Big Ten issues plans for football
MADISON - Northwestern president Morton Schapiro was among 11 members of the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors who last month voted to shut down all fall sports because of concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.
A little more than a month later, Schapiro changed his mind and was part of a unanimous vote by the council to green-light the league's 2020 football season.
“The medical advice I relied on when I voted five weeks ago said there was virtually no chance that we could do it safely,” Schapiro, the chairperson of the league's council of presidents and chancellors, said Wednesday during a virtual press briefing. “We weren't going to have the testing and all the safety protocols.”
Advances in rapid testing, ensuring all 14 schools have access to cardiac MRI testing and a better understanding of the risks associated with the heart condition myocarditis led the league to announce Wednesday the 2020 Big Ten
football season is scheduled to start either Oct. 23 or 24.
“Medical opinions changed,” Schapiro said. “There have been a lot of advances, in terms of understanding the pandemic and myocarditis… The facts changed; our minds changed.”
The full schedule is to be released later this week but Big Ten officials did share some details. According to UW athletic director Barry Alvarez, the chairperson of the return to competition task force, teams will play eight regularseason games and one post-season game.
The division winners are to meet in the league title game, set for Dec. 19. That is one day before the College Football Playoff field is scheduled to be revealed.
The ninth games for the teams that fail to qualify for the league title game are to feature the second- through seventh-place teams in each division facing off. .
A handful of college football games this month have already been postponed or canceled because of COVID-19 outbreaks.
Big Ten officials understand there is no guarantee the league's teams will navigate the 2020 season unscathed.
Public Health Madison & Dane County reported Wednesday that a total of 42 UW football players/staffers have tested positive at some point this year.
“Emerging evidence and research is showing that even though athletes recover from COVID-19,” officials wrote, “serious long term health issues can persist, including myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, which can lead to heart failure.”
Big Ten officials do believe, however, that the medical protocols revealed Wednesday will help. According to the Big Ten:
● Student-athletes, coaches, trainers and other individuals that are on the field for all practices and games will be required to undergo daily antigen testing. Test results must be completed and recorded prior to each practice or game.
Student-athletes who test positive for the coronavirus through point of contact (POC) daily testing would require a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to confirm the result of the POC test.
“Our ability to test consistently and uniformly among the conference (members) was really important,” said Jim Borchers, the head team physician at Ohio State. “We're very comfortable with the idea that we'll be able to provide daily, rapid testing.
“That will give us great surveillance of our student-athletes and coaches and staff so that we can quickly remove individuals that may be at risk of infecting someone else.”
(Each institution will designate a Chief Infection Officer (CInO) who will oversee the collection and reporting of data for the Big Ten Conference. Team test positivity rate and population positivity rate thresholds will be used to determine recommendations for continuing practice and competition.
● All COVID-19 positive student-athletes will have to undergo comprehensive cardiac testing to include labs and biomarkers, ECG, Echocardiogram and a Cardiac MRI.
Following cardiac evaluation, student-athletes must receive clearance from a cardiologist designated by the university for the primary purpose of cardiac clearance for COVID-19 positive student-athletes. The earliest a student-athlete can return to game competition is 21 days following a COVID-19 positive diagnosis.
Borchers explained the need for a 21day waiting period.
“At that point our experts agreed it needed to be at least 14 days before that cardiac testing was completed and evaluated by cardiology experts and then cleared,” he said. “And then there is the recommendation that any athlete that is recovering from injury or illness needs a transition period to go back to their activity.”
h In addition to the medical protocols approved, the 14 Big Ten institutions will establish a cardiac registry in an effort to examine the effects on COVID-19 positive student-athletes. The registry and associated data will attempt to answer many of the unknowns regarding the cardiac manifestations in COVID-19 positive elite athletes.”
h The Big Ten will use data provided by each Chief Infection Officer (CInO) to make decisions about the continuation of practice and competition, as determined by team positivity rate and population positivity rate, based on a seven-day rolling average:
Team positivity rate (number of positive tests divided by total number of tests administered):
Green 0-2%
Orange 2-5%
Red >5%
Population positivity rate (number of positive individuals divided by total population at risk):
Green 0-3.5%
Orange 3.5-7.5%
Red >7.5%
“We'll be looking at those in the context of what is going on in our university communities, our local communities and our state and regional data as well,” Borchers said. “We're going to understand specifically what is going on within our teams and how that compares to what is going on in our communities.”
Decisions to alter or halt practice and competition will be based on the following scenarios:
Green/Green and Green/Orange: Team continues with normal practice and competition.
Orange/Orange and Orange/Red: Team must proceed with caution and enhance COVID-19 prevention (alter practice and meeting schedule, consider viability of continuing with scheduled competition).
Red/Red: Team must stop regular practice and competition for a minimum of seven days and reassess metrics until improved.
The daily testing is scheduled to begin Sept 30.
Eventually all Big Ten sports will require testing protocols before they can resume competition. Updates regarding fall sports other than football, as well as winter sports that begin in the fall including men's and women's basketball, men's ice hockey, men's and women's swimming and diving, and wrestling, will be announced shortly.
“It really is a blessing to be here today,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said. “We are so much better and so much more prepared today than we were 43 days ago.”