I wanted to start a new thread as we are now entering a new chapter (albeit uncharted) into this pandemic and its effects on fall sports.

As we all know by now, the B1G has opted to play a 10 game conference schedule and no OOC games.

What does this mean?

1). Many schools just lost an OOC game and a big payday. I saw some info that the contracts are broadly written by the lawyers to exclude virtually every thing probably including the 'end times.'

2). Many schools will need to decide how to handle the loss of one or two games.

3). There are real bowl considerations, esp. for the B1G. Typically the B1G wins say 75 - 85% (just a guess) of their OOC games. Now those Ws have vanished. How many B1G teams will qualify for bowl games? How many wins required? 6? or maybe 5? What about for MAC teams who have say 2 games scheduled with B1G?

4). Looking at the 2019 results (conference games only) B1G might have trouble fielding more than say 6 or 7 bowl eligible teams. The typical B1G team has just loss, on average, two wins (that assumes a 67% OOC win rate).

https://www.espn.com/college-football/standings

5). Ivy league has cancelled all of their games. Any other conferences sitting on the fence????

More thoughts later...

I want to 'roll up' a post on scholarships and recruiting with the pandemic focus:

1). Many schools have recruited like there is no tomorrow... Full speed ahead. Others have gone slow, by chance or choice.

2). Remember what we know from baseball, the NCAA will have real decisions on continuing eligibility if part, but not all, of the 2020 season is played. Will players get another optional year if their team plays less than X games?

3). Where recruiting comes in: let's assume that less than say 1/2 the season is played. Do our 20+ seniors get another year of eligibility? If so, do we NOT want to have 20 returning seniors and 20 recruits who would have taken those 20 scholarships????

4). Is EMU smart by being very conservative in accepting verbals until say the season is say 1/3 completed?

Your thoughts.

Wanted to add a 'geek' note.

I was a guest student one summer at MSU. Had a course in probability. One concept was probability space. Simply stated all possible outcomes are delineated and probabilities assigned to each. Probs can be from 0 to 1 and the total of all events has to be 1.0. (for those who know dice. Roll two dice and the outcomes can be 2 - 12 and probabilities associated with each. There is ONLY ONE way to get '2' - roll one on each die. So 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/36 chance of rolling two; Same is true for rolling 12 on two dice).

https://www.statisticshowto.com/probability-space/

So computer programmers have to account for all possible events. E.g., someone fills out a questionnaire and for sex, the respondent marks both male and female or leaves it blank or... The data has to be 'cleaned.' The data has to be a valid value or missing.

A good lawyer thinks the same way. What if an act of nature (e.g., earthquake, hurricane, etc.), act of war, pandemic, riot or civil insurrection, weather (lightning, field flooded, etc.), declared national emergencies, etc. prevent the game from being played. E.g., if a game is postponed from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon because of lightning, are there any financial considerations (e.g., supplement to the road game guarantee?)

Or in 2020 cases, if fans are not permitted (or reduced to say 20%) to attend the game, will the road game guarantees be reduced to reflect the proceeds to the team making the guarantee?

No good lawyer leaves his (or her) backside uncovered. I bet future contracts will leave no stone un turned.

Why is this important? Well, unless the 2020 CFB season is cancelled we host one OOC team and visit three. Who knows what Army will do? Will Coastal Carolina want to come to Ypsi? Will games only be 'bus' games? And of course we have two SEC games scheduled.

And if this isn't crazy enough, I ran across this Tweet: Bottom line California community college football, basketball, etc. move to SPRING.

So our beloved CA JUCO football won't be played in fall before December signing period.

https://twitter.com/HD_DirtKing/status/1...77537?s=20

I don't think there will be bowl games.

(07-10-2020 11:23 AM)fanfrompowellspub Wrote:  I don't think there will be bowl games.

I partially agree with you. Maybe not the lower tier games, but there is too much money, prestige, etc. for biggies such as the NY 6 games, NC playoffs, etc.

Even MAC schools get a lot of money from the NCAA from the NC playoffs.

I wasn't alive during WWII, but was the Rose Bowl played in say 1944?

Interesting article and some good legal reasoning.


https://www.freep.com/story/sports/colle...262536002/

(07-10-2020 11:23 AM)fanfrompowellspub Wrote:  I don't think there will be bowl games.

I don't either. I think we need to just shut it down this season, regroup, and have a real season in 2021. It would be a half-assed, crappy product if they try to move ahead just for the sake of $$$

Dear steve,
There were Rose Bowls throughout World War II. However. the 1942 game was moved to North Carolina.

(07-10-2020 01:38 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear steve,
There were Rose Bowls throughout World War II. However. the 1942 game was moved to North Carolina.

Rose Bowl? North Carolina? What idiots.

Interesting article regarding the payment of game guarantees from sports lawyers. It's not as simple as pointing to "force majeure" clauses and P5 schools not paying up. https://www.sportico.com/2020/leagues/co...234608982/

Can it be "impossible" to play a game if it was *the school itself* who decided it was impossible to play? Remember, they are also planning to play other football games within conference.

"A conference’s decision to limit play to intraconference games would make out-of-conference matchups “impossible,” at least under conference rules. However, conferences make decisions with the input of members. To that point, the Big Ten made its decision “following many thoughtful conversations” with presidents, chancellors and athletic directors of member schools, as well as other stakeholders. This description relates to key language found in Section 9: To the extent a member school had some level of influence over the conference’s decision, then the “impossibility” of playing games might not be “beyond the control” of the school."

(07-10-2020 02:12 PM)Bob Wickersham Wrote:  

(07-10-2020 01:38 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear steve,
There were Rose Bowls throughout World War II. However. the 1942 game was moved to North Carolina.

Rose Bowl? North Carolina? What idiots.

Bob,

Pearl Harbor was Dec 7, 1941. The U.S. took steps to protect the West Coast from possible enemy attack.

This Rose Bowl was moved to Duke's stadium and the game was played Jan 1, 1942.

This was not unlike what happened in 2001 after 9/11 where the U.S. started to take extra precautions to prevent from another type of attack, esp. events with large number of people.

Sadly, all that I just posted will probably become a moot point. Seems like the movement now is toward pushing the season until Spring 2021-- Ivy League, NJCAA (the NCAA of JUCOs), some MAC ADs are publicly discussing that.

(07-10-2020 02:34 PM)FrankAnderson Wrote:  Sadly, all that I just posted will probably become a moot point. Seems like the movement now is toward pushing the season until Spring 2021-- Ivy League, NJCAA (the NCAA of JUCOs), some MAC ADs are publicly discussing that.

Even though the MAC has a limited number of NFL drafees, it will be BAD for CFB / NFL if college players play until say May and then go to NFL camp in July.

That is way too short of recovery for such a physically demanding game.

I'm reminded of all of the saying, "all of the options are bad."

P.S. Could you imagine a coach issuing scholarships to players in December (2020) or February (2021) before the 2020 college season is played during the spring of 2021. Normally a coach would like to see the current season before making personnel decisions about the next one.

Yep, we're in totally uncharted territory. If it weren't for money, I would say there's no way a Spring 2021 football season would work.

But both P5 and G5 ADs are desperate for the $$$ from football and will do anything they can to not lose that revenue. Even if we end up with a seriously effed up draft and Fall 2021 season.

BTW, the lawyers will have fun.

OSU cancels 2 games with MAC schools and ADDS a conference game.

Doesn't sound like the games were cancelled by the pandemic, esp. If a cancelled game is replaced on the same day with a conference game.

The schools will need to negotiate it.

Make no mistake about it, the Big Ten decision to stay in conference was simply a cost cutting move, health concerns were not considered. U-M, OSU, PSU etc... have in excess of 100,000 stadium seats that they "rent" on game days for in many cases a sum north of $100 each. 100000 times 100 equals ten million dollars and that does not include concessions or parking revenues. Those payday games for the MAC are chump change for the Power 5 revenue programs.

If there is no attendance allowed, however, why would Nebraska want to pay CMU a million dollars to come play a football game? Then one might ponder why would they play conference games either? The answer is Fox Sports. Fox owns the Big Ten Network and the TV contract is incredibly lucrative, losing the Big Ten televised season would cost the league a whole lot of money. Based on what is going on nationally now the fall season is probably already gone but the BIG AD's are still clinging to hope.

Frank, you are correct, we are in uncharted territory. Steve, you raise some really great issues, we are indeed trying to fix this airplane in flight and I am sure of only one thing, we don't know what we don't know in this crisis.

(07-10-2020 05:02 PM)Jerry Weaver Wrote:  Make no mistake about it, the Big Ten decision to stay in conference was simply a cost cutting move, health concerns were not considered. U-M, OSU, PSU etc... have in excess of 100,000 stadium seats that they "rent" on game days for in many cases a sum north of $100 each. 100000 times 100 equals ten million dollars and that does not include concessions or parking revenues. Those payday games for the MAC are chump change for the Power 5 revenue programs.

If there is no attendance allowed, however, why would Nebraska want to pay CMU a million dollars to come play a football game? Then one might ponder why would they play conference games either? The answer is Fox Sports. Fox owns the Big Ten Network and the TV contract is incredibly lucrative, losing the Big Ten televised season would cost the league a whole lot of money. Based on what is going on nationally now the fall season is probably already gone but the BIG AD's are still clinging to hope.

Frank, you are correct, we are in uncharted territory. Steve, you raise some really great issues, we are indeed trying to fix this airplane in flight and I am sure of only one thing, we don't know what we don't know in this crisis.

BTW, for me this is "Pandemic Friday."

I saw a tweet (below) which really suggests that MLB seems to have a real handle on the virus.

https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/128...40544?s=20

Most governors would 'kill' to have a positive Covid test rate < 1%. With some good quarantining that can be brought down to near 0.

MLB seems to be a 'case study' of how to handle the virus.

We need to see how the NBA does.

(07-10-2020 05:28 PM)emu steve Wrote:  

(07-10-2020 05:02 PM)Jerry Weaver Wrote:  Make no mistake about it, the Big Ten decision to stay in conference was simply a cost cutting move, health concerns were not considered. U-M, OSU, PSU etc... have in excess of 100,000 stadium seats that they "rent" on game days for in many cases a sum north of $100 each. 100000 times 100 equals ten million dollars and that does not include concessions or parking revenues. Those payday games for the MAC are chump change for the Power 5 revenue programs.

If there is no attendance allowed, however, why would Nebraska want to pay CMU a million dollars to come play a football game? Then one might ponder why would they play conference games either? The answer is Fox Sports. Fox owns the Big Ten Network and the TV contract is incredibly lucrative, losing the Big Ten televised season would cost the league a whole lot of money. Based on what is going on nationally now the fall season is probably already gone but the BIG AD's are still clinging to hope.

Frank, you are correct, we are in uncharted territory. Steve, you raise some really great issues, we are indeed trying to fix this airplane in flight and I am sure of only one thing, we don't know what we don't know in this crisis.

BTW, for me this is "Pandemic Friday."

I saw a tweet (below) which really suggests that MLB seems to have a real handle on the virus.

https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/128...40544?s=20

Most governors would 'kill' to have a positive Covid test rate < 1%. With some good quarantining that can be brought down to near 0.

MLB seems to be a 'case study' of how to handle the virus.

We need to see how the NBA does.

MLB will be an interesting case. Yes, it is good news that they have a low percentage now but let’s see how well that keeps up with these teams traveling around the country. With how contagious COVID-19 is, it sadly wouldn’t take much to derail it.

I don't think it was posted yet, but the PAC 12 is going to conference only like the Big Ten.

Now with two games with SEC teams, I could see those still happening for Eastern since the SEC is a bit of a different animal and I could see them NOT going conference only unless they are forced too. My guess, at least the MAC, and probably all of college football goes conference only. So what would that look like for us? I think I read the big ten (which usually plays 12 games, with nine being conference) is going to play 10 games. So essentially they would be replacing their three non-conference games with one conference game, if I'm correct on that.

So with the MAC playing eight games I wonder if they'd keep that as is or if they'd add at least a few conference games? Maybe we could add Akron haha! Heck, they could just play everyone in the MAC and play an 11 game schedule instead of 12 games this year.

The other question would be how will bowls work (assuming they have them this year)? For the big ten for example, if they play only 10 games do they still need six wins to qualify or change it to four or five wins? Or perhaps the rule for this year is you have to win half the games you play. The only issue with that could if you only play nine games you can't with 4.5 games so how'd that be determined?