The Big Ten announced today it will play a fall football season after all this year, with conference coaches and players rejoicing everywhere.
The initial feedback wasn't all positive, however, with a few national writers blasting the league and Commissioner Kevin Warren for their decision to reverse course now.
Below is a closer look at what's being said about the Big Ten's move to bring football back, with both plenty of positivity and negativity mixed in.
• Adam Rittenberg and Heather Dinich, ESPN: Big Ten Football is Back: What you Need to Know
Could the Big Ten be ready in time for the College Football Playoff?
"With a late October start date, the Big Ten can still finish its season and crown a champion in time to be considered for a semifinal spot, but it has to be approved by the playoff's management committee.
"All 10 of the FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick would determine whether the Big Ten can rejoin the CFP. ACC commissioner John Swofford, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby will carry the most weight in the room, as they will have navigated their leagues through longer schedules.
"It would be difficult for them to say no, but they probably won't be thrilled with the Big Ten playing a shortened season. It might not just be the Big Ten, though, that the commissioners will have to debate.
"What if Clemson only plays six games? Can Clemson still qualify for the CFP? What if Alabama only plays seven games? Can the Tide still qualify for a semifinal spot? The CFP has yet to determine any benchmarks teams have to meet this season, and CFP executive director Bill Hancock told ESPN on Wednesday it doesn't have to yet.
"'There is no need to make a decision now,' he said. 'Just like everything else in 2020, we will wait and evaluate the circumstances and decide.'
"Hancock said the committee's job is to rank teams based on their performances on the field in schedules determined by the conferences. 'We will follow whatever protocol is determined by the management committee,' Hancock said. 'Scheduling is a decision made by the conferences and we respect and welcome whatever actions the conferences take.'"
"1. In just six weeks, the Big Ten went from claiming it couldn't safely play because of a) heart-related issues and b) an inability to test/contact trace appropriately, to announcing an October kickoff to the season.
"So what changed? The doctors changed their medical opinion, according to Big Ten officials, due to advancements in testing and deeper knowledge of myocarditis.
"'The medical advice changes. The facts changed and our minds changed,' says [Northwestern President Morton] Schapiro.
2. [Big Ten Commissioner Kevin] Warren doesn't want to talk about the past. He's moving forward and did his best Wednesday to dance around questions about this six-week ordeal in which lawsuits were filed, attacks were made and even a protest (though small) broke out in front of Big Ten headquarters.
"'One of the easy things to do is turn around, look back and say what was 'poor' and what was 'good,'' he says. 'We're passionate in the Big Ten. ... I take that as a positive.'"
"You understand why the Big Ten is doing it, playing football after all, starting the weekend of Oct. 23-24. It's because the SEC is playing. And the ACC and the Big 12. Because they’re playing football in the NFL.
"And at high schools. Seriously, you get it. We know more about the coronavirus today than we did on Aug. 11, when the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced they were postponing the 2020 college football season.
"COVID-19 testing has improved, getting cheaper, faster. Big Ten presidents believe they can minimize breakouts by performing rapid-result testing on every player and coach, every staffer, every day.
"They will be tested before practices and games, and if you test positive, you're out for 21 days. That’s the science, and you understand the science. But also you understand the optics:
"In Ohio, the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns just opened their 2020 NFL schedule. High school football is well underway. But they can’t play at Ohio State? Here in Indiana, same thing. The Indianapolis Colts just played their opener.
"High school football is rolling. It hasn’t been perfect, no, with dozens of canceled games around the state, but they have football at stadiums in Bloomington and Lafayette.
"So why can’t they have it at IU and Purdue? Notre Dame, located in the heart of Big Ten country, just played its first game. The Irish were able to do that after a coronavirus outbreak on campus three weeks earlier.
"Notre Dame took its students out of the classroom, made them switch to virtual learning, and stared down the pandemic. Students were back in class last week. In a resounding victory over the coronavirus, the Irish football team played on Saturday, right there in South Bend, in front of a crowd of nearly 10,000.
"And on national television. Oh, you understand why Big Ten presidents want to play football. Even as the coronavirus ravages their campuses."
"The Big Ten was doing the right thing looking out for its student-athletes, treating them almost no differently than the student body at large, and that was all that mattered. Then came Wednesday, the darkest day in Big Ten sports history, the day the vaunted conference caved.
"It choked. It got scared. It became the SEC. Just as the Big Ten was looking smarter by the day as COVID-19 outbreaks popped up at Michigan State, Wisconsin and Maryland while other conferences playing football announced COVID-related postponements and soaring cases, the league's presidents reversed themselves and decided to steer their schools and their football programs right into the teeth of what are predicted to be some of the worst days of the pandemic in October and November.
"And how are they doing it? With a mountain of daily antigen tests, special delivery for Big Ten football teams only. Rapid tests for football players, but apparently not for the elderly in Ann Arbor or Columbus or Evanston, or for school children and teachers in Bloomington or New Brunswick or Minneapolis, or for students paying for their education amid the outbreaks in East Lansing or Madison or College Park."
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