The Big Ten is expected to cancel the 2020 college football season in a historic move that stems from concerns related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, multiple people with knowledge of the decision told the Free Press.
“It’s done,” one high-ranking source in the Big Ten said Monday afternoon.
Sources said the presidents were in agreement Sunday to end fall sports in the conference. Michigan and Michigan State — which both have physicians as presidents — were among the schools in favor of ending the fall seasons, sources said.
Multiple sources said early Monday morning that presidents voted 12-2 to end the season, though the Big Ten said Monday afternoon no official vote had taken place. Dan Patrick, who first reported the 12-2 vote, said on his radio show that Iowa and Nebraska were the two schools in favor or playing.
According to The Lansing State Journal, Big Ten presidents were expected to meet again Monday at 6 p.m. to formally vote on ending the season. One Free Press source said Monday afternoon the schools are expected to collectively move forward in the same direction.
The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the decision. A formal announcement is expected Tuesday, multiple sources said. The situation remains fluid as the Big Ten tries to coordinate its announcement with other Power Five conferences.
The Chicago Tribune reported around noon that “a top-level” Big Ten source texted that, “No final decisions have been made,” while the Columbus Dispatch reported as of 12:25 p.m. that Ohio State had not yet been ordered to suspend practices.
The move comes two days after the Mid-American Conference became the first in the FBS to cancel ts season.
Sources told the Free Press on Saturday that Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren prefers a spring football season, although no decision has been made.
On Monday, Michigan State football moved its scheduled off day from Tuesday to Monday because of the uncertainty of the 2020 season, three people with direct knowledge of the situation told the Free Press. Iowa canceled Monday’s 11 a.m. practice, according to the Des Moines Register. And Purdue reportedly rescheduled its media availability.
As of Monday morning, MSU and Michigan players had not yet been told of any decision to cancel the 2020 season, sources at each school said. Two sources said MSU coaches were hopeful more information would be provided Monday.
Presidents are trying to figure out how all this fits with other conferences and they want athletic directors to handle logistics of determining if spring season is possible, sources said. The situation reportedly is changing by the hour, which is why the Big Ten has not made its announcement official.
The cancellation of season comes a week after the Big Ten revealed an updated 10-game conference-only schedule for 2020, and just days after teams in the conference opened fall camp.
It also comes as players across the nation are opting out because of concerns about how the virus could impact their short- and long-term health. Four Michigan State players said they wouldn’t play in 2020, and one team source said more players were expected to follow.
MSU linebacker Marcel Lewis, who opted out Saturday, said he lost a family member to the virus and doesn’t want to risk play. Offensive tackle Justin Stevens, who also opted out Saturday, said he has a respiratory condition that could make him high risk. A number of other players around the Big Ten — including Minnesota wide receiver Rashod Bateman, Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons and Purdue wideout Rondale Moore — also announced they would not play this season and begin preparation for the 2021 NFL draft.
Indiana offensive lineman Brady Feeney, whose is suffering from COVID-19-related heart issues and whose mother wrote an impassioned message imploring the college football world to take the virus seriously, took to Twitter on Monday morning with his own urging schools and players “to listen to our medical experts.”
“Covid-19 is serious,” Brady Feeney wrote. “I never thought that I would have serious health complications from this virus, but look at what happened.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and one of the members of the group advising the NCAA on COVID-19, told the Free Press on Saturday a college football season no longer appeared feasible.
“When we were trying to think about ways to make it safe, we were at a time when there was kind of more control of the virus, and you’ve got less control of the virus now than we had several months earlier during when the stay at home orders were just starting to be lifted,” Adalja said. “And then the other thing that’s made it what made it much more difficult is football is a contact sport, which is going to require some amount of testing of players. The turnaround times for for outpatient testing are really unacceptable for being able to safely clear somebody to play.
“When you have this type of problem with testing, where it might take days to get a result back, it really makes it extremely challenging for this to occur.”
Both MSU president Samuel Stanley (immunology and infectious diseases) and U-M president Mark Schlissel (immunology and internal medicine) are medical doctors.
Early Monday morning, players across the nation began uniting with the hashtag: ‘WeWantToPlay.’ Michigan defensive back Hunter Reynolds, who helped organize a unity statement among Big Ten players last week, told the Free Press early Monday morning that he hoped the movement “can save fall college sports in general.”
“Obviously, you know there are gonna be risks with playing sports this fall, especially in the midst of COVID-19,” Reynolds said. “But I think, as athletes, we feel that if the schools are unified and uniform in doing everything in their power to ensure our well-being and safety that that’s a risk that a lot of people are willing to take.”
