Frustrated Big 10 fans no longer have to wait on the seesaw of indecision.
There will be no Big 10 fall football this year.
The rumors were hanging around all weekend and for the briefest of moments, it seemed that maybe, just maybe the conference would listen to the pleas of its fans, its players, and its coaches.
Thus it was not so.
According to multiple sources, the presidents throughout the conference voted to not play ANY fall sports (football may be king but a LOT of athletes are affected by this decision). The hope is that the country can get to a place of better control over the pandemic to allow for a spring sports season that would include the fall sports.
The Big 10 is the first of the Power 5 conferences to make the move to cancel or postpone fall sports. It's highly likely that the Pac 12 will shortly follow suit.
The ACC and SEC have both said they will continue on with their plans to play fall sports, meanwhile, the Big 12 is still rife with indecision.
This sets up some interesting possibilities, both Iowa and Nebraska have come out publicly saying that they want to play fall sports, they want to play football and if the Big 10 doesn't want to participate we will take our game elsewhere.
But what is the actual possibility of that happening? In a world where lucrative TV contracts exist, schedules are planned years in advance, where legal issues pop up like a field of mushrooms, will there be any wiggle room for teams to play out their season?
Furthermore, what does this do to the landscape of college football? Millions (Billions?!?) of dollars were lost in mere moments as the presidents of these institutions voted to do, what they felt was best and shut down sports for the fall.
One thing is for certain, in a world where the pandemic rages and we as sports fans look forward to ANY distraction, this is a dark day indeed.