|
Post by Bornthrilla on Sept 16, 2020 9:38:57 GMT -5
I don't care anymore personally. See, this is why its really hard for me to take a lot of you guys seriously. All this talk for months about longterm heart issues and its not safe enough to play and how everyone here was a monster for still wanting college football ... and now you guys no longer care about your own talking points.
|
|
Freeze
Official BDF member
Posts: 2,340
|
Post by Freeze on Sept 16, 2020 10:16:57 GMT -5
I don't care anymore personally. See, this is why its really hard for me to take a lot of you guys seriously. All this talk for months about longterm heart issues and its not safe enough to play and how everyone here was a monster for still wanting college football ... and now you guys no longer care about your own talking points. What is far more conceivable is that a billion dollar industry realized the money that was being lost and decided to reverse course and ignore a pandemic that has infected over 6 million people in America and killed close to 200k....and those numbers continue to rise. And in order to continue that gravy train they will find whatever experts they need to justify their positions. Again...this too is historical and not unprecedented. I'm not sure why you continue to ignore that. This is what capitalism does. It justifies the continued advancement of the capitalist machine in order to generate profits and historically that often comes at the exploitation of the labor. In this case the labor is our young men who play football (uncompensated for their talents) and you want them to play in the midst of a pandemic because it is clear that they CAN still run, and jump, and catch, and tackle and you find all of that incredibly entertaining. Your advocation of playing football in the middle of a pandemic that has produced catastrophic mortality numbers doesn't reflect a need to "follow the science." It reflects the need to follow capitalism. The science has yet to prove what the longterm or short term effects of continuing organized sports in the middle of a pandemic will mean for the players, coaches, staff, fans, and the campus communities that they are a part of. The only smoking gun evidence that we have right now is that this virus kills...and is still killing thousands of Americans every month. But apparently that's not enough evidence for you.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on Sept 16, 2020 10:30:43 GMT -5
So a month ago you told us to listen to the health experts. The health experts say it is OK to play college football and now everybody is just lying out their teeth for the sake of capitalism.
It is naive to think other people dont have access to the same information as you, just because they reach a different conclusion than you.
|
|
Freeze
Official BDF member
Posts: 2,340
|
Post by Freeze on Sept 16, 2020 10:36:27 GMT -5
So a month ago you told us to listen to the health experts. The health experts say it is OK to play college football and now everybody is just lying out their teeth for the sake of capitalism. It is naive to think other people dont have access to the same information as you, just because they reach a different conclusion than you. Oh my bad...did the health experts all come to a unified conclusion about playing in a pandemic and I missed it? LOL. C'mon dude. There are still TONS of health experts who would argue against playing football and there are some who are now endorsing it (for whatever reason). But you already knew that (maybe).
|
|
Freeze
Official BDF member
Posts: 2,340
|
Post by Freeze on Sept 16, 2020 10:46:57 GMT -5
This article is from two weeks ago and it clearly cites members of the medical community who disagree with this move: www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/opinion/sunday/college-football-covid.htmlNow what is clear, is that now we have doctors coming out just two weeks later who argue that it is safe. Wonder how and why they moved so quickly in reversing their assessment?? Hmmmm....lol. But like I said....keep cooking homie. On a side note, its going to be entertaining watching Trump take the credit for forcing the Big Ten back on the field. I am sure he will use that to try and gain political support in the midwest. "Vote for me...I brought college football back." Lol.
|
|
|
Post by aggierattler on Sept 16, 2020 11:15:56 GMT -5
This article is from two weeks ago and it clearly cites members of the medical community who disagree with this move: www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/opinion/sunday/college-football-covid.htmlNow what is clear, is that now we have doctors coming out just two weeks later who argue that it is safe. Wonder how and why they moved so quickly in reversing their assessment?? Hmmmm....lol. But like I said....keep cooking homie. On a side note, its going to be entertaining watching Trump take the credit for forcing the Big Ten back on the field. I am sure he will use that to try and gain political support in the midwest. "Vote for me...I brought college football back." Lol. Some people just don't want to listen to the medical experts.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on Sept 16, 2020 12:00:01 GMT -5
Got it. The medical experts that you agree with are legitimate and qualified. The medical experts who now endorse playing college football have no morals and are all on the take.
Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable.
|
|
Freeze
Official BDF member
Posts: 2,340
|
Post by Freeze on Sept 16, 2020 12:29:55 GMT -5
Got it. The medical experts that you agree with are legitimate and qualified. The medical experts who now endorse playing college football have no morals and are all on the take. Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. Bruh....the TITLE of this thread is "Med Experts See Same Research, Reach DIFFERENT Conclusions." LMAO. You wanna ride with the ones who fit your narrative cause you wanna see some football. I get it. I am more inclined to listen to doctors and more importantly EPIDEMIOLOGISTS who actually study pandemics who warn us that the nearly 200K who have died will only be just the beginning if we don't take this seriously. Rushing to bring back football for our entertainment and for the billions of dollars it produces is not taking it seriously...in my opinion. Keep cooking homie.
|
|
|
Post by aggierattler on Sept 16, 2020 12:34:35 GMT -5
Got it. The medical experts that you agree with are legitimate and qualified. The medical experts who now endorse playing college football have no morals and are all on the take. Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. That was a quote from you in one of your earlier posts. My medical experts are just as qualified as your medical experts.
You just like those experts because they are willing to say what you need to hear. (I have not witnessed your medical experts taking any bribes, though. That would be immoral and illegal.)
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on Sept 16, 2020 13:10:08 GMT -5
Freeze, Aggierattler and the rest of the Legion of Gloom on social media: "It's terrible that anyone is considering playing football during a pandemic. It's a crime against humanity to put our precious black youth in such danger. Those athletes and coaches are not smart enough to make decisions for themselves. Bornthrilla and everyone who thinks like him are disgusting, uneducated monsters. We are better than this." . Freeze, Aggierattler and the rest of the Legion of Gloom this weekend:
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on Sept 16, 2020 13:33:42 GMT -5
Big Ten changes course, will play fall football after all
By RALPH D. RUSSO AP College Football Writer Sep 16, 2020 Big Ten is going to give fall football a shot after all. Less than five weeks after pushing fall sports to spring in the name of player safety during the pandemic, the conference changed course Wednesday and said it plans to open its football season the weekend of Oct. 23-24. All 14 teams will play eight regular-season games in eight weeks, plus have an opportunity to play a ninth game on Dec. 19 when the conference championship game is in Indianapolis — if all goes well. That should give the Big Ten an opportunity to compete for the national championship. The Big Ten said its Council of Presidents and Chancellors voted unanimously Tuesday to restart sports. The vote last month was 11-3 to postpone, with Ohio State, Iowa and Nebraska voting against. “We’re in a better place, regardless of how we got here or how painful it was during the time we waited to get this moment," Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said. "That’s all behind us. What’s beautiful is that we have a process and protocols in place that’s based on science and based on lessons learned since Aug. 11.” The decision to play came after sharp pressure from coaches, players, parents and even President Donald Trump, all of them pushing for a Big Ten football season. The conference is home to a number of battleground states in the November election, and Trump swifly applauded the move in a tweet. The emergence of daily, rapid-response COVID-19 testing, not available when university leaders decided to pull the plug on the fall season, helped trigger a re-vote. The Big Ten said it will begin daily antigen testing of all its fall sport athletes, coaches and staff Sept. 30. Northwestern President Morton Schapiro, chairman of the presidents' council, said the turning point for him on giving the green light to football — even though many students have not been allowed back on the Evanston, Illinois, campus — didn't come until this past weekend. “Medical opinions changed,” Schapiro said. “Paul Samuelson, the great economist was once asked why he changed his mind. And he said, ‘When the facts change, the mind changes.’”Team positivity rates and population positivity rate thresholds will be used to determine whether teams must halt practice or play. The earliest an athlete will be able to return to game competition would be 21 days following a COVID-19 positive diagnosis, following a cardiac evaluation and clearance from a cardiologist designated by the university. Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, was also among the concerns cited by the Big Ten in August. “Everyone associated with the Big Ten should be very proud of the groundbreaking steps that are now being taken to better protect the health and safety of the student-athletes and surrounding communities,” said Dr. Jim Borchers, team physician for Ohio State. The Big Ten will take a bow, but the conference has been battered for a month and businesses in college towns from Nebraska to Maryland have lost millions in sales. First-year Commissioner Kevin Warren was the main target, criticized for a lack of communication and not providing enough information to back the initial decision. “We have passionate athletes. We have passionate families and we have passionate fans,” Warren said of the blowback. "And so I take that from a positive standpoint.” The Big Ten postponed fall sports just six days after unveiling a modified conference-only schedule that was set to begin Labor Day weekend, and indicated it would try to make up the season in the spring. But there was no plan in place and the reaction was sharp. Trump at one point called Warren, who described their conversation as “productive” and “respectful.” The Pac-12 followed the Big Ten in postponing, but was far more detailed in its explanation and also had more obvious hurdles to clear. Half the Pac-12 schools are still operating under statewide restrictions that make it impossible for teams to practice. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott released a statement Tuesday saying the conference has not been given the go-ahead by state officials in California and Oregon to begin preparing for a football season. “We are hopeful that our new daily testing capability can help satisfy public health official approvals in California and Oregon to begin contact practice and competition,” he said. The conference is also dealing with wildfires across the West. As the Big Ten and Pac-12 bailed in August, the other three Power Five conferences forged ahead, along with three other major college football leagues. Games have started, with the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference kicking off last week. The Southeastern Conference is scheduled to start playing games Sept. 26. Meanwhile, the Big Ten was on the sideline, with coaches struggling to explain to players why other teams could play but they could not. In Nebraska, the school president, athletic director and coach Scott Frost all expressed disappointment. Frost even suggested Nebraska might look outside the Big Ten to play games while eight of his players filed a lawsuit against the Big Ten over its decision to postpone. Glen Snodgrass, father of one of the players, Garrett Snodgrass, was teaching a class at York (Nebraska) High School when he received word of the reversal. “This is what a lot of people have been fighting pretty hard for,” he said. “I can’t say enough about those eight boys and what they had the courage to do. They worked their entire lives to get where they are, and they just wanted to play.” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said Big Ten teams can begin practicing immediately. The schedule comes with a twist. On championship Saturday, the plan is to provide each team an additional game, matching the teams by their places in the division standings: No. 2 vs. No. 2, No. 3 vs. No. 3 and so on. Alvarez said those matchups could be tweaked to avoid rematches of regular-season games. The third Big Ten schedule of the year, Alvarez said, should be ready in about a week. “We’re excited and we can’t wait to get started,” Michigan State linebacker Antjuan Simmons said. greensboro.com/news/national/big-ten-changes-course-will-play-fall-football-after-all/article_e8c6f6e5-b612-57bd-8dd4-6d1b174a5231.html
|
|
|
Post by aggierattler on Sept 16, 2020 13:49:21 GMT -5
Big Ten changes course, will play fall football after all
By RALPH D. RUSSO AP College Football Writer Sep 16, 2020 Big Ten is going to give fall football a shot after all. Less than five weeks after pushing fall sports to spring in the name of player safety during the pandemic, the conference changed course Wednesday and said it plans to open its football season the weekend of Oct. 23-24. All 14 teams will play eight regular-season games in eight weeks, plus have an opportunity to play a ninth game on Dec. 19 when the conference championship game is in Indianapolis — if all goes well. That should give the Big Ten an opportunity to compete for the national championship. The Big Ten said its Council of Presidents and Chancellors voted unanimously Tuesday to restart sports. The vote last month was 11-3 to postpone, with Ohio State, Iowa and Nebraska voting against. “We’re in a better place, regardless of how we got here or how painful it was during the time we waited to get this moment," Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said. "That’s all behind us. What’s beautiful is that we have a process and protocols in place that’s based on science and based on lessons learned since Aug. 11.” The decision to play came after sharp pressure from coaches, players, parents and even President Donald Trump, all of them pushing for a Big Ten football season. The conference is home to a number of battleground states in the November election, and Trump swifly applauded the move in a tweet. The emergence of daily, rapid-response COVID-19 testing, not available when university leaders decided to pull the plug on the fall season, helped trigger a re-vote. The Big Ten said it will begin daily antigen testing of all its fall sport athletes, coaches and staff Sept. 30. Northwestern President Morton Schapiro, chairman of the presidents' council, said the turning point for him on giving the green light to football — even though many students have not been allowed back on the Evanston, Illinois, campus — didn't come until this past weekend. “Medical opinions changed,” Schapiro said. “Paul Samuelson, the great economist was once asked why he changed his mind. And he said, ‘When the facts change, the mind changes.’”Team positivity rates and population positivity rate thresholds will be used to determine whether teams must halt practice or play. The earliest an athlete will be able to return to game competition would be 21 days following a COVID-19 positive diagnosis, following a cardiac evaluation and clearance from a cardiologist designated by the university. Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, was also among the concerns cited by the Big Ten in August. “Everyone associated with the Big Ten should be very proud of the groundbreaking steps that are now being taken to better protect the health and safety of the student-athletes and surrounding communities,” said Dr. Jim Borchers, team physician for Ohio State. The Big Ten will take a bow, but the conference has been battered for a month and businesses in college towns from Nebraska to Maryland have lost millions in sales. First-year Commissioner Kevin Warren was the main target, criticized for a lack of communication and not providing enough information to back the initial decision. “We have passionate athletes. We have passionate families and we have passionate fans,” Warren said of the blowback. "And so I take that from a positive standpoint.” The Big Ten postponed fall sports just six days after unveiling a modified conference-only schedule that was set to begin Labor Day weekend, and indicated it would try to make up the season in the spring. But there was no plan in place and the reaction was sharp. Trump at one point called Warren, who described their conversation as “productive” and “respectful.” The Pac-12 followed the Big Ten in postponing, but was far more detailed in its explanation and also had more obvious hurdles to clear. Half the Pac-12 schools are still operating under statewide restrictions that make it impossible for teams to practice. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott released a statement Tuesday saying the conference has not been given the go-ahead by state officials in California and Oregon to begin preparing for a football season. “We are hopeful that our new daily testing capability can help satisfy public health official approvals in California and Oregon to begin contact practice and competition,” he said. The conference is also dealing with wildfires across the West. As the Big Ten and Pac-12 bailed in August, the other three Power Five conferences forged ahead, along with three other major college football leagues. Games have started, with the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference kicking off last week. The Southeastern Conference is scheduled to start playing games Sept. 26. Meanwhile, the Big Ten was on the sideline, with coaches struggling to explain to players why other teams could play but they could not. In Nebraska, the school president, athletic director and coach Scott Frost all expressed disappointment. Frost even suggested Nebraska might look outside the Big Ten to play games while eight of his players filed a lawsuit against the Big Ten over its decision to postpone. Glen Snodgrass, father of one of the players, Garrett Snodgrass, was teaching a class at York (Nebraska) High School when he received word of the reversal. “This is what a lot of people have been fighting pretty hard for,” he said. “I can’t say enough about those eight boys and what they had the courage to do. They worked their entire lives to get where they are, and they just wanted to play.” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said Big Ten teams can begin practicing immediately. The schedule comes with a twist. On championship Saturday, the plan is to provide each team an additional game, matching the teams by their places in the division standings: No. 2 vs. No. 2, No. 3 vs. No. 3 and so on. Alvarez said those matchups could be tweaked to avoid rematches of regular-season games. The third Big Ten schedule of the year, Alvarez said, should be ready in about a week. “We’re excited and we can’t wait to get started,” Michigan State linebacker Antjuan Simmons said. greensboro.com/news/national/big-ten-changes-course-will-play-fall-football-after-all/article_e8c6f6e5-b612-57bd-8dd4-6d1b174a5231.html CONGRATULATIONS, 'THRILLER & OSA!!
Since the Big Ten is going to play, I hope that they will drop the hypocrisy and go all-out.
No masks No limits on ticket sales and seating Full tailgating
If you are in it to make money...THEN MAKE $$$$$.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on Sept 16, 2020 13:59:15 GMT -5
The whole idea about playing football during a pandemic is that you can still follow safety protocols and social distancing guidelines.
That is what you Legion of Gloomers always fail to realize: you can do both.
We saw that this past weekend with all the successful college and NFL football games. That is probably what convinced the Big 10 that playing football this fall was actually feasible. They saw the plan that the other teams were following and they realized it worked.
Nobody is saying to just pretend the pandemic doesn't exist. We are saying you can take the proper safety precautions and still operate in the midst of the pandemic.
For some reason, your only solution is to shut down and cancel everything. That is where we disagree.
|
|
oleschoolaggie
Official BDF member
2009 Poster of the Year, 2009 Most Knowledgeable Poster
Posts: 24,161
|
Post by oleschoolaggie on Sept 16, 2020 15:03:24 GMT -5
Big Ten changes course, will play fall football after all
By RALPH D. RUSSO AP College Football Writer Sep 16, 2020 Big Ten is going to give fall football a shot after all. Less than five weeks after pushing fall sports to spring in the name of player safety during the pandemic, the conference changed course Wednesday and said it plans to open its football season the weekend of Oct. 23-24. All 14 teams will play eight regular-season games in eight weeks, plus have an opportunity to play a ninth game on Dec. 19 when the conference championship game is in Indianapolis — if all goes well. That should give the Big Ten an opportunity to compete for the national championship. The Big Ten said its Council of Presidents and Chancellors voted unanimously Tuesday to restart sports. The vote last month was 11-3 to postpone, with Ohio State, Iowa and Nebraska voting against. “We’re in a better place, regardless of how we got here or how painful it was during the time we waited to get this moment," Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said. "That’s all behind us. What’s beautiful is that we have a process and protocols in place that’s based on science and based on lessons learned since Aug. 11.” The decision to play came after sharp pressure from coaches, players, parents and even President Donald Trump, all of them pushing for a Big Ten football season. The conference is home to a number of battleground states in the November election, and Trump swifly applauded the move in a tweet. The emergence of daily, rapid-response COVID-19 testing, not available when university leaders decided to pull the plug on the fall season, helped trigger a re-vote. The Big Ten said it will begin daily antigen testing of all its fall sport athletes, coaches and staff Sept. 30. Northwestern President Morton Schapiro, chairman of the presidents' council, said the turning point for him on giving the green light to football — even though many students have not been allowed back on the Evanston, Illinois, campus — didn't come until this past weekend. “Medical opinions changed,” Schapiro said. “Paul Samuelson, the great economist was once asked why he changed his mind. And he said, ‘When the facts change, the mind changes.’”Team positivity rates and population positivity rate thresholds will be used to determine whether teams must halt practice or play. The earliest an athlete will be able to return to game competition would be 21 days following a COVID-19 positive diagnosis, following a cardiac evaluation and clearance from a cardiologist designated by the university. Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, was also among the concerns cited by the Big Ten in August. “Everyone associated with the Big Ten should be very proud of the groundbreaking steps that are now being taken to better protect the health and safety of the student-athletes and surrounding communities,” said Dr. Jim Borchers, team physician for Ohio State. The Big Ten will take a bow, but the conference has been battered for a month and businesses in college towns from Nebraska to Maryland have lost millions in sales. First-year Commissioner Kevin Warren was the main target, criticized for a lack of communication and not providing enough information to back the initial decision. “We have passionate athletes. We have passionate families and we have passionate fans,” Warren said of the blowback. "And so I take that from a positive standpoint.” The Big Ten postponed fall sports just six days after unveiling a modified conference-only schedule that was set to begin Labor Day weekend, and indicated it would try to make up the season in the spring. But there was no plan in place and the reaction was sharp. Trump at one point called Warren, who described their conversation as “productive” and “respectful.” The Pac-12 followed the Big Ten in postponing, but was far more detailed in its explanation and also had more obvious hurdles to clear. Half the Pac-12 schools are still operating under statewide restrictions that make it impossible for teams to practice. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott released a statement Tuesday saying the conference has not been given the go-ahead by state officials in California and Oregon to begin preparing for a football season. “We are hopeful that our new daily testing capability can help satisfy public health official approvals in California and Oregon to begin contact practice and competition,” he said. The conference is also dealing with wildfires across the West. As the Big Ten and Pac-12 bailed in August, the other three Power Five conferences forged ahead, along with three other major college football leagues. Games have started, with the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference kicking off last week. The Southeastern Conference is scheduled to start playing games Sept. 26. Meanwhile, the Big Ten was on the sideline, with coaches struggling to explain to players why other teams could play but they could not. In Nebraska, the school president, athletic director and coach Scott Frost all expressed disappointment. Frost even suggested Nebraska might look outside the Big Ten to play games while eight of his players filed a lawsuit against the Big Ten over its decision to postpone. Glen Snodgrass, father of one of the players, Garrett Snodgrass, was teaching a class at York (Nebraska) High School when he received word of the reversal. “This is what a lot of people have been fighting pretty hard for,” he said. “I can’t say enough about those eight boys and what they had the courage to do. They worked their entire lives to get where they are, and they just wanted to play.” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said Big Ten teams can begin practicing immediately. The schedule comes with a twist. On championship Saturday, the plan is to provide each team an additional game, matching the teams by their places in the division standings: No. 2 vs. No. 2, No. 3 vs. No. 3 and so on. Alvarez said those matchups could be tweaked to avoid rematches of regular-season games. The third Big Ten schedule of the year, Alvarez said, should be ready in about a week. “We’re excited and we can’t wait to get started,” Michigan State linebacker Antjuan Simmons said. greensboro.com/news/national/big-ten-changes-course-will-play-fall-football-after-all/article_e8c6f6e5-b612-57bd-8dd4-6d1b174a5231.html CONGRATULATIONS, 'THRILLER & OSA!!
Since the Big Ten is going to play, I hope that they will drop the hypocrisy and go all-out.
No masks No limits on ticket sales and seating Full tailgating
If you are in it to make money...THEN MAKE $$$$$.a/r, i don't agree that high schools and below can play sports safely from covid mainly because high school coaches have far less "control" over individual high school students and also because most high schools can't afford the costs of testing all athletes several days per week like colleges can. i also oppose kids attending public schools, i oppose indoor mass gatherings that's not socially distanced, i oppose the opening of bars and night clubs, and i oppose the opening of fitness centers. so please stop with the no masks, no limit ticket sales/seating, and full tailgating. nobody is suggesting that. however, i "do not" oppose college football for the following reasons which i have stated. #1 - college football has adequate covid-19 protocols in place, #2 - college football tests all football players several times per week and at least 1 test within 24 hours of each game, #3 - college football positivity rates are "far less" than the general public, #4 - of the college teams playing this fall, i am unaware of "any" football players being "hospitalized" due to covid, #5 - most college football players who contracted the virus "fully recovered" within 10 to 14 days, and last but not least, #6 - at least "6" professional sports leagues have been playing regular season games and "NONE" have covid-19 positivity rates that "EXCEEDS" that of the general public. #7 - and just to pile on, the nba and wnba has experienced "ZERO" positive covid-19 cases. #8 - and just to kick a man when he's down, the "big 10" conference just "reversed" their decision not to play fall football and the ncaa oversight committee recently agreed to proceed with college basketball in november. nobody is saying throw covid-19 precautions out the window. college football is not throwing covid-19 precautions out the window. i think college football as well as professional sports all have adequate protocols in place to reasonably play sports safe from covid-19 widespread outbreaks. those leagues have provided a large enough "sample size" to prove that sports can be played relatively safe from covid. and to me, the most "glaring" justification is that "NONE" (not even 1) of the pro leagues or college football have covid-19 positivity rates that exceeds that of the general public. now, when or if college football has positivity rates that exceed that of the general public, i will be more than happy to revisit this issue...
|
|
|
Post by aggierattler on Sept 16, 2020 15:09:57 GMT -5
College Football Ridicules the CautiousDan Wolken, Columnist USA TODAY September 16, 2020
The truth about what has gone on at college football programs over the past few months in pursuit of playing this fall has started to dribble out into public view. It’s not a flattering picture.
Texas Tech has had 75 players test positive for COVID-19 since June. LSU coach Ed Orgeron casually mentioned to reporters Tuesday that “most of our players have caught it” while adding he hopes they don’t catch it again. Memphis had to postpone its game against Houston scheduled for this weekend because of a significant number of cases that popped up following its opener against Arkansas State, which has now subsequently had to postpone a game against Central Arkansas. Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley acknowledged that the opener against Missouri State last week was in jeopardy.
And those are just the ones we’ve learned about in the past few days.
So, uh, why exactly did Big Ten presidents get so much grief over canceling fall football that have been brow-beaten into possibly changing their minds?
It’s not like we’ve gotten a lot of great news on the COVID-19 management front since the season started a couple of weeks ago. Just in the past handful of days, three more games were postponed. Last weekend, several schools had to play games without big chunks of their rosters. It’s every bit the logistical mess we knew it was going to be.
But it’s also clear now that the only bar for playing college football this fall was that as long as nobody dies from COVID-19, it’s fine. We should all be grateful it hasn’t come to that.
What does it say, though, about the collective culture of college football that the Big Ten and Pac-12 – which initially canceled football this fall because they prioritized caution over dollars – were widely viewed by their own coaches as making bad decisions while LSU’s coach is bragging because he thinks he’s got herd immunity in his locker room.
What does it say about the higher education model that college presidents who did not want to put athletes at greater risk until there was a way to actually contain COVID-19 within their programs got worn down by angry tweets and political games?
Let’s get one thing clear here. College football players getting COVID-19 en masse is not in any way, shape or form a good development. Even setting aside the unknown long-term impacts of this virus, which are concerning enough on their own, there’s a public health responsibility for all of us not to spread it so that lives will be saved and one day we can all get to the other side of this awful pandemic.
If most of a college football locker room gets COVID-19, that’s not a competitive advantage. It’s an ethical abdication, a public health failure and an unnecessary risk. We shouldn’t have been bashing the Big Ten while celebrating LSU and Texas Tech. We should have been asking who needs to lose their jobs.
Yet here we are possibly on the brink of seeing the Big Ten gear up for play again and nobody has even the slightest concern about whether being pushed to play this fall is really the right thing to do? Doesn’t the evidence suggest that they were right all along to take this very slowly?
It sure doesn’t feel like that’s what the narrative is going to be.
Perhaps the Big Ten did not need to announce on Aug. 5 that the entire fall semester was off the table, but it was not wrong in seeing the dangers of trying to prepare for a season while the infection numbers were surging and the testing infrastructure was being stressed. Maybe their rollout of that decision was clumsy, but the instincts to put a pause on football until conditions were better seem far more noble than schools that clearly weren’t concerned whether their players got the virus as long as it wasn’t in the middle of the season.
Instead of worrying about whether the Big Ten was falling behind, the question we should be asking as we learn more about the actual infection numbers is how seriously has college football really taken COVID-19?
Even when a conference tried to do the right thing and just wait a few months, the culture of the sport was so intense that the pushback overwhelmed administrators who know better. Now, if past is prologue, it seems reasonable to wonder whether more football players are more likely to get COVID-19 from their teammates. Does that matter? Should it? At LSU and Texas Tech and many other schools whose numbers haven’t been made public, apparently it wasn’t important enough to stop.
Maybe the imminent ability to conduct daily testing is what saves this whole enterprise. Within the next month, it seems, most schools will have the ability to do rapid testing at their facility that will allow them to see on a daily basis whether someone is carrying COVID-19.
If the Big Ten actually pulls that off, the conference may end up having a smoother ride with fewer cases than the leagues that are already playing. But instead of scrutinizing schools that had COVID-19 run rampant through their teams, the Big Ten bore the brunt of the criticism for being cautious and deliberate.
How screwed up is that?
|
|