What the Big Ten's cancellation of non-conference football games this fall means to Maryland
As long as the league schedule gets played, the financial survival of the athletic department should be okay. Playing in the spring could be a win-win for Terps.
The announcement Thursday by Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren that non-conference football games have been cancelled this fall is simply the first step toward the inevitable decision to put off most if not all competition until the spring - if there is a vaccine by then to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus or at least mitigate the effects of COVID-19.
Still, what this means to the future survival of Maryland athletics is much different than what it means to many of its Big Ten brethren, especially at Ohio State and the seven other schools that have been largely operating in the black. According to a 2019 report on NJ.com, Maryland received in excess of $37 million from the Big Ten, second only behind Wisconsin.
A large percentage of that fat check came from the league’s television contract for football.
So what happens now?
As long as the Big Ten plays out the 2020 Big Ten schedule - whether that comes in the fall, the spring or some combination of the two - Maryland should be able to keep most if not all of its 19 teams intact. Darryll Pines, who took over as the school’s president on July 1, vowed during a recent teleconference to leave the fall teams untouched.
Understandably Pines might be forced to change his position depending on what happens with football.
Given the recent spike of positive tests, hospitalizations and COVID-19 deaths in states that are also hotbeds for college football - Texas, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and South Carolina topping the list for both - it seems only a matter of time before the ACC, Southeastern Conference, Big 12 and Pac-12 follow the Big Ten’s lead.
It also seems likely that the Power 5 conferences and others will follow the Ivy League, which announced Wednesday that all fall sports’ seasons were either going to be canceled or put on hold until the spring.
As long as a college football season can be played at some point in the 2020-21 calendar year, Pines and Maryland athletic director Damon Evans won’t be put in same unenviable spot as their immediate predecessors, former president Wallace Loh and former athletic director Kevin Anderson, were in 2012 and be forced to cut multiple sports as happened when seven teams were dropped amid a financial shortfall.
I have been writing for awhile now that a postponement to the 2020 season until the spring might actually work in Maryland’s favor. It will give second-year coach Mike Locksley and his staff more time to keep the momentum going in recruiting and several extra months for another young team - in particular redshirt quarterback Lance LeGendre - to prepare.
Playing in the spring might actually help level the playing field a bit for the Terps against what has been ranked as the toughest schedule in Football Bowl Subdivision. There has been speculation recently that the best players in the Big Ten, a large percentage of whom are in the East Division, will opt to sit out rather than risk injury and their NFL draft status.
Truth to be told, it was doubtful even before Thursday’s announcement that the Terps were going to win enough games to become bowl-eligible. Only one of the non-conference games - against Towson - was considered a likely victory, with a home game against Northern Illinois approaching that.
I wrote earlier this month that Maryland should seriously consider sending the athletes already on campus home in order to prevent an outbreak of COVID-19 cases, as had happened at other schools such as Clemson, LSU and Texas. Given that the Terps reported no positive tests after their football players returned in early June, it might be better now to keep them in College Park.
It seems unlikely that the recent spike in states in the Southeast, Southwest and West will be reversed any time soon unless the large percentage of the population continues to follow the simplest of proper protocol - the act of wearing a mask. It seems doubtful that a sport which risks the most random and repeated contact - football - can be played safely in the near future.
In an interview with the Big Ten Network Thursday, commissioner Warren said, “One thing we have to realize: this is not a fait accompli, that we’re going to have sports in the fall. We may not have sports in the fall. We may not have a college football season in the Big Ten. We made a vow early on that, first and foremost, we would put the health and safety and wellness of our student-athletes at the center of all our decisions.”
Warren called Thursday “the appropriate time” to announce the cancellation of non-conference games.
Unless the “miracle” President Trump promised us all back in the spring suddenly materializes, college football fans will likely have their Saturdays free come fall. Certainly in the Big Ten.