Wisconsin vs. Purdue cancelled, will not be rescheduled
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:02 PM ^
I wouldn't mind missing OSU this year. Go ahead and neg me to Bolivia.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:07 PM ^
Wisconsin going undefeated this season. Brilliant.
November 3rd, 2020 at 3:54 PM ^
At the risk of sounding like a fool, we play them in December. The defense can only improve, and Milton's playbook can only expand.
November 3rd, 2020 at 7:29 PM ^
You can’t coach speed. Nothing is going to help our CBS stay with OSU receivers.
November 5th, 2020 at 4:02 PM ^
Eight feet of snow might do the trick.
November 3rd, 2020 at 4:56 PM ^
If I was in the athletic department I would make sure this happens. I’m a win at all costs kind of guy and equally a don’t lose at all costs guy.
hire me
November 3rd, 2020 at 5:49 PM ^
It may come to that. Not by choice.
November 4th, 2020 at 9:27 AM ^
I would. I want the suffering.
(see this, this is how to get negged)
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:02 PM ^
Can we retroactively cancel the MSU game?
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:03 PM ^
This ^
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:30 PM ^
If the season is cancelled, does the State game still count?
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:02 PM ^
I need the meme of the "welp" dog for this.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:30 PM ^
Thank you, Clarence.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:31 PM ^
He has really nice parents.
Burn!
November 3rd, 2020 at 2:54 PM ^
Hey, no sweat. I'm here to help.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:03 PM ^
This was always the problem with the B1G's revised plan. They waited so long to start back up again they have no room to reschedule any games.
It may not matter ultimately if things keep getting worse and everything gets shut down, but the B1G's half way in, half way out approach looks bad at the moment.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:08 PM ^
I once worked with a VP at my company who would say "there are no bad decisions, only bad outcomes". The point was, in a professional setting, no one is going to purposely make a decision to hurt the company, but sometimes you make a decision based on the info at hand and the outcome isn't what you expected. I now use this with my young sons. When I see them do something that doesn't end well, I don't tell them they made a bad decision, I say "well that didn't turn out how you expected".
End rant on society. Get off my lawn.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:25 PM ^
Yes and no. The Big 10 made a decision early on that was "we doubt the virus will be under control to a safe degree so we're going to punt the season until 2021" and that seemed pretty reasonable based on the available data. Then there was gnashing of teeth, protests outside of office buildings, and much-publicized calls from world leaders demanding the sport return, and they threw together this half-ass plan under the guise of "we have increased rapid testing (which might not be all that accurate and we only really care about the money anyway)" and, shockingly, the surge we all knew was a distinct possibility, if not inevitable, happened and games are cancelled without any way to compensate. And so the original decision was probably the correct one but money got in the way and now we're left with this current shit show.
So no, I don't think the Big 10 looked at the schools and thought "let's screw this up", but purposeful ignorance or naivety about the probable outcome for the season shouldn't be swept aside as a bad break.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:43 PM ^
Precisely. It was dubious to start the season in the first place. What was the thinking? Well good possibility we would have coronavirus outbreaks if we play...eh...lets to it anyways and we'll deal with it. So they are dealing with it by cancelling game.
Season. What season?
More like glorified scrimmages at this point. Which, great! Start solidifying your offensive plans/QB/WRs and please go recruit harder at CB and DT.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:14 PM ^
Who knows the real conversations, but I’ll propose an alternative which could just as likely have happened:
Early on the Big 10 decides to cancel until 2021 expecting that while disappointed, fans would understand the reasoning given the situation. Keep in mind the core people making this decision are academic minded people and may not have the best insight on what regular old Joe sports fan will think. Decision made.
Fans, parents of players, and coaches are not reasonable or understanding and begin to publicly protest. Then the President makes a very public and political shit show about the Big 10. Bad outcome.
Now understanding the scope of their decision and seeing other Power Five conferences playing. Keeping in mind, at the time there were very few cancellations of power 5 games. Most of the cancellations were teams like Jacksonville State, East Carolina, Florida International, etc. The Big 10 says, okay, we’ll play. But now there is a very real deadline they never thought they were going to have to meet which is consideration for the CFB playoff. So a schedule gets made with no gaps. Keep in mind, they learned their lesson the first time. Telling fans you can now have a season but not meet requirements to compete in the CFP playoff would receive the same response as the original decision to cancel the season. Decision made.
Wisconsin happens. Other power 5 programs are now happening. Trevor Lawrence now happens. Bad outcome.
I’m not saying I agree with this, it may not be the decisions I would have made. But it is very possible this is what happened.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:43 PM ^
Sure, that's an alternative, but I think it ignores some key pieces of information we did know. as you noted, programs did have games cancelled or delayed due to outbreaks. And teams had outbreaks during the offseason, with both MSU and Rutgers in the conference having to "pause" because of multiple confirmed cases. A couple ACC and Big 12 games had already been cancelled or delayed due to outbreaks, and most of the presidents had already announced remote learning (Michigan was actually one of the outliers on that front by bringing students back) for the fall due to the reasonable belief that the cases would tick up in the fall. They clearly believed there were dangers with having large numbers of people congregating on campuses.
Sure, uninformed fans yelled and screamed; that's not new. People lost their freaking mind when the idea of moving the UM-OSU game to a different place on the schedule was suggested. Trying t placate football fans isn't worth your time because we're collectively a bunch of idiots who don't care about the well-being of anything if it interrupts our entertainment.
So no, I'm not inclined to give the conference a ton of benefit in hindsight because they ignored a lot of evidence because (a) they didn't want to be yelled at anymore, and (b) wanted to make money. There may be other factors involved in their decision but it's pretty clear those two were high up there.
November 3rd, 2020 at 2:25 PM ^
My intent was never to suggest they are not responsible for the decisions they have made. I agree with you 100% they are responsible, but sometimes we give people more credit than they are worth.
My hypothesis is the Big 10 leaders tried to do what they thought was the right thing. Received far more blowback than they expected and felt pressured to change their decision. Once that happened, they chose to make decisions with fixed limitations out of their control.
I don't have an argument for the choice to change their decision. I don't know what data was available and what conversations took place.
I will point out, here's the slate of games cancelled or postponed by weekend with the Big 10 decision date included in the timeline:
Week 1 (Sept 3 - 5)
- Jacksonville St at Florida Int.
- Rice at Houston
Week 2 (Sept 10 - 12)
- SMU at TCU
- Florida Int at UCF
- Marshall at East Carolina
- La Tech at Baylor
Sept 16: Big 10 announces decision to play games
Week 3 (Sept 18 - 19)
- Charlotte at UNC
- BYU at Army
- Houston at Baylor
- Florida Atl at Georgia Southern
- Central Arkansas at Arkansas State
Based on that, I would say the Big10 had very little to go on regarding the ability for Power 5 programs to control the virus within conference only play. I would expect the Big 10 felt they would handle the virus better than the above list of schools so it probably didn't influence much. Call it arrogant, fine, but look at the title of Seth's post about Michigan's offense vs. MSU.
November 3rd, 2020 at 2:28 PM ^
Imagine what would happen if kids were actually going to classes. Oh, remember when they said if kids weren't on campus taking classes, there would be no way they would play football?
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:26 PM ^
Yes, but there are a lot of people who saw the possible need to build in extra weeks for rescheduling purposes. The Big Ten leadership, probably more accurately a majority of the presidents of Big Ten schools, decided against building in these safety nets.
Also, I don't understand how Wisconsin is not outright forfeiting these games. The team meets the Big Ten's minimum player requirement to play, which was established as part of the plan for the 8-game season. If teams can just say "No, we don't feel like playing because some of our good players are out," what was the point of the minimums in the first place? I get that picking on Nebraska is sport these days for the national and midwest sports writers, but they had every right to expect the home game. And if being down to your 4th string QB is enough to cancel without penalty, why has Maryland had to play all their games the past few years? Makes no sense.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:02 PM ^
Yeah, the part where Wisconsin clearly did a bad job mitigating a spread and are now getting a reprieve because they would otherwise have had to play without their full complement of players is annoying. There should be real punishment for not following the rules, not the ability to keep a sterling 1-0 record despite not playing 1/4 of the season due to your own actions.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:34 PM ^
Karmic justice would be for Wisconsin to come back in time for the Michigan game and play the remainder of their games except for one caused by their opponent's own COVID issues, then be ineligible for the B1G CG despite a 4-1 or 5-0 record.
November 5th, 2020 at 8:34 AM ^
It's funny how Nebraska makes this same argument over a week ago and was branded as bunch of whiners.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:38 PM ^
It's quite possible that they don't have enough players to properly field a team due to quarantine policies. My son's dorm got locked down when 12 residents out of a few hundred tested positive. Because of contact tracing, they all had to quarantine for 14 days.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:34 PM ^
I think we should all rely on corporate cliches right now.
November 3rd, 2020 at 3:59 PM ^
May I recommend automating this process? This website has an excellent "Corporate BS Generator": https://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html
My first button click yielded "enthusiastically facilitate enterprise-wide experiences."
Second yielded "dramatically synergize team driven imperatives."
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:35 PM ^
That VP didn't have footage of our offensive play calling from Saturday.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:51 PM ^
That is a very fair and true point.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:21 PM ^
I don't disagree with what you said, but when the B1G made the choices they did in the summer I'd bet you $1 that the B1G wasn't expecting COVID cases to be at an all time high nationally/peaking in the midwest.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:25 PM ^
As far back as very early spring, any epidemiologist with expertise in pandemics was warning about a resurgence in the fall, even with a comprehensive, coordinated national response. What's happening now should be a surprise to nobody.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:48 PM ^
Hahahah you think we listen to the collective evaluation of experts in this country
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:04 PM ^
Hey man, my uncle sent me a Facebook post by a guy who claimed to have 4 PhD's who said it would be gone by August. So, like, who could have known?
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:19 PM ^
Your uncle is a moron/moran. It's going to disappear tomorrow (but only if Biden wins).
I saw it on Facebook.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:42 PM ^
It goes away with a vaccine. That was promised by election day. It is now election day...
BUT!
Election day is not yet over. It was never defined as "before" -- just "by", which could be interpreted as "by the end of ." There are still several hours left in election day, particularly including its extension to Alaska and Hawaii. By this time tomorrow, we shall have a vaccine and all will be good.
(/s, in case that's actually necessary)
November 3rd, 2020 at 2:59 PM ^
They would have if they'd locked the lawyers and PR flacks out of the room and just listened to the pandemic and public health experts who work and teach at their schools.
November 3rd, 2020 at 4:29 PM ^
I believe their intent was to lock the public health and infectious disease experts out of the room.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:06 PM ^
Biggest news of the day.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:09 PM ^
I think many more games are going to be cancelled (captain obvious, I know). Serious doubts about Wisconsin vs Michigan and I am not sure we even get a playoff since there is a good possibility Coronavirus surges in absence of a vaccine.
Football related: Michigan playing so many freshmen might be blessing in disguise seeing how this year is going.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:03 PM ^
I think that is part of the pandemic season strategy ... play the frosh and get them ready for 2021.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:14 PM ^
I believe so, and if so, then ipso facto, smart of coaches.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:09 PM ^
Hanging on by a thread. If they cancel our game they are done. 12 cases among staff seems to me like they really weren't trying very hard.
November 3rd, 2020 at 1:53 PM ^
"what? i wore a mask the whole time." -football coaches
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:09 PM ^
Hanging on by a thread. If they cancel our game they are done. 12 cases among staff seems to me like they really weren't trying very hard.
November 3rd, 2020 at 12:41 PM ^
So even the old folks are eating plenty of ass these days i Wisconsin!!!