"If it wasn’t for the money, they wouldn’t be playing."
Dear Reader,
Three weeks ago, Big 10 fans wanted what Notre Dame had – a football season.
Today, as the league moves forward with a shortened season, fans may not want what Notre Dame got – a pause in the season as the team deals with an outbreak of COVID among its squad.
In this tumultuous year of polarizing beliefs and compromised decisions, we might not be able to have one without the other. There will be a football season, and COVID is going to hover ominously overhead like the game-day blimp.
“For one thing, Michigan State (football) looks like they will not be able to stay in the hotel before home games this year,” said Matt Wenzel, who covers the Spartans for MLIve.com. Why’s that?
“The Kellogg Center, where they always stay, is closed because it’s being used as a quarantine and isolation facility for Michigan State students who have tested positive for COVID.”
Wenzel and Aaron McMann, who covers University of Michigan football for MLive, joined me for this week’s episode of the Behind the Headlines podcast to discuss how and why the Big 10 presidents and chancellors reversed course five weeks after they voted 11-3 to postpone the season.
At the time, Northwestern President Morton Shapiro said there was no way to keep players safe. Then he voted last week with his peers to have a football season … as college campuses across the country became COVID hotspots. What changed?
“He said his vote was not based on the uproar from players or parents or politicians or money or any of that,” Wenzel said. “But you’ve got to be kidding yourself if you think those weren’t factors. If it wasn’t for the money, they wouldn’t be playing, let’s just be honest.”
Michigan stood to lose $100 million out of its athletic budget without football being played, McMann noted.
“That’s just a huge chunk of change, but that’s only part of it. There’s this idea of ‘fear of missing out’ for some of these players and coaches and parents. When you’re seeing games being played, they wonder, ‘Why aren’t we playing? We should be playing, too.’ ”
The NBA and NHL have been playing in isolation “bubbles,” and have succeeded at keeping COVID at bay. But as the Kellogg Center quarantine anecdote illustrates, there are no bubbles over college campuses. Although athletes get regular testing and have enhanced access to medical personnel, they are not under lockdown.
Wenzel said a team outbreak is almost a guarantee within the Big 10. “You’ve seen what’s happened across the country – there have been more than a dozen games postponed since (football games) started.”
Teams have to maintain an infection rate of 5 percent or lower for a rolling seven-day average in order to keep playing. Wenzel notes that is roughly seven players on squads that can number 120 athletes.
“Michigan State Athletic Director Bill Beekman said it’s all but a certainty that there would be at least one team in the Big 10 that would have to shut down at some point this season.”
In a nine-game season planned to start Oct. 24 and run nine straight weeks, that means there’s a high probability of twists and turns. Forget a Big 10 championship – can the Wolverines and Spartans even make it to the finish line?
McMann warns we should expect a football season different from one we’ve ever experienced before.
In other words, just like the rest of 2020. Play ball!
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