Big Ten presidents reportedly meeting tonight as ‘vast majority’ favor scrapping fall football season

mlive ^ | 8/09/20 | Matt Wenzel

[Libloather]

With the college football season in serious jeopardy due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Big Ten could be closer to pulling the plug.

According to a report from ESPN, the “vast majority” of Big Ten presidents are in favor of postponing the season while hoping to play in the spring. Yahoo! Sports’ Pete Thamel reported Big Ten presidents and chancellors are scheduled to meet Sunday night.

A Big Ten spokesman confirmed to MLive on Saturday that conference presidents and chancellors were meeting that day but there was no vote planned on playing football this fall. The conference on Saturday morning announced practice restrictions, preventing teams from wearing pads until further notice.

“We understand there are many questions regarding how this impacts schedules, as well as the feasibility of proceeding forward with the season at all,” the Big Ten said in a statement on Saturday. “As we have consistently stated, we will continue to evaluate daily, while relying on our medical experts, to make the best decisions possible for the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes.”

ESPN reported commissioners from Power Five conferences had an emergency meeting on Sunday as Big Ten presidents wanted to get a feel if the other conferences would also cancel fall sports.

[Team Cuda]

I’ve reread this several times, and I’m still having trouble finding a point. Should we get rid of everything we’ve achieved since 1957?

Polio vaccine - only pansies would take this
Measles vaccine - snowflakes only!
seat belt usage - see above
reduced tobacco usage - also see above.

Of course, all of these things helped raise the average life span from 66.4 years then to 72.7 now, but only snowflakes would want to live longer.

[xrmusn]

Granted but my ‘stock’ answer to no Doctors, got out of Navy and next physical some 40 years later and that was for a double cataract operation some 13 years ago and guess I will go back for my follow up etc.

Grew up with Mother & Father, 5 aunts, 1 uncle ALL RNs - for whatever that may be worth.

On a SEE food diet, SEE something I might like and eat it.

Reminds me of the old groaner of the guy going to the Dr and getting told to knock of Pork and other various foods.

“My grandfather ate 4 eggs and half a pound of bacon - all home grown - for breakfast EVERY morning and he lived to be 103”

DR-”Maybe so but that was BEFORE we knew about cholesterols”

So, whatever the reason or non reason or sensibility of it, IT WORKS FOR ME.

AND, according to the first ‘guidelines’ I am DEAD.

Basically am doing same as I was 3 months ago and at one time thought I would have to get an ID saying I was 60 or so.(HA HA).

[Exit148]

I’m a big UVA fan, but really like Trevor Lawrence. Hope they play!

[Fiji Hill]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we didn’t even cancel college football during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 which killed tens of millions. So why do we need to cancel the entire football season for something far less deadly?

[SoCal Pubbie]

When the smoke clears and the numbers get revised down, we’ll revisit this conversation.

[Team Cuda]

While the entire season wasn’t cancelled in 1918, certainly individual games were. As an example, the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association didn’t schedule any official games in 1918, due to events related to WW1 and the flu pandemic

I would suggest that it’s not a good comparison to today for several reasons:
1) 1918 was a looong time ago. There wasn’t as good an understanding about risk factors as we have now.
2) The crowds at the games were certainly smaller than they are today.
3) There’s a marked disinclination on some of the players to take the risk. You can pull their scholarships if you want, but you can’t make them play. If enough choose not to play, they won’t be able to field competitive teams.

Not to minimize the impact of the 1918 pandemic at all. 675,000 deaths out of a 103M population is ridiculously high death rate, and one I sincerely hope we will never see again. However, I suspect that the death rate would be lower if they had our level of medical technology.

[Fiji Hill]

There’s a marked disinclination on some of the players to take the risk. You can pull their scholarships if you want, but you can’t make them play. If enough choose not to play, they won’t be able to field competitive teams.

#WeWantToPlay