What A Mess! Plenty of People to Sympathise with in College Football, But Glad Pokes Season Alive

The end of the day on Tuesday, the day that two Power Five Conferences snuffed out their fall sports including football ended well. The Big 12 moves forward.

STILLWATER -- It was kind of ironic on Tuesday evening (Aug. 11) that Sooner Scoop first reported that the Big 12 Board of Directors were taking no action toward changing the status of the Big 12 football season. As of now, the Big 12 and their 9+1 schedule format are on for this fall. There were a lot of eyes watching the internet and social media as the Big 12 meeting came after both the Big Ten and Pac-12 had met and the Presidents in each of those conferences voted to shelve all fall sports including football. 

Going into the meeting Pokes Report had heard the Big 12 Board was solidly in favor of continuing to play the football season. The meeting, according to several administrators at multiple Big 12 schools (Kansas State, Baylor, Texas, and Oklahoma State) was going to be a presentation from the league's medical advisory group and a report from their medical consultant (the group from Duke). The the agenda called for the Presidents to discuss. A source later informed Pokes Report that a vote on pushing forward to the season was taken and it passed.

The Big Ten Conference commissioner Kevin Warren did an interview after his conference voted to halt fall sports but gave few answers talking around questions from Dave Revsine of the Big Ten Network. Most of all, he would not detail medical information from the league's advisory group that was apparently the primary reason for the Big Ten decision.

Talking to the Voice of the Nebraska Cornhuskers Greg Sharpe, he thought the voices of the players and of the coaches in the Big Ten on Monday including Huskers Coach Scott Frost made have changed the tide.

"It was a remarkable press conference that I thought changed the narrative in the Big Ten Conference, which was heading toward (ending sports for the fall) and it still might go down that path," said Sharpe. But I think that Scott Frost thought if it is, at least we're going to go down swinging."

Larry Scott, the commissioner of the Pac-12 was a little more forthcoming and seemed to point to the extenuating conditions such as myocarditis that continue or are a trailing condition after coronavirus. The Pac-12 went further as they also cancelled the start of men's and women's basketball the rest of this calendar year. 

Now, the interesting aspect of this is whether the Big 12 would entertain bringing in any renegade members of the Big Ten. It has been reported to Pokes Report by athletic administrators at two different Big 12 schools that Nebraska and Ohio State had previously inquired about whether they could join the Big 12 this season if the Big Ten shut down football. 

Nebraska’s response to today’s decision. #huskers pic.twitter.com/xsjOSQni1y

— Sam McKewon (@swmckewonOWH) August 11, 2020

Nebraska kept up the interest in finding another outlet for their football team this season as this was their official response to the Big Ten decision.   

"Well I think the school adminsitration is behind him and that is what gave Scott Frost the confidence to be as strong in his statement as he was," Sharpe added. "He has the backing of the chancellor, school president, and the athletic director."

The situation will be extremely hard to navigate, a legal minefield. Nebraska and any other school wanting to play with the Big 12 this season is going to have to be free to share their TV revenue with the Big 12 and not have taken by their current conference. Ohio State, as mentioned, is said to be interested and Iowa is not interested even though they voted to play.

The players group that came together on Sunday night into Monday, #WeWantToPlay was really founded at Clemson by former walk-on running back Darien Rencher. Once Rencher got his quarterback and Heisman Trophy favorite Travis Lawrence involved the whole movement took off. Lawrence involved Chuba Hubbard of Oklahoma State. Rencher had reached out to Stanford defensive end Dylan Boles, who was part of #WeAreUnited that was the group that sent demands to the Pac-12 Conference.  

Clemson play-by-play voice Don Munson told me that part of this was the Clemson players went to Dabo Swinney and asked for a change in tradition when it came to social media.

"Normally and that goes back to 2010, it wasn;t Coach Swinney that would shut it down but it was the players themselves. The seniors would vote to shut down their social media for the entire season," Munson explained. "This season at fall camp the seniors voted to keep social media open. They would shut it off before games and then open it back up after. This is an anomoly for Clemson, for their players to have social media access."

Because they did they were able to instigate and engineer the #WeWantTo Play campaign and even recruit to it like they did the Cowboys Hubbard. Did it do any good? Obviously, not in the Big Ten and the Pac-12. I do think it kept adminsitrators and leaders in the ACC, Big 12, and the SEC, their eyes on the prize. Okay, the SEC I don't think ever takes their eyes off playing the season.