Big Ten football this fall is not a full go.
According to Yahoo!’s Pete Thamel, the presidents of Big Ten universities are meeting today to discuss how to proceed with fall sports during the COVID-19 pandemic, with all options on the table.
As Thamel says, momentum is gaining for canceling the fall football season. Earlier Saturday the presidents of the Mid American Conference voted unanimously to cancel fall sports with the plan to move them all to the spring.
While this news is less than comforting to those wanting football this fall, a full cancelation doesn’t seem imminent according to the AP’s Ralph Russo and ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg.
So while a decision to scrap the Big Ten season today seems unlikely, there is clearly still concern about playing football this fall at the highest levels of the Big Ten’s 14 members.
The conference has also announced that football practices will not stay on their traditional timeline of a two-day ramp up period to full padded practices. Right now football will be practiced in helmets and shorts for the foreseeable future.
Many Big Ten teams, including Michigan State, began fall camp on Friday. Rutgers is still in a two-week quarantine due to a large COVID-19 outbreak on their team. Northwestern was just cleared to resume workouts after a positive test in their ranks was determined to be a false positive.
We will have more on this story was it develops.
