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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Other conferences have changed their end-of-season schedules to help put their best teams up for the playoffs.
An influential Big Ten athletic director believes his league should follow suit if the state of Ohio suffers another cancellation.
Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez, who chaired the Big Ten return-to-play committee, told The Detroit News that the Big Ten should be flexible to help Ohio State reach the self-imposed six-game minimum. by the league to qualify for the championship game.
The Buckeyes have been in four games and are scheduled to play Michigan State on Saturday and against Michigan next week. Michigan, however, is on hiatus and has canceled Saturday’s game with Maryland due to an increase in COVID-19 cases.
The Ohio State’s scheduled game at Illinois last Saturday has been called off due to the Buckeyes’ increased case count. He assesses his own day-to-day situation prior to the trip to East Lansing.
Ohio State was No. 4 in the college football playoff standings each of the first two weekends. However, Iowa Selection Committee Chairman and AD Gary Barta said the lack of games played was problematic for the committee as it compares the Big Ten and Pac-12 teams to others. conferences that have played two or three times as many matches.
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“I would think if something happened to Ohio State and they had to cancel another game, that’s something we have to review,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez called the inaugural Big Ten Championship weekend – where all teams in the league would play crossover matches, not just the Big Ten Championship – as “kind of a flexible planning week.”
“We can make some adjustments on this last week,” Alvarez said. “But these are things that we are talking about and you should definitely consider, or reconsider.”
A known option
The Big Ten already has a mechanism to help teams avoid a hole in the schedule. If two teams cancel in a week, their opponents can go head to head. Teams must agree to play the game. According to a league source, there is an informal Wednesday noon deadline for such decisions, but the league is unlikely to object to a decision taken later in the day. the week.
For example, if Minnesota also cannot play again next week due to its ongoing coronavirus outbreak, and Michigan must also cancel, Ohio state and Nebraska could play each other. These teams played in the season opener, but the Big Ten are not prohibiting rematch under their rescheduling options.
Other conferences have been more proactive in streamlining their end-of-season schedules.
The ACC athletic directors recently decided to rate their season on a nine week schedule, rather than the originally scheduled 10. Notre Dame was undefeated and due to the rule change she has now locked a spot for an ACC Championship game, regardless of its result against 1-8 Syracuse. Clemson, whose only loss came to the Irish, plays at Virginia Tech.
If the Tigers win, they also advance to the CCA Championship game. Clemson and Notre-Dame are now gone on December 12. Other matches have been moved to complete this weekend.
The Big Ten have not indicated that such a restructuring would or could take place. However, as Alvarez noted, he also hadn’t released a schedule for the Championship weekend – dates, times or locations. Some flexibility cannot be excluded.
It helps the Ohio State cause that one of the Big Ten’s most influential voices is using it to say the Buckeyes shouldn’t be denied a championship opportunity based on a technicality. The question is: how far will the league go to make this happen?
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