BWI Roundtable: Will the Big Ten play football in spring 2021?

August 11, 2020 is a day college football fans won't forget anytime soon.

Afters months of speculation about whether college football can be played amidst a pandemic, two of the Power Five conferences, the Big Ten and Pac-12, publicly gave their opinions, opting to not only cancel college football but all sports in the fall 2020 semester. The Pac-12 even went on to add that they won't consider playing any intercollegiate athletic competitions until Jan. 1, 2021. Don't be surprised if the Big Ten follows that path.

However, both conferences also tried to give its fans a glimmer of hope, noting that they plan to try and play college football in the spring of 2021. But is that possible? If so, what would a spring college football season even look like? It's tough to know at this point, but we tackle the question the best we can in today's BWI roundtable discussion.

I’ve had the distinct privilege of covering for 42 years the Penn State football program. There have been an incalculable number of highs and lows associated with the Penn State football program that have taken place during that 42-year timespan. When the Jerry Sandusky Scandal erupted in November 20ll, I convinced myself that event without question would be the most traumatic experience I would have to ever cover associated with Penn State’s 31-sport Intercollegiate Athletic Program. Boy, was I wrong. In my wildest dreams I never ever conceived that Penn State’s athletic department would ever have to deal with a worldwide pandemic from a coronavirus that dramatically impacted the entire college intercollegiate athletic sports scene starting back in the middle of March.

I would be lying you if I didn’t tell you I was surprised the Big Ten made the decision to cancel the fall 2020 football season yesterday, instead of delaying that decision and moving the start of the season back to Sept. 26 just six days after they had announced the conference’s revised all-conference 2020 schedule. Making the decision to try and play its 2020 Big Ten conference schedule in the spring of 2021. A decision Penn State’s athletic director Sandy Barbour recently characterized as the conference’s “last resort.”

Does that mean I believe its a process that can’t become a reality? Of course that isn’t the case, but in many respects it will take on an entirely different look than what would have taken place this fall. Micah Parsons had already made the decision to opt out and not play this fall and you can fully expect that will also include NFL eligible players like projected 2021 first round NFL draft selection Rs.So. Pat Freiermuth and seniors Will Fries, Michael Menet, Shaka Toney and possibly Rs.Jr. Journey Brown. That is just one of many questions or problems created by COVID 19 that will have to be addressed relating to the 2020 season taking place for the Big Ten in the spring of 2021. How many games will be played? I can’t imagine it would consist of more than six divisional games and possibly two games from the other Division. Eight games seems to be the maximum. Would there be a Big Ten Championship Game and since the Pac 12 has made the same decision could there be a Rose Bowl Game played in Pasadena, Calif. some time in the spring of 2021? What decision will be made by the SEC, ACC and Big 12 about playing this fall and how would that impact the Big Ten?

Personally, I can’t see the 2020 season played in the spring starting before mid-March at the earliest. I remember back in 1996 when Happy Valley was inundated by a 36-inch snowfall in early March that year causing all of Pennsylvania’s interstate highways to be closed. That’s why I’m intrigued by James Franklin’s idea he stated on ESPN during an interview on Tuesday, suggesting that the games could be played at indoor facilities at Indianapolis, Detroit and Minneapolis before the Divisional champs would meet in Indianapolis for the Big Ten title to avoid the harsh Pennsylvania and Midwestern weather.

I could go on and list many more questions and problems that need to be addressed over the next five or six months for the Big Ten to play its 2020 football schedule in the spring of 2021. But that would make this a 3,000 or 4,000 article. But there is just one additional problem that needs to be questioned. On a interview on the Big Ten Network former Ohio State head football coach, Urban Meyer, seemed totally against the idea of playing the Big Ten’s 2020 football schedule in the spring of 2021. His reasoning for that was the health and safety of the players. Meyer made it clear that playing a 10-game football schedule that began in March and ended in May and expecting the players to gear up for a 12-game 2021 season beginning in September would be next to impossible. That would physically be asking too much of the players.

That’s why at the very most I can conceive of the schedule consisting of just eight games. A six game Division schedule followed by a Big Ten Championship Game and a possible Rose Bowl Game between the Big Ten and Pac 12 champs. Right now we are just at the beginning of the beginning to answer all of the questions that need to be answered for the Big Ten’s 2020 football season to be played in the spring of 2021!

When the college football program you’re tasked with covering is sanctioned by the NCAA in a way that’s comparable, or arguably worse, than anything in the game before it, those actions inevitably shade just about everything moving forward. So I have to be honest, when I hear the arguments against spring football, given the circumstances, I can’t help but laugh a little bit.

Penn State played college football against its peers with 65 scholarship players. For multiple years. It had scholarship limits, it had walk-ons manning the offensive line, it had recruiting limitations. And through all of those sanctions, imposed to deliver a competitive disadvantage, not only did Penn State achieve records above .500 throughout, but it also proved that the biggest ramification was one of safety, which the NCAA had obviously not considered when delivering its punishments. All of that is a long way of prefacing my question:

What’s the big deal about playing college football in the spring?

Kiss the seniors and NFL-eligible guys goodbye. It’s OK. Lamar Stevens didn’t get his moment and finished a few points shy of the program’s scoring record. There are many long days and nights ahead for guys like Will Fries, Michal Menet, Shaka Toney, Journey Brown and a host of others. Like everyone else, they will eventually shake it off, pick themselves up and move on to the next phase in their lives.

But none of that prevents fielding a competitive team in college football. And when you start to grasp the reality of the situation - that there will be no national championship, that conference titles will be meaningless, and that anything resembling a full-on schedule for the sport are all out the window - it should allow the conference to do what it should have been doing for the past four months.

Follow the NBA model, develop a coherent and comprehensive plan for the conditions as they exist today, and salvage the incredibly formative and important process of continuing these guys’ life’s work, while managing to turn something of a profit in the process.

One of the great mysteries for me, having been deeply invested in college football now for 16 years, has always been the obsession with what’s next. Certainly, that’s true of the quarterback position, but more than any other element in the game, it’s what drives the conversation in this corner of its world. It’s why recruiting is so big, and honestly, it’s why we have a business here.

Throw out every convention about the game. Accept that this is (hopefully) a one-off. Devise the working plan that should have been concocted the first time around. And get these guys something to continue to stay motivated for, even if it’s only a few games, if it’s medically viable.

As a lifelong fan of Philadelphia’s professional sports teams, it’s not in my nature to be optimistic. But I remain stubbornly hopeful about the Big Ten’s chances of playing football during the 2020-21 academic year, even though the conference has already defaulted to what Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour recently characterized as its “last resort.”

By targeting the spring, the Big Ten bought itself roughly five more months to figure things out. That’s five more months to see what works and what doesn’t in the NFL, and maybe the SEC, ACC and Big 12, too. Five more months to learn about the virus, particularly the danger of myocarditis, which reportedly played a major role in the decision to cancel. Five more months to see how readily COVID spreads on college campuses once students come back. Five more months to improve testing capacity. And five more months to await medical breakthroughs that will surely be less risky than the expedited Russian vaccine that was making headlines on Tuesday.

As to what such a season might look like, all we know is that it will be very different from anything that’s come before. Maybe it will only be six or eight games, with the division champs meeting in Indianapolis for the title. Maybe, to avoid the harsh Midwestern winter, the games will take place indoors in Detroit, Indianapolis and Minneapolis, an out-of-the box idea that James Franklin pitched during an ESPN appearance on Tuesday, and one that could merit serious consideration in the months to come. Maybe, if the Big Ten and the Pac-12 are the only conferences that sit out this fall, we’ll get a Rose Bowl-type spring football championship game sometime in April. It might sound preposterous to play a bowl in the late spring, but it would surely be a whole lot more watchable than the Blue-White Game, even if all the draft-eligible stars on both rosters sit out.

Or maybe, by late September, the SEC, ACC and Big 12 will have followed the lead of the Big Ten and Pac-12, shifting the entire Power Five schedule to the spring, and with it the College Football Playoff. As disappointing as it would be to see the sport vanish from the calendar this fall, it would make for a more compelling and meaningful season if everyone were playing at the same time.

I’ve tried to remain optimistic throughout all of this. Back in March and April, I wavered like everyone, but as the summer started and players returned to campus in June, I felt much better about the chances of at least starting a season. Deep down, I thought it would be tough for a season to be completed - all it was going to take is one player to end up in intensive care - but because of the financial concerns, I always thought that the Big Ten was going to give it a try.

Fast-forward to Aug. 12 and now I’m not sure what to expect. Part of me still believes that the financial impact is going to give school presidents and athletic directors all the reason in the world to put a plan into motion, but there’s a lot that has to be figured out first. Obviously, if the three remaining Power Five conferences - SEC, ACC and Big 12 - play in the fall, it drastically changes the meaning of a season. That's why we can't really answer this question yet. I don't think Indiana and Maryland and other schools care all that much about whether the College Football Playoff is intact this year, but for fans, a season that only crowns conference champions will certainly feel pedestrian.

Personally, I think one of those three conferences will end up dropping out, forcing the others to join them, but only time will tell. As of today, it's clear that they all plan to play, and if they do, there won't be a true national champion this year. For Big Ten players and fans, the spring will basically be a season that determines a conference championship and that's it. Maybe we'll see a traditional Rose Bowl matchup like Matt mentioned, but the grand prize can only be determined with all five major conferences on the same page. Good luck getting that to happen.

Also, if they play in the spring, I don't see how a season can last longer than eight games. I also don't see how the fall of 2021 season lasts longer than 10 games. In fact, that may have to be pushed down to closer to eight games, too. If we get to that point, the virus (hopefully) won't be as big of a factor, but wear and tear on the body certainly will be.

David Eckert - BWI contributor

This question, for me, is a two-parter. To get to the football aspect of the question, where we ask ourselves if the NFL bound players will even suit up and whether the idea of fitting in a spring season just a couple months before a fresh fall season is set to begin is too demanding, you first have to answer the more serious question: Will our situation as it relates to the coronavirus improve enough to allow for a spring season? I’m not a doctor or an epidemiologist, so I don’t know, but I will say that I don’t think any of us saw college football season being seriously threatened when this hit the United States back in March, We simply don’t know how this situation is going to change between now and the spring. All we can do is hope for the best.

However, taking the leap and assuming that things have improved significantly by the time we get to spring, I don’t see a reason why Penn State and the Big Ten can’t make this happen. That’s not to say that, if we do see spring football, that it will be up to the standards we typically hold for a college football season. Some of the best players will inevitably opt out to protect themselves with the draft right around the corner, and it would be hard to blame them. It might not even be possible to have the kind of postseason we’re accustomed to, especially if some conferences opt to stick it out and play in the fall. How on earth do you set up bowl games? How do you select a national champion? (Although, I must say, the fall champion against the spring champion in a one-off game for all the marbles would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it?)

The Big Ten or the NCAA would certainly have to make some adjustments to practice time just to protect the players with another season set to start very shortly after the conclusion of the spring session. It’s going to be a mess, without a doubt. But I think it’s a mess worth navigating. This is nothing more than an educated guess, but I think the college football powers that be will think so, too, because they should be eager to recoup some of the revenue lost by the absence of a fall season. Whether we like it or not, everything in college sports begins and ends with the dollar sign. I don’t think financially ravaged athletic departments will be in any position to turn down a check, and I think the players and coaching staff would be easy to make up for lost time.

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