UPDATE (3 p.m. ET): It’s official. The Big Ten has canceled the entire fall sports schedule, the conferenced announced Tuesday afternoon.
“The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward,” said Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said in a statement. “As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.”
The statement acknowledged the conference could attempt to play fall sports in the spring.
SECOND UPDATE (3:50 p.m. ET): The Pac 12 also is canceling its fall season, according to multiple reports.
ORIGINAL STORY: The 2020 college football season, at least as we’ve come to know the college football season, appears to be on the ropes after a massive domino fell Tuesday.
The Big Ten, in a move that’s been reported or predicted by multiple people this week, is expected to cancel the 2020 season, Yahoo’s Pete Thamel reported Tuesday, citing sources. According to Thamel, the conference’s plan, at the moment, is to try and play in the spring.
Sources: Big Ten is announcing that the fall is cancelled. League will attempt to play in the spring.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 11, 2020
Playing college football — and all college sports, really — always was going to be one of the more difficult hurdles for the sports world to clear while the COVID-19 pandemic rages on in America. College athletes are, by definition, (supposedly) amateur athletes. If players can’t (legally) be paid, then they can’t be put in harm’s way to play sports. That becomes even more true when you consider how many colleges across the country are going to remote learning to start the school year. Not even business of college athletics can justify having athletes be on campus when the rest of the school is doing remote learning.
Now, we wait to see whether other Power 5 conferences follow. It sounds as if big-time football conferences like the SEC are insistent upon making the season happen, and the same might be said for the Big 12.
Two SEC sources just told me the same thing seconds apart: “We need the Big 12 to stay committed.”
— Steven N. Godfrey Jr. (@38Godfrey) August 11, 2020
Thamel had this tidbit about the ACC’s efforts to have a season.
Added: “The whole purpose of delaying the season was to navigate the return of students. We deserve the opportunity to get to that hurdle and re-assess once that happens.” 2/2
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 11, 2020
