On August 16, the Big 10 announced they would be cancelling fall sports for the 2020 season. The league says that they will attempt to move the football season to the spring, but with the NFL draft in the spring, many of the great players will sit out to prepare for the draft.

The schools’ presidents voted to not play fall sports this year, but the athletic directors from these schools were not consulted. Kevin Warren, President of the Big 10, has stopped football from being played, but his son, Powers Warren, is playing this year at Mississippi State. Not consulting the Big 10 athletic directors, and his own son playing football this year has upset many of the players and fans of the league.

Justin Fields, Ohio State’s quarterback, created a petition to let the players play, which already has over 300,000 signatures. Jim Harbaugh, the University of Michigan’s head coach, released facts that out of the last 350 COVID-19 tests, 0 were positive in the Michigan football program. Nebraska discussed alternative ways of playing football in the fall, and the Big 10 threatened to kick them out of the conference.

With the option to opt out of the season, the extremely low coronavirus cases and how badly the players want to play this fall, some argue there does not seem to be a valid reason to stop the sport in the fall.

Image courtesy of Big Ten Conference.