Michigan and Ohio State have played each other in football every season since 1917 — until blasted 2020 broke the 103-year streak.
This once-in-a-lifetime cancellation should make fans realize playing sports in a pandemic is frivolous, not essential.
Michigan would have been missing double-digit starters and COVID-19 cases were increasing each day, according to Yahoo Sports. The Big Ten hasn’t been able to get through one week without a cancellation since opening weekend. More than 100 football games nationally have been canceled or postponed, now including “The Game.”
Does the idea of playing in the spring seem so outrageous now?
Many, of course, will argue that football was necessary this fall because that’s when a championship takes place. Some of those same people altered the Big Ten rules — yet again — to cater to the conference’s best team.
Big Ten athletic directors decided during a meeting Wednesday to allow the Buckeyes (5-0) to compete in the conference title game despite not meeting the six-game requirement the conference established before the season.
A vote later in the day of conference administrators, presidents and chancellors rescinded the rule, giving Ohio State the East Division title and setting up a matchup against West champion Northwestern (5-1) on Dec. 19 in Indianapolis.
Compete at all costs. Amend rules on the fly. Pandemic? Oh, please.
The Big Ten put itself in a predictable bind by not leaving any open dates on the schedule for makeups and underestimating the number of games that would be canceled. It was foreseeable that at least a few teams wouldn’t reach the six-game threshold to compete in the conference title game.
Entering the final weekend of the eight-week regular season, Maryland and Wisconsin have played only four games. Ohio State and Minnesota have played five.
The Buckeyes’ Nov. 14 game was canceled because of COVID-19 cases within Maryland’s program, and they had to call off their Nov. 28 game at Illinois because of an outbreak in their program.
The move to allow Ohio State to play in the conference championship game was motivated by money as much as anything. The decision wasn’t a huge surprise.
At the prospect of Michigan canceling, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said Saturday that he and his colleagues could amend the rules to allow the Buckeyes to compete in the Big Ten title game.
“If (Ohio State) has a game canceled, we as athletic directors would have to revisit whether they should be involved,” he said on Fox College Sports.
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel told reporters Tuesday that the Big Ten should be open to tweaking qualifications.
“I don’t believe that anybody — Ohio State or any other team — should just be punished by decisions we made by looking at eight games and saying play six, not knowing the effects of what happened to them or their team,” Manuel said. “So I would be open, and I think the conference would be open, to having a discussion about whether or not we will make adjustments.”
No shocker: Ohio State coach Ryan Day pushed for special consideration.
“If we don’t quite get the games we need to get into the championship game, I think that needs to be looked at hard, just like anybody else in the conference,” he said.
Don’t get me wrong. Ohio State is the conference’s best team and deserves consideration for the College Football Playoff. The Big Ten realized its best chance to be represented in the playoff is Ohio State earning a resume-enhancing conference championship.
The Big Ten message was clear: Too bad for everyone else who played with the understanding of “the rules are the rules.”
If the conference had not rescinded the six-game minimum, Indiana (6-1) would have represented the East in the championship game. (That is, if the Hoosiers even could play next week. Their game Saturday against Purdue was canceled Wednesday because of rising COVID-19 cases in both programs.)
This is all messy and tricky, filled with logistical and ethical concerns — like so many pandemic-related issues.
But what did anyone expect? If you ask athletes to play a game on the highway, don’t be shocked if someone gets hit.
The active cases and interruptions in college sports correlate to the serious health issues we’re seeing beyond stadiums and arenas with spiking cases across the country.
College teams aren’t playing in a bubble, but their planning operates as if they don’t exist outside of one.
Minnesota had an outbreak that affected 47 people within the program. Wisconsin had more than 20 cases earlier this season. Michigan’s cases have not slowed since last week’s outbreak, Manuel said.
COVID-19 outbreaks have disrupted more than 110 major college football games since August, and more than 50 college basketball games already have been altered because of outbreaks.
Ohio State was one of the teams pushing for a return to football this fall, touting its chances for a national championship season. Those dreams were enhanced by persuading the Big Ten to make another hasty rule change.
In September, Ohio State was chanting along with other teams, “We want to play.” The Buckeyes got what they wanted.
Now the Buckeyes demanded, “Play by our rules.” And the Big Ten bent again.
