Ever since Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren and university presidents announced the postponement of the fall football season, criticism has come from more angles than a protractor convention. Not only have football parents, fans, and administrators unleashed an avalanche of scathing remarks on what many have called poor leadership, transparency, and decision-making, but so too have a large portion of the media.
It should be noted once again that trying to do what’s right to please everyone during a global pandemic is an almost no-win situation. But it’s hard to imagine the Big Tem public relations folks in Chicago being satisfied with the way things have been handled so far.
It’s unlikely the barbs and sideways glances are going to stop anytime soon, and for further proof of that, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt has now gotten into the fray with some harsh words for Warren and the Big Ten.
Watch the segment that was shared by Unnecessary Roughness and hear SVP absolutely demolish the Big Ten and its leaders. And if reading the comments are more your style, we’ve got the full transcript of Van Pelt’s scathing remarks after the video.
SVP absolutely dismantling the Big Ten is the type of content we love pic.twitter.com/KLyzw8gMU0
— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) August 29, 2020
Next … Full transcript of Scott Van Pelt’s remarks
Scott Van Pelt criticizes Big ten, full remarks
“This week, eight Nebraska players filed a lawsuit to try to overturn the Big Ten’s decision to cancel the season, but unfortunately, lawsuits and parents writing letters and the President (Donald Trump) tweeting aren’t gonna get us Big Ten football this fall, but maybe Thanksgiving. I can’t say this more clearly — this is nonsense.”
“How the (expletive) are you gonna not play in the fall but start in November at Thanksgiving, while the season with teams who are going to start in September is still going and it’s marching towards its playoff? Just think it through. You can’t do that. ‘No, no no, no, no, see — we’re playing for the Old Oaken Bucket and Floyd of Rosedale, and Paul Bunyan’s Axe.’ Cool, have fun with a pig trophy. We’re playing for the championship trophy, you know? You can’t start the season with the other one coming down to its most important games. You would be taunting yourself.”
“Why not play in late September, when everyone else does, if you’re going to try to start at Thanksgiving? I don’t think it would happen though, because the presidents in the Big Ten who shot down the season in the first place would have to okay it. Meanwhile, if they couldn’t play because they were worried about lawsuits, how did you allow all these students to come back to campus and go to school? Oh, right, right — so you can charge them the full boat for the semester. That’s a fun trick.”
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