Pitchin with Pritch: Big 10 will play football!
The Big 10 is up and running again! At least in some sports. The leadership of the Big 10 has taken a number of shots from member schools.
The University of Nebraska may be taking the lead in that department with a lawsuit against the Big 10.
It wasn’t for cancelling the season, but for lack of transparency in how the decision was made.
It has been kind of sketchy to say the least. The conference comes out with the 2020 football schedule.
Then, three days later, they told the teams they couldn’t practice in pads until further notice. Then, they came out and said no games would be played this fall at all with perhaps games being played in the spring.
Then, this last Saturday, after announcing earlier that there would be some games, they out came the schedule—eight regular season games and then a Big 10 Championship game.
They also added an extra game for each team on that last play date. The No. 2 team in each division would play each other, right on down the line with No. 3 teams playing each other, and so on.
Don’t know how they are going to handle ties, or games that might not be played because of Covid-19 showing up at some schools and not at others.
I am pretty sure this plan is not carved into stone because I would be willing to bet that there could be changes to it.
Saturday when the schedules were announced, I thought it was interesting seeing just how they would do that.
I have always had a feeling that the Big 10 has not yet finished their initiation procedures with Nebraska and then I saw the schedule.
My first thought was that it is not always good to pick a fight with the Big Dog that “runs” the Big 10 because he has the final say in a lot of things.
Opening game on the road with Ohio State. Ohio State was a pre-season pick in the NCAA D1 rankings at No. 2 in the country. Then we get Wisconsin at Lincoln the next week.
Then it is a game at Northwestern, Penn State at Lincoln, Illinois at Lincoln, then on the road to Purdue and finish at home with Minnesota.
I wonder if a law suit could improve our schedule any? Maybe we just should be happy to have a season.
I haven’t seen a TV schedule yet, but it was noted that the Ohio State game would be on Fox that first week. Rumor has it that just parents, coaches, officials etc. will be the only people allowed in the stands for the games.
I would bet the business people in Lincoln are thinking of ways to get some crowds into their places of business as I am typing this. I hope that the season can go on and that the Covid-19 doesn’t foul up the plans.
Although the Big 10 news was good, Coach Frost had a lot more to deal with this past week than football. His Dad, Larry Frost, passed away from cancer during the week.
Larry Frost was an outstanding high school player from Malcolm and also played at Nebraska for Bob Devaney.
He was an outstanding high school athlete and set a national high school record scoring 121 touchdowns, including nine in one game. He also coached at a number of schools and was a 2019 inductee to the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame.
Home teams doing well
Hats off to the local teams as they all had an outstanding week last week.
The volleyball team picked up several wins, including a revenge game versus South Platte. The girls golfers were successful in their home meet and the cross-country team performed well.
Junior high football got another win and the high school football team picked up a road win against Bayard.
I was pretty lucky in that I was able to get two rocks from some trucks to hit my rental car and crack the windshield all in a five-mile distance. I didn’t even have to practice for that, I just went out and got it done! As Mr. Dean Friedel often told me, “You got skills.”