The first major domino of what the 2020 football season could potentially look like finally fell when the Big Ten Conference announced it would play league-only schedules for all of its schools’ fall sports.
However, many questions remain as to what this fall will actually hold when it comes to the realities of beginning and finishing seasons.
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren joined the Big Ten Network on Thursday afternoon to elaborate on the league’s issued statement, and he made it clear that despite the latest news, nothing has been set in stone just yet.
“One thing we have to realize is that this is not a fait accompli that we're going to have sports in the fall,” Warren told BTN. “We may not have sports in the fall, we may not have a college football season in the Big Ten. We just wanted to make sure that this was the next logical step.”
Warren said one of the biggest reasons for opting to league-only competition this fall was to better control its teams and student-athletes under uniform COVID-19 protocols issued by the Big Ten.
He also said by eliminating the non-conference games in September, it would allow for more flexibility to adjust schedules on the fly if teams suffered coronavirus-related setbacks.
“When you make these decisions, you just have to look at all of the issues, and one of the things that was most important to us was the flexibility of scheduling all the operations,” Warren said. “It’s much easier if we’re just working with our Big Ten institutions from a scheduling standpoint, from a traveling standpoint; all of those issues that go into having our student-athletes compete.
“Otherwise, when you start working outside of your conference, you put yourself in a position where there are enough issues that we’re dealing with already, but then you add on top of it the issues of travel and just the logistics associated with it. So we felt that at the end of the day, this decision would allow us to do the right thing by our student-athletes, keep them at the forefront of all of our decisions, and make sure that we create an environment to give us the best chance to play.”
While there have been multiple reports of the Big Ten moving to a 10-game conference-only football schedule, the league has not specified how many games would be played this fall or when they might occur.
Warren said those decisions would be the next steps in the process over the coming weeks.
“This is really where the work begins, to make sure that we get testing protocols finalized and make sure that we get all of our medical operational procedures finalized,” Warren said. “But also start working with our (television) network partners and from scheduling scenarios that will work.
"Over the next week or so we’ll work through all of the scheduling issues that we’ll have to deal with to make sure that we’re always doing the best that we can to keep our student-athletes healthy and safe and also provide some great Big Ten football, hopefully in the fall, to our fans.”
Warren added that this plan had been in the works for the past month and resulted from daily conversations with university administrators and athletic directors and weekly talks with head coaches, particularly football coaches.
Those talks also included regular communication with other conference officials, indicating that the Big Ten’s decision was not one made in a bubble.
Warren said he and the Big Ten had and would continue to evaluate the situation on a daily basis, and they were ready to make any future adjustments as deemed necessary. For now, though, he at least feels good about taking another step closer to some semblance of athletic normalcy this fall.
“Today’s an interesting day, to say the least,” Warren said. “There’s a lot of hours that go into these decisions, but I am very comfortable … that we did the right thing. I always ask myself, ‘what’s the wise thing to do?’ And as we sit here today, the wise thing to do for us to not only create but announce a Big Ten Conference-only schedule.”
