Tag: James Borchers

When news broke that Ohio State decided to cancel the game against Illinois because of a rise in coronavirus positivity rates in the program, it was quickly assumed it would be a multiple week process to get back on the field. After all, Wisconsin and Maryland missed a couple of weeks straight before things were at the point where the team was healthy enough to compete again.

However, while appearing on a Zoom call with reporters Sunday, the Buckeye decision-makers introduced a bit of optimism into the ingredients of what seemed to be a disappointing COVID-19 casserole of despair.

Dr. Jame Borchers, the lead in this whole return to play medical taskforce for the Big Ten, provided a bit of a timeline on how things transpired. The team was not in a spot to cancel the game against Illinois until Friday evening, finally crossing a guidepost threshold of over 7.5 percent of the players testing positive. The program did not cross the five percent threshold of overall test results coming back positive.

Five things to know with where things stand with Ohio State’s football season https://t.co/9TVjRweBn2

— Buckeyes Wire (@BuckeyesWire) November 28, 2020

That all means the team could have played based on what has been set up through the agreement to return to play in the fall. But, the football factory proved everyone wrong in not playing at all costs, erring on the side of safety and caution for its student-athletes.

Even more so, because of where things are, athletic director Gene Smith said the primary focus is getting players healthy enough to play Saturday against Michigan State.

“Our objective now is to continue to focus on the health and safety of our players, to make sure that we provide an opportunity to potentially come back to compete next weekend,” Smith said Saturday. “The tactics and strategies that we will put in place today and tomorrow and the next day and so on is all with an effort to ensure their safety and possibly give them a chance to compete next weekend. That is our primary focus.”

Dr. James Borchers echoed those comments when he provided a medical perspective to where things are.

“We have said all along, we’ll be driven by the data that we have and we’ll look at the data and we’ll make decisions based on the data that we have,” Borchers said. “And we’ll try not to forecast what that data will be, because that gets us into trouble. So we’ll use the data that comes out of our process and make the best decisions moving forward as we move into this next week … the hope is that we’re gonna get our student-athletes back to competition as quickly as possible.”

And then there’s the question of whether or not Ohio State will have enough time to prepare and be in shape for Michigan State. According to head coach Ryan Day, that too can be done with just a couple days of preparation.

“I would just say that I would think you could get it done (play Saturday) by practicing Thursday, making sure you have a good, hard practice Thursday,” Day said. “And then you could walk-through on Friday and play on Saturday. But again, we’ll just have to take it day-by-day and see how it goes.”

So don’t lose hope Buckeye fans. Obviously, the health and safety of everyone involved is paramount in this case, but it looks like Ohio State could still be on pace to play this weekend and beyond, and not just if all the stars align.

We’ll stay on top of this developing story.

[lawrence-related id=41317]

Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion.

Download the USA TODAY SportsWire app to follow Buckeyes Wire and your other favorite teams in the Apple Store for iPhones and Google Play for Android devices.

Anytime any kind of negative news breaks for the Ohio State football program, the criticism comes out, hard. Knowing that the Buckeye football program is one of the historical elite on the field and has racked up numerous individual and team awards throughout its illustrious history, there are those that believe OSU will put a product on the field in spite of everything true and moral.

We saw that be the narrative when Jim Tressel got in hot water (and was forced to resign), we saw it other disciplinary actions, and we especially witnessed it during the Zach Smith/Urban Meyer investigation.

Heck, we even heard about it when Ohio State pushed hard for its student-athletes to be able to play football this fall even though several other conferences and teams continued to forge ahead without the same level of criticism in the face of a pandemic.

Stop it. It’s not true.

If you had any questions about that, they should be put to rest today because Ohio State just made the call to cancel a football game it desperately needed to play, and win. And it did it despite not crossing the thresholds set up by the Big Ten’s Medical Subcommittee to shut things down.

While providing an update to COVID-19 outbreak on the team today on a ZOOM presser, both Dr. Jame Borchers and athletic director Gene Smith reiterated that the safety of the student-athletes was the priority and modus operandi throughout this season.

The team did pass the 7.5 percent population threshold, but not the overall positive 5 percent test threshold outlined for guideposts and decision data points on playing. In other words, the Buckeyes could have thrown caution to the wind, boarded a plane at the eleventh hour this morning, parachuted into Memorial Stadium with pads on, and played a very meaningful game for the program. The very thing you would expect of a program looking to win at all costs.

“Could we have played? Sure,” Gene Smith said. “Was it the right thing to pay? No.”

[lawrence-related id=41264]

Gene Smith says discussions on modifying the six-game eligibility requirement may come up later with the Big Ten, but that's not even a thought right now.

— Phil Harrison (@PhilHarrisonBW) November 28, 2020

That sounds like the exact opposite of a team and program that will elbow its way through integrity and class just to notch another win. As much as Ohio State has gone out of its way to protect student-athlete privacy by not publicly publishing the exact numbers of positive test results, it could have kept some of this in relative darkness and went ahead with a game.

But it didn’t.

Instead, Ohio State is now just one game away from not being eligible for the Big Ten Championship Game. A team has to have played six games to be considered for the game per Big Ten policy this year. That is now the most OSU can be a part of if both of the last two can still be played. Smith addressed any discussions had with the conference on perhaps changing that policy.

“That’s not what we are here team … I get the question. I’m very sensitive to that,” Smith said. “But that’s not where we are. We made a decision late last night to do what we did.”

Gene Smith says discussions on modifying the six-game eligibility requirement may come up later with the Big Ten, but that's not even a thought right now.

— Phil Harrison (@PhilHarrisonBW) November 28, 2020

[lawrence-related id=41258]

With two games now scratched because of the coronavirus pandemic, OSU is also potentially taking a hit to its College Football Playoff perception, one in which it was already barely in the top four upon the initial rankings.

Less games mean fewer data points. The fewer the data points and tape available for the CFP Committee could mean the difference between Ohio State getting a crack at the Playoff vs. being relegated to another, less-meaningful (and less money) bowl.

The Buckeyes could have put up some huge numbers and enhanced its resume and perception. Quarterback Justin Fields could have slung the ball around Memorial Stadium for a ton of yards and scored a few touchdowns to enhance his Heisman standing. They won’t. He can’t.

And it’s all because the Ohio State brass, including AD Gene Smith, head coach Ryan Day, and Dr. James Borchers made a decision to protect the student-athletes at Ohio State and Illinois.

So yeah, win at all costs? Not quite. Not in the least.

[listicle id=40242]

Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion.

Download the USA TODAY SportsWire app to follow Buckeyes Wire and your other favorite teams in the Apple Store for iPhones and Google Play for Android devices.