Big 12 Not Voting Monday on When to Bring Student-Athletes Back is a Solid Move
STILLWATER -- A series of phone calls made this afternoon did not yield any great information, but it also seemed to clear up what the Big 12 President's strategy might be with regards to deciding whether or not to extend the conference ban on any organized team activities and whether to have student-athletes on campus. The current ban is there until May 31. No schools or teams at Big 12 schools can have any in-person organized activities. The only contact for administrators, coaches, and student-athletes is virtual. The Zoom meetings continue on a daily basis for most teams in the conference.
The Big 12 Presidents and the Big 12 staff including Commissioner Bob Bowlsby met on Monday and there was speculation that the campus leaders might vote on whether to end or extend the ban on in-person activities.
“It could be earlier in June, it could be mid-June, it could be late June or early July,” Bowlsby said in a story in The Dallas Morning News, noting that SEC schools were fairly evenly split on those three options. “We have some work to do to come up with a recommendation for our CEOs as well. We’re still in midstream. We have to get back by sometime around the middle of July because otherwise, we’ll have to push the season back.”
It looks like Chuck Carlton of The Dallas Morning News was on the Big 12 watch this afternoon as well. My phone calls led to the same thoughts and lack of a conclusion.
It seems all of the Big 12 states are now in some phase of reopening with Texas today entering phase two and gyms back open again where people can go workout. That phase has been going in Oklahoma for a couple of weeks and phase three started heading into this weekend. The state of Oklahoma had youth baseball tournaments being played this weekend and there were fans in the bleachers. In some locations, a lot of fans in the bleachers.
The folks that I have spoke with believe that during Monday's meeting that West Virginia, Oklahoma State, and TCU were three schools showing a desire to end the ban more rapidly and work toward getting student-athletes of all sports back on campus. One argument is working out in a controlled environment, controlled by the athletic department and their strength and conditioning staffs in conjunction with their sports medicine staffs is safer than their athletes going to outside facilities that are now open. Actually, safer than working out on their own.
Those same sources believe that Oklahoma, especially with the arguments being made by their head football coach Lincoln Riley, Texas, and Baylor are the schools arguing the most for extending the ban on team activities and student-athletes on campus.
The Big 12 Presidents discussed in their Monday meeting, but no vote. Smart, because the SEC will likely vote on Thursday and word is will vote to bring back student-athletes on June 1 and no later than after June 14.
That allows the Big 12 to see what the SEC does. Honestly, it allows the Big 12 leaders to decide if they want to fall behind the SEC and their student-athletes in training and preparing or if they want to keep up.
The visit from the Beavers is still the constant reminder for the staff in the Oklahoma State football office.
Robert Allen - Pokes Report publisher
In one other bit of news matching up with our story we released on Sunday, yet another person involved told us that Oregon State is on board with being ready to play Oklahoma State on Thursday, Sept. 3 in Stillwater, if the game goes off as scheduled.
