re: Doyel: Big Ten swings and misses on a brand-damaging Monday, looking dumb and weak

quote:

---

What can you reasonably make of a situation where the only schools still wanting to play college football are the ones with the most money at stake? Where most of the schools without any financial incentive to play are shutting down to protect their students?

---

quote:

---

Here’s what you can make of it: If we get college football, we’ll get it for the wrong reasons. We won’t get college football because student-athletes are safer on campus than off it, the absurd fallacy floated by Trevor Lawrence and then clung to by those who want this season to happen

---

quote:

---

Damn near half the Clemson team tested positive for the coronavirus this summer. How safe were they? And soon, when they leave the football facility – college does not happen in a cocoon – they will be in classes and bars and restaurants and maybe even, who knows, parties with thousands of students who don’t have the same protocols as the football team.

---

quote:

---

And now we know that, even though COVID-19 doesn’t kill college students at nearly the rate that it kills older folks, it can and does leave permanent heart damage. An ESPN report found that five Big Ten athletes who battled the coronavirus were left with a life-altering parting gift: myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. IU lineman Brady Feeney was diagnosed with COVID-19 and has an undisclosed heart condition.

---

quote:

---

When the Big Sky Conference announced last week that it was moving football to the spring, it defended its decision like so:

“The health and safety of our students is our top priority, and ultimately that concern guided our decision-making process,” said Andy Feinstein, president of the University of Northern Colorado and chair of the Big Sky Presidents’ Council.

Easy for him to say. The Big Sky doesn't cash checks from ESPN.

---