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The inevitable nightmare that is a fall without college football is another step closer to becoming a reality, as The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the 14 Big Ten schools voted to cancel the 2020 college football season on Sunday night.
The vote, which finished at 12-2 in favor of canceling fall sports (Nebraska and Iowa voted to play), reportedly took place on Sunday night, with a formal announcement to come on Tuesday. The decision from the Big 10 comes just a few days after the Mid-American Conference (MAC) became the first major FBS division to cancel its fall sports.
The Big Ten has voted to cancel the 2020 college football season in a historic move that stems from concerns related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, multiple people with knowledge of the decision confirmed to the Free Press.
The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the decision. A formal announcement is expected to Tuesday, the sources said.
The presidents voted, 12-2, Sunday to end the fall sports in the conference. Michigan and Michigan State — which both has physicians as presidents — voted to end the season, sources said. Only Nebraska and Iowa voted to play, Dan Patrick said on his radio show Monday. [via The Detroit Free Press]
Given the NCAA’s commitment to maintaining the ruse that student-athletes are “amateurs”, getting college football players back on the field was always going to be more difficult than getting professional, paid athletes back into the swing of things.
While the Big 10 and the MAC conferences are preparing to wave goodbye to the upcoming fall season, that’s not necessarily the case across the country, as reports from earlier this morning indicated that the SEC conference is hoping to get the ACC and the Big 12 to join them for some sort of abridged fall season.