Iowa AD Gary Barta said Thursday that he is "gaining optimism that the Big Ten Conference can safely resume athletic competition before the new year, but said there would need to be a 'miracle' in order to start a football season next month," according to Mark Emmert of the DES MOINES REGISTER. Barta said that Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez is "leading a committee to come up with a new schedule, with various options for a winter or spring season." But Emmert notes there is a "push, particularly from the parents of players, to start much sooner than that." Barta said that Big Ten athletic officials are "talking daily about what it will take to hold a winter sports season, let alone reschedule the fall competitions that have been canceled." Discussion centers "primarily around medical concerns, including access to COVID-19 testing, a common protocol for quarantining athletes who contract the new coronavirus, and what the long-term impacts of the disease are on the heart and lungs" (DES MOINES REGISTER, 9/4).
WALKING IT BACK: In Detroit, Kirkland Crawford notes Penn State Dir of Athletic Medicine Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli on Monday said that cardiac MRI scans of Big Ten athletes who have tested positive for COVID-19 "showed around a third of them had symptoms of myocarditis." However, Penn State officials said that the number Sebastianelli referenced was "secondhand knowledge and not the final finding of the study." The university and doctor "apologized for 'any confusion'" (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 9/4).
BACK-AND-FORTH: ACC Network’s Mark Packer discussed the recent days of the Big Ten and Pac-12 in regards to starting a football season before Jan. 1, noting, “You can't just say, ‘Start, stop, start, stop, and let’s all hold off and wait for the Big Ten to get a clue or the Pac-12.’ That's nonsense.” Packer added, “The Big Ten has been the most unbuttoned up group I’ve ever seen here in the last three-and-a-half weeks. They make the NCAA look like a well-oiled machine” (“Packer & Durham,” ACC Network, 9/4).
