Big Ten...Tip of the Iceberg

Bowling Green AD Bob Moosbrugger: "The decision by the Big Ten is the tip of the iceberg. Ten FBS conferences have signed a college football playoff agreement with an expectation that we will work together for the good of college football. ..." 1/2

— Nick Piotrowicz (@NickPBlade) July 9, 2020

"If we are to solve these challenges and be truly dedicated to protecting the health and safety of our student-athletes, we need to do a better job of working together." 2/2

— Nick Piotrowicz (@NickPBlade) July 9, 2020

So, the Big 10 made their announcement that they will play only conference games.  That impacts the MAC.  Four teams had two games with Big 10 teams, including BG, whose schedule is now down to 10 games.

And the pocket is $2.2M lighter.  That's around 10% of the athletic department's budget.  Other tweets from NickP said that the contracts with OSU and Illinois both allowed the contract to be canceled without penalty in this situation.  And, reading behind the lines of Moos' comments, I'd guess they didn't offer partial payment to help us out.

As for the tip of the iceberg...you gotta know that's true.  The announcement cut off games with other P5 conferences who know are more or less forced to do the same thing.

Either way, it's clear there won't be a "normal" football season this year and the presence of fans wasn't the issue.

But, remember, the tip of the iceberg.

For example, an interesting idea I saw on twitter is that teams might move to conference games but reschedule them for September and try to be done in early October.  That's an interesting idea, built on the assumption that we get "out" before the virus takes over in a cold-weather spike.

Except of course, it's the hottest part of the summer and the cases keep increasing.  Wood County is now a "red" county and requires a face mask.  Tom Hanks caught corona in Australia in what was winter  summer there. (Thanks to the commenter who caught this).

Point is, there's no way to know if September will be better or worse than October.  Or next April.  The winter thing is something that happens with other viruses, but we don't know about this one.  Cases are going crazy in Latin America.  It is summer there for sure.

And then if it does get worse in October?  Worse than this?

The tip of the iceberg indeed.

I don't know any more than anyone else.  My guess is that this is the tip of the iceberg.  Everyone will move to the conference model.  My guess/fear is that we won't see any competitive collegiate sports for the 20-21 season.  Hope I'm wrong, but the only way so far to combat this virus without a vaccine or a cure was to shut the entire economy down and we're not likely to do that again.

This is a miserable situation.  Maybe I am wrong, but I can't see being able to send college students onto the field of play in 2020 at least.  And then the damages that causes?

We watch and wait.