The Big Ten conference begins to put forward a plan for both basketball and football. After postponing their football season, but still allowing student athletes to stay on campus and train with their teams, football is now being discussed as a winter sport.
The current work schedule, which is not set for a vote with the university presidents or has been finalized by medical staff, is for Big Ten schools to play eight league games starting at, or near, the beginning of the New Year.
Starting around January 1, the idea is that the league could play eight league games during January and February with a potential Big Ten Championship Game taking place in early March.
By completion around March 1, it would leave six months for athletes to recover in time for the next football season, which is approached as medically acceptable recovery time between two seasons.
From now on, according to a call from the league wide, a spring season is seen as unbearable, even in a short form due to the fall of 2021, and the league’s desire to keep that season completely intact.
Within this plan, the Big Ten would use domed stadiums in St. Louis. Louis, Minnesota, Indianapolis and Detroit, if possible one other site, to host the games.
Multiple games would be hosted on each site per day, so travel would be limited. This applies not only to players, but to television staff who would be on these sites the next day to potentially broadcast NFL games.
The Big Ten told the conference coaches that they felt competition was possible due to advances in testing, in particular SalivaDirect, which could allow testing day for all athletes involved in the competition.
Along with football, men’s basketball is also starting to be discussed over options, but the first priority is to figure out how to handle the football season, and the games that come with it.
Options for men’s basketball include playing at the end of November, although that at least may not happen now.
A simultaneous start to January with football is seen as more likely. This would be possible again due to the rapid testing. No specifications on games and where they would be hosted have been formally discussed for men’s basketball, but that is set to come.
As long as football happens in the winter, basketball is also set to play. Big ten basketball head coaches, all of whom were part of a two-plus-hour phone call Thursday, indicated that eventually the NCAA and what parameters they set for the NCAA Tournament will make the call, and the league will have to follow their lead.
Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior VP of basketball, said the organization aims to provide September leadership on the men’s basketball plan.
