Big Ten postpones college football season, but leaves plenty of questions unanswered
The Big Ten’s announcement Tuesday afternoon that it is postponing its 2020-21 fall sports season officially cancels fall college football for the conference. Though the league will attempt to play in the spring, there are plenty of questions that will need to be answered before then.
In an appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up” Tuesday morning, Penn State head coach James Franklin touched on a few uncertainties that come with not playing college football in the fall. Franklin spoke out against the idea of the Big Ten canceling the fall college football season because of the lack of clarity surrounding any alternative plan.
The seventh-year head coach said he had virtual meetings with his players and his players’ parents Monday night, but he didn’t have the answers to many of their questions about player scholarships and eligibility.
“I’m on a call last night with the parents and our players, and they’re asking me a bunch of questions,” Franklin said. “‘What does this mean for my scholarship? What does this mean for my eligibility? Do I get another year?’ What does this mean for the fifth-year seniors? What does it mean for the underclassmen? With the high school kids that graduate early and come in, how are they going to be on the roster?”
Neither the Big Ten in its statement on Tuesday nor Commissioner Kevin Warren in his appearance on the Big Ten Network provided many answers.
But Franklin and other coaches in the Big Ten as well as the Pac-12 — which also announced Tuesday that it will cancel its fall football season — will have plenty of their own questions, too. They’ll have to figure out how different their rosters will look once their programs can return to competition.
Penn State already lost linebacker Micah Parsons, who chose to opt out of the college football season last week and declare for the NFL draft. With a potential spring season finishing close to the start of the 2021 NFL draft, scheduled to begin April 29, other Nittany Lions could also choose to forgo their final college season.
The SEC and ACC are still set to play as scheduled, and the Big 12 could also still continue with its path forward to play this fall. Players who are fifth-year seniors — like defensive tackle Antonio Shelton, defensive end Shaka Toney, right tackle Will Fries and center Michal Menet — could choose to transfer to a school within one of those conferences and be granted immediate eligibility to play this season.
In March, the NCAA’s Division I Council voted to provide spring-sport athletes who competed in the COVID-19-shortened spring season an additional year of eligibility. It remains to be seen whether the NCAA will provide this year’s fall-sport athletes the same benefit.
Though it is finally confirmed that Penn State and other Big Ten programs will not play this fall, the list of questions that the NCAA and the conference will have to address is just beginning.
“You cancel the season, and then people ask you, ‘Well, Coach, what does this mean for my future?’” Franklin said Tuesday morning. “And we don’t have any of those answers right now.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 7:25 PM.
