My Two Cents: Saban and I Agree That Spring Football is a Bad Idea
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — There's a long list of things that the great Alabama football coach Nick Saban and I agree on. And now, we get to add another thing to this list.
The six-time national champion coach and I have similar thoughts on:
- It's national title or bust when you coach at a blue-blood program.
- Athletic performance guru David Ballou is the best in the business.
- Drew Brees was healthy enough to start for the Dolphins when Saban coached there.
- Christopher Walsh is our favorite Alabama beat writer. (Inside joke)
- Living in East Lansing for five years is too long for anyone.
- Alabama football fans and Indiana basketball fans are exactly the same.
And now, the latest addition to the list: Spring football is a really stupid idea.
Really stupid.
Saban made many media stops on Tuesday as his Alabama team moved into high gear to start its football season later in September. The SEC is playing this fall, and the ACC and Big 12 are planning on doing the same. The NFL is too, of course,
And the Big Ten isn't.
After the league's presidents and chancellors gathered last week, it was decided to shut down the season in the fall, bowing to the fears of the COVID-19 pandemic. They based a lot of that on medical experts, and their comments, and they told more than 1,000 football players to take their helmets and go home.
The Big Ten says they're going to play football in spring. But as I've said often in the past week and change, if the Big Ten plays in the spring after the SEC and others have played a fall season and crowned a champion, those Big Ten spring games are going to be completely meaningless.
"I hate it for the (Big Ten and Pac-12) players who won't get the opportunity to play and compete and create value for themselves,'' Saban said. "One of the real consequences of this, is if you're a junior or senior with an NFL grade, are you going to play in the spring, or is that going to become something of a JV season with so many juniors and seniors opting out?
"I'm in no way judging what anybody's trying to do, but our medical experts here thought we could do this and create a safe envrionment, and I think they've done a wonderful job with that.''
No leadership over college football
That is the big difference on the college football landscape right now, that lack of leadership. There is no central organization making decisions, not even the NCAA, which really doesn't control major-college football at all. Every conference is doing their own thing. The Big Ten moved first, but they fully expected every other major conference to follow them along to the spring.
That didn't happen.
And now that Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren is out there on an island, everyone is coming after him. Parents from several Big Ten schools are demanding that Warren and the Big Ten reconsider, and have a fall season of some kind after all.
Players are demanding to play too, and Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields' #WeWantToPlay petition now has nearly 280,000 signatures. It all seems to be heading for a showdown by the end of the week.
What's hard — but totally not unexpected — is that the crickets are deafening from the Big Ten office. Since shutting down the season, we haven't heard a word from Warren or anyone else.
Not one.
And what's most frustrating about that is that Warren knows exactly what's going on through the football landscape. He has a son who plays football at Mississippi State, for Christ's sake, and as a father, he's OK with his son playing football during a pandemic. He has major NFL roots and many people think he's a future commissioner, so he knows everything that's going on their too as they go through preseason practices.
They are playing, no matter what. And Warren knows this.
And they will be making millions of dollars in the SEC this fall. The Big Ten won't. That is a massive sledgehammer right between the eyes.
What will Big Ten do next?
It's going to be interesting to see how this week plays out. Parents and players want Warren to back-track and let the fall season return. But can that really happen? Can an about-face really occur?
These presidents and chancellors have been silent, too, and mostly that's because the whole lot of them feel backed into a corner now, too. Mostly because there's no consensus.
Fast forward to September, when Saban and the SEC start playing games. The others, too. Isn't going to be so difficult to watch while Big Ten players are sitting at home on their couches doing the same?
That's going to be terrible.
And think about this, too. High school recruits all across the country will be watching, too. There's going to be devastating backlash toward the Big Ten schools, and it could have a long-term impact on the league. And not just in football. What if basketball recruits start to get scared off by the league too?
In Warren's offices, that needs to be part of the conversation. The Big Ten is at a crossroads right now.
What's become abundantly clear is that the Big Ten pulled the plug too soon. Football in the spring will be deemed meaningless, and I'd guess that at least 50 players would pass on playing, maybe even 100, or more.
Everyone agrees that Big Ten schools had proper protocols in place. Indiana coach Tom Allen said so last week. So did several other coaches. Players feel good, too, as do many parents as well. A half-dozen parents told me last week that they were comfortable with the plan in place. They want their boys to play.
It could have been done. I can be done.
This is a polarizing issue for sure, and there are plenty of people on both sides of the debate. It's a no-win situation taking either side of this argument, because proponents of their respective sides will stand firm.
Saban fully respects the power of the disease, but he also thinks they can protect the players at Alabama better as a group than they can individually if there was no football.
Tom Allen thought the same exact thing.
So did I.
Check that. So do I.
Football in the fall in the Big Ten is a conversation that's not over. It can't be. There was a report late Tuesday night that Ohio State is spearheading conversations with other schools to play in the fall anyway. Get six schools to say yes, and play a round-robin.
For the good of the players, they say.
There was no mention of Indiana in the story, because it focused on schools that have been vociferous in their fight, schools like Penn State and Iowa and Nebraska that still want to play in the fall. They're trying to get Michigan and Wisconsin along for the ride, too.
If they can play, why can't everybody?
This is a mess, but maybe it's not over. Let's hope not.
My other two cents, since you were wondering
- NATIONAL TITLES: Anything less is a disappointment for Saban. Remember when Indiana basketball was that way?
- DAVID BALLOU: Saban hired him away from Indiana this spring for good reason. He's great, and he'll do great things there too with all their resources.
- DREW BREES: Followed the Dolphins closely back in those days for work, and if the Dolphins had signed Brees, the NFL and college football both would have changed forever.
- CHRISTOPHER WALSH: He covers Alabama for us here at Sports Illustrated, but we also did a book together last summer called "Decade of Dominance,'' about Saban's 10 years at Alabama being the best decade in college football history. Every college football fan should read it. It's that good. CLICK HERE
- EAST LANSING: Yeah, cheap shot, I know. Really didn't mean it, either. It's one of my top-five spots in the Big Ten.
- RABID FAN BASES: Both loves their teams, and Alabama football fans have had a lot more to root about lately than Indiana basketball fans. But I've seen it first-hand, and they both love their history, I've spent a lot of time with both the past couple of years, and they're great. (If you're wondering, Indiana basketball fans are better readers!!! CLICK HERE
Related stories on Big Ten postponement
- WARREN RESPONDS: Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren pens a letter telling players and parents that the league "will not revisit'' the issue. CLICK HERE
- NCAA ADJUSTMENTS: Teams not playing games in the fall will still be allowed to practice and work out. CLICK HERE
- PARENTS, PLAYERS PUT UP FIGHT TO REVERSE BIG TEN'S DECISION: A plethora of Big Ten players and their parents are trying to get the Big Ten to reverse their decision about postponing college football. CLICK HERE
- BIG TEN MEDICAL EXPERTS DETAIL CARDIOVASCULAR CONCERNS: In a report obtained by Sports Illustrated, some Big Ten medical experts detail some scary thoughts regarding myocarditis and college football. CLICK HERE
