There seem to be a lot of angry people today regarding the restart of B1G football. A lot of blame going toward Kevin Warren and others in the handling of this situation.
I seem to be in the vast minority in that I am pleased with the prudence of the conference in dealing with starting football in the middle of a pandemic.
The B1G waited for rapid testing to be available for them, and have established the strictest protocols for return to play. The B1G has always held itself to higher standards, and this is no different.
People need to consider that this pandemic may still wipe out the college football season altogether. I sure as heck hope not, but I think it will be obvious by late October whether it will end up being a success. If things are shut down by then, then the B1G would be commended for its caution, not putting players at risk.
B1G is still looking at a 9-game schedule for everyone and eligibility for the CFP.
I know everyone is hacked off with Kevin Warren right now, but I do appreciate this quote from him - "We have to realize that this is a fluid situation, and we only wanted to make sure that we put the safety of our student athletes at the forefront of all our decisions. We need to be able to adapt. Based upon the standards that were set by our chancellors and presidents from Day 1 is that we need to make sure that we create an environment that would allow our student athletes to participate in intercollegiate athletics in a healthy and safe environment with the standards that we needed. We had to go to work. We had to show some flexibility. Once we reached that point that we felt comfortable, we were able to proceed forward. This is about looking forward. We understand the journey that we had to go through; all the meetings with our presidents and members of the task force, just internally, but also realizing that one of the things about leadership is that it's important that you are in a perpetual process of gathering and analyzing information, setting high standards and also looking at each other to say that we now have met those standards for our student athletes to participate."
So, everyone can go along with their "why could all these other conferences do it" or "why could Iowa H.S. football do it" or "what lousy leadership we have" arguments...or you can be happy that it looks like we will have a football season to look forward to, and can be proud to be fans of a team in a conference that continues to prove itself elite in every way.
I seem to be in the vast minority in that I am pleased with the prudence of the conference in dealing with starting football in the middle of a pandemic.
The B1G waited for rapid testing to be available for them, and have established the strictest protocols for return to play. The B1G has always held itself to higher standards, and this is no different.
People need to consider that this pandemic may still wipe out the college football season altogether. I sure as heck hope not, but I think it will be obvious by late October whether it will end up being a success. If things are shut down by then, then the B1G would be commended for its caution, not putting players at risk.
B1G is still looking at a 9-game schedule for everyone and eligibility for the CFP.
I know everyone is hacked off with Kevin Warren right now, but I do appreciate this quote from him - "We have to realize that this is a fluid situation, and we only wanted to make sure that we put the safety of our student athletes at the forefront of all our decisions. We need to be able to adapt. Based upon the standards that were set by our chancellors and presidents from Day 1 is that we need to make sure that we create an environment that would allow our student athletes to participate in intercollegiate athletics in a healthy and safe environment with the standards that we needed. We had to go to work. We had to show some flexibility. Once we reached that point that we felt comfortable, we were able to proceed forward. This is about looking forward. We understand the journey that we had to go through; all the meetings with our presidents and members of the task force, just internally, but also realizing that one of the things about leadership is that it's important that you are in a perpetual process of gathering and analyzing information, setting high standards and also looking at each other to say that we now have met those standards for our student athletes to participate."
So, everyone can go along with their "why could all these other conferences do it" or "why could Iowa H.S. football do it" or "what lousy leadership we have" arguments...or you can be happy that it looks like we will have a football season to look forward to, and can be proud to be fans of a team in a conference that continues to prove itself elite in every way.