Penn State AD Sandy Barbour doesn’t see Big Ten reversing its decision, looks ahead to spring
Since the Big Ten’s decision last Tuesday to postpone the fall 2020 college football season, players and players’ parents at Penn State — like at other programs across the Big Ten — have pushed back.
The Penn State Football Parents Association published a letter Saturday demanding the Big Ten reinstate the fall 2020 football schedule “as presented on Aug. 5.” And on Sunday, a #WeWantToPlay petition started by Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields gained support on social media from Penn State tight end Pat Freiermuth and other notable players in the conference. The petition also requested that the Big Ten reinstate its fall schedule.
But during a Zoom conference call Monday, Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour shut down almost any hope of the conference reversing its decision. She did, however, provide an optimistic outlook on the chances of a spring season.
“The presidents and chancellors made their decision based on science, based on the information from medical experts and based on concerns and uncertainty in a number of different categories,” Barbour said. “I don’t see that changing.”
Barbour said Big Ten athletic directors turned their attention to a possible spring season “pretty quickly” after the conference announced it wouldn’t play this fall. Though Barbour said athletic directors — working with coaches and sports science experts — haven’t yet locked down specifics on a plan for the spring, she believes general concepts for a potential spring season will be released sometime in the next week or so.
“We’ve put something together that I think is very compelling, and that our student-athletes and our fans and our communities will be pretty interested in,” Barbour said.
While some within the Big Ten have expressed that they believe a spring college football season is viable, others have been more skeptical. Former Ohio State head coach and current Ohio State assistant athletics director Urban Meyer said last week in an interview with the Big Ten Network that he believes there is “no chance” that college football will be played in the spring.
Meyer stated that playing two seasons in one calendar year would place too severe a toll on players’ bodies. He also noted that star players eligible for the NFL draft would have very little incentive to play in the spring.
“The body, in my very strong opinion, is not made to play two seasons within a calendar year,” Meyer said. “That’s 2,000 repetitive reps and football’s a physical, tough sport. So I don’t, really don’t, see that happening.”
When considering the health risks of players competing in the spring and having little recovery time before a fall season, Barbour said she and other decision-makers would listen to science and medical experts.
“We’ve already had a lot of conversations on … numbers of practices, types of practices, numbers of games,” Barbour said. “... So just like the decision around COVID, we’re going to rely on the science. We’re going to rely on our experts to tell us when something is too much.”
Barbour added that it was clear to her from the beginning that Penn State wouldn’t consider leaving the Big Ten to play out-of-conference games this fall.
This story was originally published August 17, 2020 at 5:53 PM.
