Big Ten audibles into fall
Pressure on lone Power Five holdout Pac-12 to do same
LOS ANGELES — Suddenly, the Pac-12 is all alone.
But the conference took a significant step toward joining the Big Ten in playing football in the fall, getting clearance to hold fullfledged practices from the states of California and Oregon.
Early Wednesday, the Big Ten grabbed headlines by changing course and agreeing to set an an eight-game schedule that would start the weekend of Oct. 24.
The Pac-12 also has considered starting its season this fall, but it has more hurdles to clear. Half of its schools have been unable to ramp up preparation for the season because of restrictions put in place by state and local authorities to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Later Wednesday, the Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott announced a breakthrough with the California and Oregon governors that was helped along by the con
ference’s plans to soon begin testing athletes daily for the virus.
“The Pac-12 welcomes today’s statements by Governor (Gavin) Newsom of California and Governor (Kate) Brown of Oregon that state public health officials will allow for contact practice and return to competition, and that there are no state restrictions on our ability to play sports in light of our adherence to strict health and safety protocols and stringent testing requirements, including our recently announced partnership with Quidel (Corp.) which will enable daily rapid results testing,” Scott said.
The Pac-12 CEO Group is scheduled to meet Friday to discuss the conference’s options. Because of the restrictions, it might take the teams that had been limited, including conference favorites Oregon and Southern California, more than a month to be ready to play. An Oct. 24 start, lined up with the Big Ten, could be challenging.
While there was some confusion about how California’s rule limiting athletic activities to groups of no more than 12 could allow for football practice, ultimately things landed in a good place for the conference.
On Aug. 11, the Big Ten announced it would postpone
fall sports to 2021, only six days after releasing a full schedule that would kick off Sept. 3. In the weeks that followed, any pretense of Big Ten solidarity was ripped apart with coaches and parents from Ohio State and Nebraska leading a charge to hold Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren accountable for a perceived lack of transparency and demanding answers as to why the Big Ten was stopping as the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 Conference and Southeastern Conference continued to play.
Politicians jumped in, too, as President Trump spoke with Warren to encourage the Big Ten to reconsider. Now that it has, planning for a nine-game season culminating with the Big Ten championship and six other cross-division clashes on Dec. 19, the pressure naturally will shift to the Pac-12.
In explaining its turnabout, the Big Ten cited the ability to require players and staff to undergo daily antigen testing with results completed and recorded before each practice or game. Anyone who tests positive will be subject to indepth cardiac examination to detect myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart that has been linked to having COVID-19. The league also established data thresholds for when to shut down competition, determined by team positivity
rate (greater than 5 percent) and population positivity rate (greater than 7.5 percent) based on a seven-day rolling average.
If a school hits both of those thresholds, it will have to shut down for at least a week. Players who test positive will have to sit out for a minimum of three weeks.
The Pac-12 schools stand ready to adopt similar protocols. The league’s deal with Quidel Corp. to perform daily antigen testing was billed as a “game changer” by Scott, who has said he hopes the testing program will be installed on each campus by the end of September.
Unlike the Big Ten, the Pac-12 has maintained a united front since its decision, staying eerily quiet in comparison. But on Tuesday, with their partner in postponement on the verge of returning to play, Pac-12 players began to make their voices heard, led by USC players penning a letter to Newsom.
“Our request of you is that you work with us — urgently and purposefully — to find a path forward for us to resume competitions later this fall so that we can have the same opportunity as other teams around the country to play for a national championship,” the letter states. “We respect the careful and cautious approach you have taken to college athletics, and we have the utmost confidence that we can partner together to quickly develop a plan that allows us to compete in a 2020 fall football season. Let’s find a way to say ‘yes!’ Please let us play.”
The Pac-12 does not have an obvious national championship contender like Ohio State, which began the season ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press Top 25 and returns a Heisman Trophy candidate in quarterback Justin Fields. The Buckeyes have been pushing back against the Big Ten for the last month — Ohio State coach Ryan Day even called out the conference office publicly last week — and finally got what they wanted Wednesday.
Of course, they weren’t the only ones who were overjoyed.
“Great news today,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said in a statement. “Over the past month, I could sense the anticipation from our players and coaches, and I’m thrilled on their behalf that they will have a chance to play a 2020 season. Stay positive. Test negative. Let’s play football.”
The Big Ten will release its schedule later this week. With the Oct. 24 start, the league left itself little margin for error in keeping the virus from wreaking havoc on the season by having no off weeks on the road to championship weekend.