After presidents meet, Big Ten football still in limbo

Posted September 13, 2020 7:00 am

By RALPH D. RUSSO

The Big Ten presidents were presented a comprehensive plan Sunday to conduct a fall football season, but a final decision is still to come.

A person with direct knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that the full Council of Presidents and Chancellors heard from all the subcommittees of the conference's Return to Competition Task Force over 2 1/2 hours. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the Big Ten was not making its return to competition plans public.

The person said the meeting broke up without the presidents and chancellors voting and with no set plans for them to reconvene.

Still, if they act quickly Big Ten football could kickoff as soon as the weekend of Oct. 17.

The medical part of the presentation focused on what has changed since the conference postponed its entire fall sports season on Aug. 11 because of COVID-19 concerns and how football could be played safely. The emergence of daily rapid-response COVID-19 testing, not available when university leaders decided to pull the plug on the season looms large.

If the Big Ten can start by late October, an eight-game season and conference championship game in mid-December is still possible. That schedule could set up Big Ten teams to be part of the College Football Playoff.

Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at http://www.westwoodonepodcasts.com/pods/ap-top-25-college-football-podcast/

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More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2013, file photo, Ohio State plays against Florida A&M at Ohio Stadium during an NCAA college football game in Columbus, Ohio. What is most commonly referred to as major college football (aka NCAA Division I Bowl Subdivision or FBS) is compromised of 130 teams and 10 conferences. Seventy-seven of those teams are scheduled to play throughout the fall, starting at various times in September. The other 53, including the entire Big Ten and Pac-12, have postponed their seasons and are hoping to make them up later. That means no No. 2 Ohio State, No. 7 Penn State, No. 9 Oregon and six other teams that were ranked in the preseason AP Top 25. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete, File) The Associated Press

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