First-year Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren maintained his first truly tumultuous news cycle this week. Through all the emotional crosswinds and open-antagonism, there was no petulance of Big Ten school like Nebraska.
Cornhuskers coach Scott Frost held a news conference on Monday to essentially announce that Nebraska would try to go rogue if the Big Ten canceled the fall football season. The news conference doubled as a pep rally and local media jumped on board, speculating about future opponents without uttering the phrase “licensing rights”.
The entire University of Nebraska doubled on Tuesday from Frost on the hunt for the Big Ten’s decision to cancel the fall season, saying it was “very disappointed.” The release included everyone from the chancellor to the coach and said Nebraska “[hopes] it may be the opportunity for our student-athletes to compete. In other words, they were standing on their porch in Lincoln, flying Warren in unison.
When Warren was specifically asked by Yahoo Sports if Nebraska could play college football this fall, he gave an answer that nodded his hardline predecessor with approval.
“No,” he said stiffly. “Not to be a member of the Big Ten Conference.”
Warren’s narrow resistance from Nebraska is a nice window into the bottom line that he used to help guide the decision that could ultimately define his career as a Big Ten commissioner. He politely told Nebraska that if it goes rough, it can pack it where the corn is not clean. And the league would be happy to keep its $ 50 million cut and share it with those who enjoy playing.
Warren’s stance on Nebraska’s fall football fantasy would make former commissioner Jim Delany proud. Delany ruled the league with swagger, intimidation and the random f-bomb. It’s safe to say that Nebraska would not have tried to rogue with Delany in the commissioner’s chair because it would have received phone calls with Delany’s jersey-colored folks. And probably it would be guaranteed that the Cornhuskers would have opened their league schedule on the road for the next three years with some combination of Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan as a reminder of who is in the lead.
Warren has not been perfect through his eight-month baptism by blowtorch as commissioner of Big Ten. He frightened some of his colleagues of the commissioners when he surprised them by going to a conference-only schedule. He certainly burned some goodwill with his coaches, athletic directors and presidents with the clumsy way in which the Big Ten came to the decision.
Warren’s job teaches the nuances of college football ecosystems during a pandemic – he came from the front office of Minnesota Vikings – is tantamount to declining peace talks in the Middle East and speaking them in sign language . There is a segment of coaches and ADs tainted with the way the league’s decision unfolded, most notably the lack of a plan to tell student athletes about the spring’s specifications and their suitability.
Warren is proud to be a consensus builder. A key word that every conference uses when announcing decisions is “unanimous”, even if their decisions are not unanimous. At least they are always advertised as such. That was telling that the Big Ten did not carry that word in their press release Tuesday. It meant that Warren navigated an unusual situation, without even pretending that everyone was coming along.
This was a no-win situation for Warren. Lead a decision to cancel the fall season and the players, coaches and fans all revolt. Lead a decision to play in the midst of a pandemic and you lose the academics and medical professionals. Eventually, the Big Ten ended up in a smart spot. There is an exponentially better chance that the remaining three major conferences will participate in the Big Ten on the sidelines than there is in those leagues that end the season. Vegas would not even give you odds on that bet.
From a risk management perspective, there is also a strong argument that leagues have a better chance of ending up with shiny problems than they actually do this season. No matter your politics, view of the virus or perspective on the season, this 2020 fall football season has always been a slog with long odds. That has been a bit lost over the past 72 hours.
Cut through the roar of emotion this week and it remains a daunting challenge to navigate an entire season this fall. There are health risks both known and unknown, tens of thousands of students returning to campuses and a lack of frequent and accurate testing. Maybe this will be better in the spring. Maybe that will not be the case. But the best chance for any medical breakthrough that the sport could allow to remain remains rapid and accurate testing.
Warren’s reason gives us a glimpse of what we will see of him in the coming years as a leader. He has conviction and principle, and the baseline of his decision is hard to argue against, no matter how bad your favorite team may look.
“If you’re dealing with people’s lives, you can have ‘I do not know,'” Warren said in a telephone interview. ‘These are amateur athletes, they are not professionals. They are amateurs. We are not the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball. ”
When Warren realized that there were too many questions of which he did not know the answers, he was put off for details. He asked: How many times can you get COVID-19? How does contact tracking really work? What does intensive training do for asymptomatic or symptomatic individuals taking COVID-19?
“There’s a whole litany of items from a health and wellness standpoint where there are different opinions,” Warren said. He just thought “I do not know” was an adequate answer.
Warren will not be invited to the Lincoln or Columbus Touchdown Club to speak as soon as possible. And it will take him some time to navigate the political damage in his league.
But when the Big Ten landed the plane and jumped on the runway for the past 72 hours, Warren’s actions remained rooted for pragmatic reasons. Through contradiction, character is revealed. And Warren’s has been shown to be wrong on the side of safety, health and caution.
As for the most extreme signs of disrespect in Lincoln, Warren showed that he is not afraid to stand up for schools that try to rally his base at his expense. Now, the Cornhuskers have the guts to follow. The hip here is her actions will be much calmer than her words.
More from Yahoo Sports:
