Big Ten might start Oct. 17
The Big Ten might play football in 2020 after all. But as of Tuesday evening, no decision to reboot the season had been announced.
Conference leaders are expected to approve an eight-game, nine-week schedule that could begin Oct. 17, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media outlets reported Tuesday. That would put the Big Ten championship game on Dec. 19, the day before the College Football Playoff field is scheduled to be revealed. There also remains a possibility the season could begin the weekend of Oct. 24.
On Tuesday evening, Michigan State president Samuel Stanley addressed members of the football program in a Zoom video conference call, and while Stanley did not reveal any news on when the season might begin, multiple people who participated in the call said Stanley expected to provide an update soon. When exactly that is remains to be seen. A high-ranking person at one Big Ten school told the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday it remains unclear whether all 14 teams will be playing or whether some may opt out of the season because of concerns over COVID-19 and other risks. The conference’s presidents and chancellors were not expected to announce a decision on resuming the season Tuesday, according to Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated. It has been expected the conference would move in unison.
“I will say we’re all going to move together in the Big Ten,” Wisconsin chancellor Rebecca Blank said Monday on a teleconference with reporters. “We’re all going to play or not if we possibly can. This isn’t going to be a school-by-school thing.”
Tuesday was the latest chaotic day in the Big Ten’s monthlong soap opera.
In the morning, Nebraska president Ted Carter got caught before a news conference on an open mic by Lincoln TV station KETV saying the conference planned to announce it would resume football later that evening.
“We’re getting ready to announce the Huskers and Big Ten football tonight,” Carter told Bob Hinson, the director of the National Strategic Research Institute, in a masked conversation caught on camera and audio.