Big Ten football coaches, including Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, have gone to great lengths to organize a football season this fall. But the Big Ten are expected to cancel the football season and all fall sports this week, postponing to spring, two sources told the Detroit News earlier Monday.
Meanwhile, as the Big Ten sporting directors meet on Monday night, ESPN College GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit tweeted that the Big Ten “are looking to delay the start of the season so as not to cancel it.”
News sources requested anonymity as there was no official announcement of the conference. Other fall sports that would be postponed: men’s and women’s cross-country, field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball.
Just days after Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren revealed a composite 10-game Big Ten schedule last Wednesday, the fall season has collapsed as Big Ten college presidents expressed deep concerns about COVID-19 and the potential long-term effects on athletes if they contract. the virus. In mid-March, colleges across the country halted activities on campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Early Monday, Dan Patrick on “The Dan Patrick Show” said 12 of 14 Big Ten presidents voted against a fall football season, including the presidents of Michigan and the state of Michigan. Iowa and Nebraska are the two who voted to play football, Patrick said, citing a source. Subsequent reports, however, said the Big Ten did not vote.
A report published Monday in the Columbus Dispatch said new president Kristin Johnson would not vote to cancel the season but was in favor of a postponement.
The Big Ten presidents and chancellors met on Sunday night, a day after a regularly scheduled meeting on Saturday when a source told the Detroit News that Warren preferred to play in the spring. The Big Ten released a statement on Saturday that football teams, which had just opened the preseason camp, can train with helmets only and not move on to padded practices as planned.
Several reports Sunday night said the Big Ten, along with several conferences, were planning to cancel the upcoming fall season this week. Saturday’s Mid-U.S. Conference announced it was canceling its fall sports season, and The News, citing multiple sources, said Michigan and Michigan state officials were increasingly convinced the football season would be postponed.
Michigan President Mark Schlissel, an immunologist, expressed doubts about the football season as early as May. He said at the time that there wouldn’t be a football season if the students weren’t on campus, but the students came back.
“I don’t want to create false expectations,” Schlissel told the Wall Street Journal in May. “They really aren’t as declarative as they seem.”
Also at that point Harbaugh appeared on ESPN and said ‘heck yeah’ that he would be comfortable coaching a game without fans and said his team were on board to do so.
“If the choice was to play in front of no fans or not to play, then I would choose to play in front of no fans. And damn close to all of the guys on our team that I’ve spoken to, that’s how they feel.
Harbaugh shared a lengthy statement on Monday saying he was advocating football this fall not because he, his team and his players wanted to play, but because eight weeks of data – from when Michigan players returned for voluntary training until the first days of the camp – support your position:
“I am advocating on August 10 that this virus can be controlled and treated because of these facts: the Michigan football program had 11 positive tests out of 893 administered, including three on initial return to campus; we had two positive tests out of the last 417 administered; we had no positive test on the last 353 administered; there were no positive tests among coaches or staff during the eight weeks of testing. “
More: ‘We won’t back down’: Jim Harbaugh uses data to support claim that football should be played
Harbaugh’s statement was followed by a growing number of conference coaches who pushed back the Big Ten’s move towards postponement. And it came in the wake of gamers across the country who posted on social media “#WeWanttoPlay” in earnest from Sunday night.
“Swing as hard as you can right now for these players !! It is not finished! #FIGHT, ”Ohio State coach Ryan Day wrote on Twitter.
Penn State coach James Franklin posted a comment on social media saying he was “ready to fight WITH them and for our program,” referring to his players.
Perhaps the most daring of the coaches was Scott Frost of Nebraska, who told a press conference that his program was “committed to playing” even though it was not in the Big Ten.
“We want to play a Big Ten schedule. I hope that’s what happens, ”Frost said Monday. “Our university is committed to playing, whatever it looks like or what it looks like. We want to play no matter who he is or where he is, so we’ll see how all of those chips fall. We certainly hope it’s in the Big Ten. If not, I think we’re ready to look for other options.
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Gerry DiNardo, former head football coach now on the Big Ten Network, told The News that speaking as a manager, not having a football season would be difficult to manage.
“This is how you make a living, this is your living,” DiNardo said on Monday. “There could be nothing more professionally disappointing than not having the chance to play, but it’s still not a family member who passes or someone who gets sick or all the troubles in the world. But professionally, whatever type of team I had when I came back, whether bad, decent, good, excellent, that would be the most professionally disappointing thing that could happen to a coach.
It is also the worst thing that can happen to sports departments, which are driven by the money football generates. Michigan and Michigan state athletic directors have said no fall football season will result in significant financial losses for their departments.
Michigan football generated $ 122,270,243 of the department’s $ 148,637,051 in total revenue last year, according to data from the US Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Data Analysis . Michigan State Football generates $ 75,545,976 of the department’s total revenue of $ 104,119,055.
Speaking to the Lansing Economic Club on Monday, Michigan state athletic director Bill Beekman said the loss in revenue would be significant for the Spartans’ sports department.
“When we think about the pandemic and what could happen,” Beekman said, “if there is no football there is a loss of $ 80 million to $ 85 million in direct revenue.”
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, in a letter to football season ticket holders last week, said the sports department budgeted $ 61 million less in revenue this year and it could be three. numbers if a decision was made not to exercise.
Manuel said the sports department “faces a historic financial challenge” and has implemented cost-cutting measures. He asked season ticket holders to consider donating what they would have spent on tickets this season to the sports department.
The department’s resolution, Manuel writes, is to support the university’s more than 900 student-athletes.
“With the expected loss of revenue due to limited or no fans to our games, our department is facing an unprecedented level of financial uncertainty,” Manuel wrote. “As a direct result of COVID-19, we budgeted $ 61 million less in revenue this year, which could easily double if the decision is not made to play sports.”
Editor Matt Charboneau contributed.
Twitter: @chengelis
