Dan Patrick: Big Ten Targeting Oct. 10 Start For Football Season
Ever since Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren announced that the conference had postponed the football season, an ever-turning rumor mill has moved with full force. On Tuesday, Dan Patrick reported a new development: the Big Ten is targeting an Oct. 10 start date for the football season if certain hurdles can be cleared.
Earlier in the week, Warren received contact from President Donald Trump, who made it clear he wanted to assist the Big Ten in pulling off a football season this fall. After the two sides spoke, Trump tweeted that the league was "on the one yard line" in terms of returning to the playing field.
On top of that, Patrick reported that he is hearing the Big Ten is looking at Oct. 10 as a possibility for when the 2020 season could finally begin. That would give schools five full weeks from this Friday to prepare for the potential season.
If the Big Ten chooses to stick with the base concept of the 10-game, conference-only schedule that was previously announced, schools would be playing all the way until Dec. 26 with one open bye week after that for potential makeup games.
However, given the Big Ten's late start if this plan comes to fruition, it seems more and more likely that the conference would release an abbreviated school, one even shorter than the 10-game slate released in August. Otherwise, the Big Ten would likely need to secure potential indoor dome venues for the end of the season if the goal is to complete a 10-game schedule.
What does this ultimately mean?
One provision of Patrick's tweet states that the Big Ten will need to "pass updated safety measures and procedures" before a return to play can be guaranteed, so it would be unwise to take Patrick's report as gospel at this point. Rather, consider it as an indication that not only is the Big Ten hearing the extreme public backlash from postponing the fall season but they are working to find a solution that can appease the masses while still adhering to specific health standards.
While Warren deals with this case in the public forum, several Nebraska football players are looking to settle the matter in the courtroom. On Monday, a court filing revealed that the Big Ten did in fact hold a vote to postpone the fall 2020 season, and the margin was 11-3 in favor of a postponement according to Yahoo.com's Sam Cooper. The only Big Ten schools to vote against postponing were Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio State, meaning that Michigan president Mark Schlissel voted to postpone the season.
It would be difficult to imagine the Big Ten agreeing to start the season on Oct. 10 without holding another vote, so several conference presidents will need to have their minds changed in the near future.
What do you think about the likelihood of the Big Ten playing football this fall? Do you think the conference can pull it off or is this last-ditch effort just an attempt to save face? Let us know!
