Big Ten football: 3 reasons returning this fall is a bad move
By Zach Bigalke
1. The Big Ten is sacrificing player health with this decision
The Big Ten announced as part of their return to the field that they would implement a comprehensive series of medical protocols, with the aim of ensuring that programs would not play in unsafe conditions.
The goal is that, in evaluating team positivity rates and the rates within the larger local population, such metrics can serve to prevent widespread transmission.
Details on the Big Ten protocols to dictate teams’ availability to play and practice, based on daily antigen testing, which will begin Sept. 30. pic.twitter.com/wMNPdkI4oX
— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) September 16, 2020
First, while considering team positivity rates as a percentage of actual tests administered is logical and rooted in sound statistical analysis, the second prong of this plan is asinine to the core. By calculating the population positivity rate using the total population of the team and staff rather than the tested population, the Big Ten hopes to game the numbers in a way that makes them look far better than they might actually be in reality.
They also completely neglect the ancillary impacts on the larger student body at each Big Ten campus.
Right now, Michigan State is quarantined as rates spike on the East Lansing campus. At Penn State, 6.43 percent of the student body tested so far has tested positive for COVID-19, disrupting opportunities for learning for more than 1,100 students on the University Park campus. In total, the 14 Big Ten member schools have seen more than 13,000 confirmed cases.
There have been 13,054 total confirmed cases of Covid-19 at the 14 Big Ten universities, according to each university's dashboard (some do not include cases in athletics programs). 3,973 of those cases were in the last 7 days.
— Benjy Renton (@bhrenton) September 16, 2020
Big Ten administrators: Let's play football! pic.twitter.com/LT5Lk1Cd92
We have already seen 10 FBS games canceled or postponed around the country over the first two weeks of the season. Schools have dealt with reduced practice opportunities as position groups are wracked with positive cases.
I will say, it’s weird to read headlines like “Team X had 75 COVID cases” and square that with the perception that the Big Ten is the league that bungled this worse than anyone.
— Austin Meek (@byAustinMeek) September 15, 2020
As cases climb around the Big Ten footprint, is it really shrewd policy to follow in the footsteps of leagues who have elected to infect large percentages of their rosters for the sake of keeping up the charade that football is essential?
We have already seen one player in Big Ten country die of complications from COVID-19. And even if no other players die, we do not yet know what long-term health issues might evolve out of contracting the virus.
The Big Ten presidents showed intestinal fortitude in electing to make the right move to protect their students’ health. Then they reversed course, showing that their primary concern is greenbacks rather than the wellbeing of the athletes upon whose shoulders those billions are generated.