strain.

The FBS and FCS are quite different in terms of the national spotlight. The main indicator between the two is how a final winner is determined. The FBS hosts a four-team College Football Playoff while the FCS hosts a 24-team playoff for the NCAA D-1 Football Championship. FCS teams can only have 63 players on scholarship, while FBS teams can have 85.

The Ivy League has the freedom to make such a decision since they’re built on their educational superiority, while the FBS could suffer substantially. However, it’s still too early to determine what the FBS will consider.

There are several avenues to explore such as moving the college football season to the spring, shortening the schedule to conference opponents only, limiting fan attendance, etc.

Regardless of which route is ultimately taken, the public’s health and safety measures should be the ultimate priority.

The Ivy League won’t play fall sports — what does it mean?

Ivy League news

This news isn’t surprising. It was expected by most observers of the college sports scene in the United States. Nevertheless, now that it has happened, Americans will ask plenty of questions about the fate of college football and basketball: The Ivy League will not play sports this fall.

Let’s be very clear and precise about this: Canceling fall sports does not — at least not yet — mean that the Ivy League won’t try to play these sports in the spring of 2021. For now, this merely means there will be no sports played on or by Ivy League schools through the autumn of 2020.

It makes a big difference between the two possibilities — the Ivies fully canceling fall sports for the entire academic year, versus not playing sports in the fall but trying to play them in the spring of 2021. So, we don’t yet know what the Ivies’ entire plan is. We only know the plan through this calendar year; 2021 is still an unknown.

Therefore, an honest assessment of what this Ivy League news means for college football and basketball is incomplete. We would need to know if the Ivies want to attempt to play these fall sports in the coming spring. That decision might — I repeat, might; no guarantees in any direction — affect what bigger schools will do.

What does this news story mean? Many people will think the worst and say that the Ivy League — given its stature within American secondary education — will be viewed as a model for other universities, consequently leading to a decision to not play any sports around the country this fall, in all the FBS schools and conferences.

Other people will completely — or largely — disregard this story. They will make the claim that since the Ivy League ditched FBS (formerly known as Division I-A) football in 1981 and chose to downscale its involvement with football, the decisions and priorities of Power Five schools exist in a very different universe regarding football and hoops.

Both views have plenty of merit. The Ivy League does have pull and stature, but the Ivies took themselves out of cutthroat FBS competition as well and have a different ethos. Do I know which line of thought is more accurate as a political evaluation of the situation? No, I do not.

Here is what strikes me as the essential observation to make in the wake of the Ivy League’s decision: Do American leaders and administrators — in this case, the leaders and administrators at Power Five schools and Power Five conferences in particular — feel confident in following the lead of the Ivy League schools, which are widely regarded as our elite academic institutions?

You saw Harvard keep its full tuition price intact on Monday despite announcing online-only instruction for the coming academic year. Are other schools going to look at that and say, “If Harvard is doing that, maybe we should do that as well”?

OR, are other schools going to look at that and be appalled, and chart a different course?

Again, I don’t know the answer.

However: I think it is very much worth bringing up the simple point that just because an elite and prestigious school (or any elite and prestigious entity or organization) makes a decision, that doesn’t somehow confer enlightenment or wisdom upon the decision itself.

Ask yourself these three questions to get a sense of what this Ivy League news actually means:

1. Should Harvard get a “benefit of the doubt” attitude from other less prestigious schools — the ones which have to decide whether to play football and basketball in the coming months — or should it be met with skepticism (at minimum) or (more severely) fierce disapproval and condemnation?

2. Do the universities currently weighing football and basketball think the Ivy League is worth admiring, or do they think — after Harvard’s tuition decision on Monday — that the Harvard name and, more broadly, the Ivy League label are now hollow illusions which are part of a racket shrouded more in mythology than actual substance?

3. Are current events creating a shift in attitudes among the leaders at American universities toward Ivy League institutions, either in terms of eroding confidence toward a position of skepticism, or from a position of skepticism toward a position of outright opposition?

It will be fascinating to see how the coming months — all the way through the end of the 2020-2021 academic year — reshape the reality of American secondary education as an industry and as a culture.

The Ivy League to cancel all fall sports

The Ivy League has decided to cancel fall sports

According to CBS insider Jon Rothstein, the Ivy League has cancelled fall sports. After January 1, the conference will consider whether or not they plan on bringing sports back in the spring semester.

Well this is certainly not a good sign for major conferences, the Ivy League is making this decision on their own, and currently no other set of schools has cancelled fall sports. There are many other variables that conferences will have to deal with, and we are still a couple of months removed from what would be the start of the fall season. Well nothing else is set in stone yet for the fall, the Ivy League cancellation is certainly a blow to hopes of college sports in the fall.

Harvard’s latest move and a pending Ivy League vote could jeopardize college football this fall

Will Harvard University’s move and the pending vote by the Ivy League jeopardize college football this fall? What about Ohio State?

Did Harvard University’s move towards complete online learning put other programs on notice — including Ohio State? Could this be the first domino to fall in others significantly modifying, or even canceling fall sports?

It wasn’t just Harvard though, although they did recently announce that only 40% of their undergraduate capacity will be back on campus with 100% remote instruction.

It was the Ivy League in totality that made a big splash with news further complicated by the unknown of the novel coronavirus. While everyone wants normalcy back, that’s still far off it seems.

That said, the Ivy League is going to vote on whether or not to push back all fall sports to the spring, the Athletic reported.

It feels as though the league is erring on the side of caution regarding the coronavirus which could still be spiking in pockets throughout the country. However, it could certainly vote to keep the schedule as is also. But, it is being discussed and voted on, so that alone is newsworthy.

How will it play out for other conferences then?

As Michigan’s President has already stated, it won’t have intercollegiate sports without students on campus, and this move by one of America’s leading institutions is a poor sign for a fall football season.

Everyone wants safety and low-risk taking, but football is also a huge allure not just for fans but for sponsors and the school’s revenue in general. However, given the cost of testing as well, this 2020 season would likely be more expensive than any other in Ohio State’s history.

Now, it’s not certain that other big-money and big-time leagues would follow suit, but more news will be breaking on the Ivy League’s voting soon. We’ll see if other leagues come in line with what it does.

 

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Is the Ivy League Ahead of the Game?

There were rumors about what the Ivy League could do this coming football season.

Some of the smartest student-athletes across the country reside in the Ivy League and there are rumors that they may move their football season to the spring. The report by TMG Sports claims that the league is preparing to play a seven-game schedule, with just in-conference games that would begin in April and finish in May.

Normally the Ivy League would being play a few weeks after the majority of the rest of college football and it would be a 10-game schedule as opposed to a 12-game slate like the Irish are set to play. The league also doesn’t have summer workouts, so their student-athletes have yet to return to campus.

With what has transpired across the NCAA has been alarming, LSU has over 30 confirmed players testing positive, Clemson has had two separate groups of positive tests resulting in 37 players testing positive, Boise State stopped voluntary workouts due to positive tests and that is just a few examples of teams dealing with the COVID-19 crisis.

It remains to be seen how the Ivy League will ultimately handle the situation, but having an alternate plan is a great idea. Who knows what will happen over the next two months, I hope the country, especially some southern states get a handle on the control of this virus. We all want to see college football in the fall, but not at the risk of the student-athletes.