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Interesting tidbit s from Jon Wilner who is pretty much considered the most connected guy across the entire P12. Couldn’t remove all the ads.  And a lot of the links require subscription.  But the long and short is that it probably was the right, and only, call to kill the season.

Three days after Pac-12 football shuttered for the first time in history, we’re left to make sense of the decision.

Why did the presidents hit cancel instead of pause?

Why not trudge on like the SEC and Co.?

What tipped the vote on that momentous Tuesday?

After reading or listening to every public comment from key officials and after speaking with sources across the conference, the Hotline has created an equation to help explain the decision.

The more concrete the details appear, the more logical the process seems, the easier it becomes for fans to grasp and accept.

Our equation: CG + TS + MU x T2 = C

Here we go …

CG = Conditions on the Ground

In contract to other conferences, half the Pac-12 campuses are located in large metropolitan areas.

The community spread and public ordinances in several of those regions created challenges for teams to start training camp on Aug. 17 and muddled the outlook for them to receive clearance later in August. 

imp?s=740959&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614
imp?s=740960&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614 imp?s=740962&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614

TS= Testing Speed

Remember the optimism for college football that dominated public comments from key officials in the spring?

It was largely based on the presumption that Covid-19 testing capacity, speed and accuracy would allow athletic departments to reach the necessary standards to keep players and coaches safe.

Welp, that optimism was horse-collared by the realities of August: The conference's medical advisory committee set the bar at testing players “within 24 hours of competition.”

Because PCR tests have a 36-hour turnaround time, point-of-care (POC) tests are essential. But as the advisors noted in their report, POC tests are limited in availability.

If they can’t test players on Friday night or Saturday morning — and have the results back before kickoff — the risk for asymptomatic spread on the field is unsettlingly high.

MU = Medical Unknowns

The presidents were generally uneasy about the long-term health effects of Covid-19, but they were particularly concerned about Myocarditis -- the technical term for inflammation of the heart caused by viral infections. (In severe cases, Myocarditis can cause heart failure.) 

It’s not new to the medical community, but recent instances in athletes — including a Big Ten football player — have been tied to Covid-19.

The medical experts made it clear to the coaches, athletic directors and presidents that, for all they know about Myocarditis, much remains unknown.

“We just don't know in asymptomatic, elite athletes what the prevalence or incidence is,” Arizona president Robert Robbins, a heart surgeon, told Tucson.com. (More on Robbins' comments below.)

T2 = Time Squared.

Were the conditions on the ground, the issues with testing speed and the medical unknowns all viewed as temporary issues, the presidents likely would have agreed to simply pause.

But the advisers indicated that all three issues would linger deep into the fall.

The backdrop to competition, in other words, would look exactly the same in a month, or two months. 

This resonated deeply with the presidents — hence the squaring of time in our equation — and they were staunchy opposed to dragging the fall sports athletes through more weeks of uncertainty with so little chance of the outlook brightening.

C = Cancellation.

The daunting immediate obstacles compounded by skepticism that anything would change in time for the season to be salvaged led to the decision to cancel.

Officially, the conference is using the term "postpone," because of the possibility that fall sports could be moved to the spring.

The Hotline views spring competition as eminently possible — in soccer, volleyball and field hockey.

But football is an entirely different situation. Compared to the others, it’s a logistical beast.

The willpower required to move the sport … the level of planning required … the sheer number of rule changes and exceptions necessary ... make a restart in early 2021 difficult even if the health and safety pieces (CG, TS and MU) all fall into place.

Hardly impossible, but exceedingly difficult. — Jon Wilner.

imp?s=740971&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614
imp?s=740972&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614 imp?s=740974&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614
HOTOFF THE HOTLINE

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*** Please note: Unlike Pac-12 football and basketball, the Hotline isn't shutting down for the fall. As the past five months have shown, there is plenty to report, analyze and discuss even when competition is on hiatus. We're full speed ahead.

• "Pac-12 football has overcome two World Wars, one Great Depression, the Spanish Flu, California earthquakes and a slew of other epic societal events, but it couldn’t beat coronavirus." Thus began our account of an unprecedented event in conference history -- an account that includes the specific health and safety data that swayed the presidents. 

So what's next?

• The Hotline offered a detailed plan for spring football -- everything from a suggested calendar to ways to mitigate the physical toll on players to ideas for providing coaches with the roster flexibility needed. 

• We also outlined, with help from Cal's Mark Fox and Arizona's Sean Miller, the conference's working plan for restarting basketball in January. It includes a creative way to turn the travel partners into weekend pods to reduce coronavirus risk levels.. 

• Previous editions of the newsletter are available in archived form.

Support the Hotline: Several Hotline articles will remain free each month (as will the newsletter), but for access to all content, you'll need to subscribe. I've secured a rate of $1 per week for a full year or just 99 cents for the first month, with the option to cancel anytime. Click here. And thanks for your loyalty.


Halls of Academia

• Arizona president Robert Robbins, the former chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford, chatted with tucson.com about the decision to shutter football. Robbins covered the Myocarditis issue and even addressed the differences in approaches across Power Five conferences. "So when we started to put it all together, we just thought it was the better part of valor – the prudent, cautious route to just say, ‘Let’s suspend. Let 's take a pause. We'll revisit this over the coming months, because we'll have more data then.”

• Oregon president Michael Schill, chair of the Pac-12 CEO Group, offered a clear, candid explanation for the decision in an interview with John Canzano's Bald-Faced Truth radio show. Schill addressed testing issues, local conditions and the medical unknowns -- all of it. Bottom line: "The timelines weren’t going in the right direction." Here's the full interview on Soundcloud.


ADs Corner

• Colorado athletic director Rick George indicated layoffs and furloughs were a distinct possibility at CU. (A few cuts were made in the spring.) However, he was adamant that the Buffaloes will not eliminate sports teams ... George also favors the appointment of a commissioner for college football. "I don’t know if my peers share the same thing but I certainly think that this would be a time for us to figure out one voice for college football and what that looks like."

• Cal's Jim Knowlton maintained his position that cutting sports -- the Bears sponsor 30 of them, with 800+ student athletes -- is "an absolute last resort." He added that the school has "a plan in place ready to go if we are short, roughly $50 million in revenue."

• Washington State's Pat Chun fielded questions from the media on a range of topics, including the financial impact on WSU's department. Here's the transcript, courtesy of the Spokesman-Review. On spring football: "I don’t know if it’s feasible, but I know we’re going to do our best to see if we can make it feasible. I think we owe it to our student-athletes to see if there’s an option out there that make sense relative to 12 months of football."


 

• NCAA president Mark Emmert on Thursday endorsed the idea of creating a bubble for March Madness, a significant development in clearing the way for the tournament (if the virus is under control). It should add motivation to conferences seeking ways to play most, if not all of the 2020-21 season.

• And here's Emmert on the NCAA's authority over college football -- or lack thereof.

• CBS Sports has suggestions for Pac-12 fans seeking new teams to root for. As an example, Arizona fans should consider Texas Tech and Syracuse. "Every couple of years the Wildcats will cycle up and cause some trouble, particularly for Pac-12 title hopefuls, so let's line up with some teams that have similar chaos-wielding potential and history." Here's the full list.

• The Salt Lake Tribune's Gordon Monson believes the season was canceled for one reason: Liability. "Those powers-that-be do not want to be held responsible, to have piled upon other monetary losses heavy lawsuits from student-athletes who may have legal grounds to blame universities and those who run them for the spread of COVID-19 and the damages that such spread may cause."

• The Daily News' Mark Whicker believes spring football should be the goal -- not just in 2021 but annually. "Use the January 1 bowl games as a dazzling Opening Day ... Start in the bad weather. Finish in the good. Play an Apple Cup game when apples actually grow."

• The Pac-12 got it right with the decision to abort this fall, writes Greg Hansen of tucson.com. "There is so much more at stake during the coronavirus pandemic than a few postponed football games."

• USC coach Clay Helton isn't worried about losing transfers to the SEC and other thoughts on the state of Trojans football.

• Perspective from ASU coach Herm Edwards, who specializes in that field.

• Uncertainty abounds at UCLA, where the football program has been dealing with tumult for many seasons.

• Colorado coach Karl Dorrell was hired Feb. 23. His first six months on the job have been just a tad chaotic.

• Oregon's Mario Cristobal is "open to anything" when it comes to spring football but echoed concerns about the logistics.

• Good assessment of the eligibility issues facing Utah, which are representative of the situation across the conference -- for athletes in all fall sports.

• Speaking of representing the collective: Washington has numerous questions and elusive answers.

• Challenges abound for the Pac-12 as the focus turns to a possible spring season, writes the L.A. Times' Ryan Kartje. “As an orthopedic surgeon, it gives me a little bit of pause to play two seasons in a calendar year,” said Dr. Seth Gamradt, who works at USC and is a member of the Pac-12 medical advisory board. “But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.”


MONEY MATTERS

 

• Utah projects a $50 million loss (minimum) without football. "We know it’s going to be a really tough road ahead, but we’ve been working cooperatively with university leadership," athletic director Mark Harlan explained. "Certainly our conference, which has been reported, has provided options that we will continue to explore, but we don’t hide from the fact that it’s going to be a great challenge for us going forward."

• A sketch of what football means to Arizona, albeit using financial data from a few years ago. Bottom line, writes Bruce Pascoe of tucson.com: "After Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke forecasted a $7.5 million pandemic-related deficit last spring through the end of 2019-20, coach and staff salary reductions mitigated about half of it. That isn't going to cut it this time. Not even close."

• "All things considered, the financial impact of a postponed fall season will be devastating by any measure." That's the outlook for Washington's 2021 budget from the Seattle Times' Mike Vorel, who notes the Huskies have mitigation strategies in place and will likely turn to donors for help. Yes, Amazon's stock price has soared. But the Huskies also took in $84 million in football revenue in FY19.

• Oregon State plans to pursue long-term borrowing in order to offset an expected $58 million budget hit, per oregonlive's Nick Daschel, who spoke to OSU president F. King Alexander. "We can stretch this pandemic loss over a lot of years, even a couple decades, and pay it back as we go. Interest rates are very, very low." 


Legal Affairs

• Several U.S. senators, including New Jersey's Cory Booker (a former Stanford football player), are planning to introduce "a bill of rights" for NCAA athletes that includes provisions for healthcare and NIL (name, image and likeness). Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders are among those on board, according to Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger. "The bill will be introduced in the 'coming months' and is intended to advance 'justice and opportunity' for college athletes, according to the joint statement."


Looking Ahead

What’s coming on the Pac-12 Hotline:

• Even if the news cycle came to a halt today, which it won't, we could fill the Hotline with Pac-12 football content for months on end -- such is the bottomless well of ideas put forth by our crack research team. We'll take immediate aim at several issues in the media rights realm, personnel moves within the conference and the whereabouts of certain notable Pac-12 alumni.

• Also, look for an uptick in frequency of Hotline podcasts as we approach September, to help readers fill the void.

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4 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

well, sure, that's kind of my point-- I feel like to the extent we've proven anything about CTE and football, a college football player's more likely to suffer long-term consequences related to CTE than COVID. I guess to the extent either's worth worrying about, I'd be more concerned w CTE. 

Well yeah. Soon COVID will be something we have effective treatments for. CTE not so much.

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12 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

Or, like, the massive crampstorm that engulfed the LSU defense on our first drive of the 2nd half, only to miraculously disappear in the 4th quarter.  Because no air conditioning.

‘Massive crampstorm’ would be the best all girls band name ever.  

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1 hour ago, Sbbruin said:

Interesting tidbit s from Jon Wilner who is pretty much considered the most connected guy across the entire P12. Couldn’t remove all the ads.  And a lot of the links require subscription.  But the long and short is that it probably was the right, and only, call to kill the season.

Three days after Pac-12 football shuttered for the first time in history, we’re left to make sense of the decision.

Why did the presidents hit cancel instead of pause?

Why not trudge on like the SEC and Co.?

What tipped the vote on that momentous Tuesday?

After reading or listening to every public comment from key officials and after speaking with sources across the conference, the Hotline has created an equation to help explain the decision.

The more concrete the details appear, the more logical the process seems, the easier it becomes for fans to grasp and accept.

Our equation: CG + TS + MU x T2 = C

Here we go …

CG = Conditions on the Ground

In contract to other conferences, half the Pac-12 campuses are located in large metropolitan areas.

The community spread and public ordinances in several of those regions created challenges for teams to start training camp on Aug. 17 and muddled the outlook for them to receive clearance later in August. 

imp?s=740959&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614
imp?s=740960&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614 imp?s=740962&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614

TS= Testing Speed

Remember the optimism for college football that dominated public comments from key officials in the spring?

It was largely based on the presumption that Covid-19 testing capacity, speed and accuracy would allow athletic departments to reach the necessary standards to keep players and coaches safe.

Welp, that optimism was horse-collared by the realities of August: The conference's medical advisory committee set the bar at testing players “within 24 hours of competition.”

Because PCR tests have a 36-hour turnaround time, point-of-care (POC) tests are essential. But as the advisors noted in their report, POC tests are limited in availability.

If they can’t test players on Friday night or Saturday morning — and have the results back before kickoff — the risk for asymptomatic spread on the field is unsettlingly high.

MU = Medical Unknowns

The presidents were generally uneasy about the long-term health effects of Covid-19, but they were particularly concerned about Myocarditis -- the technical term for inflammation of the heart caused by viral infections. (In severe cases, Myocarditis can cause heart failure.) 

It’s not new to the medical community, but recent instances in athletes — including a Big Ten football player — have been tied to Covid-19.

The medical experts made it clear to the coaches, athletic directors and presidents that, for all they know about Myocarditis, much remains unknown.

“We just don't know in asymptomatic, elite athletes what the prevalence or incidence is,” Arizona president Robert Robbins, a heart surgeon, told Tucson.com. (More on Robbins' comments below.)

T2 = Time Squared.

Were the conditions on the ground, the issues with testing speed and the medical unknowns all viewed as temporary issues, the presidents likely would have agreed to simply pause.

But the advisers indicated that all three issues would linger deep into the fall.

The backdrop to competition, in other words, would look exactly the same in a month, or two months. 

This resonated deeply with the presidents — hence the squaring of time in our equation — and they were staunchy opposed to dragging the fall sports athletes through more weeks of uncertainty with so little chance of the outlook brightening.

C = Cancellation.

The daunting immediate obstacles compounded by skepticism that anything would change in time for the season to be salvaged led to the decision to cancel.

Officially, the conference is using the term "postpone," because of the possibility that fall sports could be moved to the spring.

The Hotline views spring competition as eminently possible — in soccer, volleyball and field hockey.

But football is an entirely different situation. Compared to the others, it’s a logistical beast.

The willpower required to move the sport … the level of planning required … the sheer number of rule changes and exceptions necessary ... make a restart in early 2021 difficult even if the health and safety pieces (CG, TS and MU) all fall into place.

Hardly impossible, but exceedingly difficult. — Jon Wilner.

imp?s=740971&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614
imp?s=740972&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614 imp?s=740974&li=12852725&e=PCLINDHOLM@HOTMAIL.COM&p=081420125614
HOTOFF THE HOTLINE

logo.png?w=615px

*** Please note: Unlike Pac-12 football and basketball, the Hotline isn't shutting down for the fall. As the past five months have shown, there is plenty to report, analyze and discuss even when competition is on hiatus. We're full speed ahead.

• "Pac-12 football has overcome two World Wars, one Great Depression, the Spanish Flu, California earthquakes and a slew of other epic societal events, but it couldn’t beat coronavirus." Thus began our account of an unprecedented event in conference history -- an account that includes the specific health and safety data that swayed the presidents. 

So what's next?

• The Hotline offered a detailed plan for spring football -- everything from a suggested calendar to ways to mitigate the physical toll on players to ideas for providing coaches with the roster flexibility needed. 

• We also outlined, with help from Cal's Mark Fox and Arizona's Sean Miller, the conference's working plan for restarting basketball in January. It includes a creative way to turn the travel partners into weekend pods to reduce coronavirus risk levels.. 

• Previous editions of the newsletter are available in archived form.

Support the Hotline: Several Hotline articles will remain free each month (as will the newsletter), but for access to all content, you'll need to subscribe. I've secured a rate of $1 per week for a full year or just 99 cents for the first month, with the option to cancel anytime. Click here. And thanks for your loyalty.


Halls of Academia

• Arizona president Robert Robbins, the former chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford, chatted with tucson.com about the decision to shutter football. Robbins covered the Myocarditis issue and even addressed the differences in approaches across Power Five conferences. "So when we started to put it all together, we just thought it was the better part of valor – the prudent, cautious route to just say, ‘Let’s suspend. Let 's take a pause. We'll revisit this over the coming months, because we'll have more data then.”

• Oregon president Michael Schill, chair of the Pac-12 CEO Group, offered a clear, candid explanation for the decision in an interview with John Canzano's Bald-Faced Truth radio show. Schill addressed testing issues, local conditions and the medical unknowns -- all of it. Bottom line: "The timelines weren’t going in the right direction." Here's the full interview on Soundcloud.


ADs Corner

• Colorado athletic director Rick George indicated layoffs and furloughs were a distinct possibility at CU. (A few cuts were made in the spring.) However, he was adamant that the Buffaloes will not eliminate sports teams ... George also favors the appointment of a commissioner for college football. "I don’t know if my peers share the same thing but I certainly think that this would be a time for us to figure out one voice for college football and what that looks like."

• Cal's Jim Knowlton maintained his position that cutting sports -- the Bears sponsor 30 of them, with 800+ student athletes -- is "an absolute last resort." He added that the school has "a plan in place ready to go if we are short, roughly $50 million in revenue."

• Washington State's Pat Chun fielded questions from the media on a range of topics, including the financial impact on WSU's department. Here's the transcript, courtesy of the Spokesman-Review. On spring football: "I don’t know if it’s feasible, but I know we’re going to do our best to see if we can make it feasible. I think we owe it to our student-athletes to see if there’s an option out there that make sense relative to 12 months of football."


 

• NCAA president Mark Emmert on Thursday endorsed the idea of creating a bubble for March Madness, a significant development in clearing the way for the tournament (if the virus is under control). It should add motivation to conferences seeking ways to play most, if not all of the 2020-21 season.

• And here's Emmert on the NCAA's authority over college football -- or lack thereof.

• CBS Sports has suggestions for Pac-12 fans seeking new teams to root for. As an example, Arizona fans should consider Texas Tech and Syracuse. "Every couple of years the Wildcats will cycle up and cause some trouble, particularly for Pac-12 title hopefuls, so let's line up with some teams that have similar chaos-wielding potential and history." Here's the full list.

• The Salt Lake Tribune's Gordon Monson believes the season was canceled for one reason: Liability. "Those powers-that-be do not want to be held responsible, to have piled upon other monetary losses heavy lawsuits from student-athletes who may have legal grounds to blame universities and those who run them for the spread of COVID-19 and the damages that such spread may cause."

• The Daily News' Mark Whicker believes spring football should be the goal -- not just in 2021 but annually. "Use the January 1 bowl games as a dazzling Opening Day ... Start in the bad weather. Finish in the good. Play an Apple Cup game when apples actually grow."

• The Pac-12 got it right with the decision to abort this fall, writes Greg Hansen of tucson.com. "There is so much more at stake during the coronavirus pandemic than a few postponed football games."

• USC coach Clay Helton isn't worried about losing transfers to the SEC and other thoughts on the state of Trojans football.

• Perspective from ASU coach Herm Edwards, who specializes in that field.

• Uncertainty abounds at UCLA, where the football program has been dealing with tumult for many seasons.

• Colorado coach Karl Dorrell was hired Feb. 23. His first six months on the job have been just a tad chaotic.

• Oregon's Mario Cristobal is "open to anything" when it comes to spring football but echoed concerns about the logistics.

• Good assessment of the eligibility issues facing Utah, which are representative of the situation across the conference -- for athletes in all fall sports.

• Speaking of representing the collective: Washington has numerous questions and elusive answers.

• Challenges abound for the Pac-12 as the focus turns to a possible spring season, writes the L.A. Times' Ryan Kartje. “As an orthopedic surgeon, it gives me a little bit of pause to play two seasons in a calendar year,” said Dr. Seth Gamradt, who works at USC and is a member of the Pac-12 medical advisory board. “But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.”


MONEY MATTERS

 

• Utah projects a $50 million loss (minimum) without football. "We know it’s going to be a really tough road ahead, but we’ve been working cooperatively with university leadership," athletic director Mark Harlan explained. "Certainly our conference, which has been reported, has provided options that we will continue to explore, but we don’t hide from the fact that it’s going to be a great challenge for us going forward."

• A sketch of what football means to Arizona, albeit using financial data from a few years ago. Bottom line, writes Bruce Pascoe of tucson.com: "After Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke forecasted a $7.5 million pandemic-related deficit last spring through the end of 2019-20, coach and staff salary reductions mitigated about half of it. That isn't going to cut it this time. Not even close."

• "All things considered, the financial impact of a postponed fall season will be devastating by any measure." That's the outlook for Washington's 2021 budget from the Seattle Times' Mike Vorel, who notes the Huskies have mitigation strategies in place and will likely turn to donors for help. Yes, Amazon's stock price has soared. But the Huskies also took in $84 million in football revenue in FY19.

• Oregon State plans to pursue long-term borrowing in order to offset an expected $58 million budget hit, per oregonlive's Nick Daschel, who spoke to OSU president F. King Alexander. "We can stretch this pandemic loss over a lot of years, even a couple decades, and pay it back as we go. Interest rates are very, very low." 


Legal Affairs

• Several U.S. senators, including New Jersey's Cory Booker (a former Stanford football player), are planning to introduce "a bill of rights" for NCAA athletes that includes provisions for healthcare and NIL (name, image and likeness). Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders are among those on board, according to Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger. "The bill will be introduced in the 'coming months' and is intended to advance 'justice and opportunity' for college athletes, according to the joint statement."


Looking Ahead

What’s coming on the Pac-12 Hotline:

• Even if the news cycle came to a halt today, which it won't, we could fill the Hotline with Pac-12 football content for months on end -- such is the bottomless well of ideas put forth by our crack research team. We'll take immediate aim at several issues in the media rights realm, personnel moves within the conference and the whereabouts of certain notable Pac-12 alumni.

• Also, look for an uptick in frequency of Hotline podcasts as we approach September, to help readers fill the void.

Dude what in the fuck. Post the link next time. 

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2 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Hey I may be drunk as a skunk on a Friday...what was that third thing you said?

Blasted on patio bars in Chicago.  Gold coast with a few hundred cops in the area but nobody is scared of shit.  Well, running out of booze would suck but you get the point.  2020 MF’s!!!

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22 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Blasted on patio bars in Chicago.  Gold coast with a few hundred cops in the area but nobody is scared of shit.  Well, running out of booze would suck but you get the point.  2020 MF’s!!!

I’ve spent 2 looong weekends in Chicago.  The first was UCLA v ND in whatever like 2006 or so, and the second when my close buds brother was the SS for the Cards and we went to Wrigley.  And then later to uS Cellular the same night for White Sox v Red Sox..  And damn if I didn’t think that city was the most fun place I’d ever been.  

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2 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I’ve spent 2 looong weekends in Chicago.  The first was UCLA v ND in whatever like 2006 or so, and the second when my close buds brother was the SS for the Cards and we went to Wrigley.  And then later to uS Cellular the same night for White Sox v Red Sox..  And damn if I didn’t think that city was the most fun place I’d ever been.  

Summer here is incredible.  Bc you earned it.  LA is a damn dream.  I’d be spoiled out there too.  Weather 10.  Girls 10.  The rest is window dressing.  

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1 hour ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Who would have guessed this thread gets turnt up to eleventy billion on drunk as a skunk Fridays?   Wow

You act like you and your sister just loaded up your meth lab and kids into the mobile home and rolled up onto this site. Tweaker, please!

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9 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

Three days after Pac-12 football shuttered for the first time in history, we’re left to make sense of the decision.

Why did the presidents hit cancel instead of pause?

Why not trudge on like the SEC and Co.?

perhaps the use of that word is innocuous, but more likely it's revealing, like he thinks playing is "trudging". That's not the word most people who get actual joy out of college football would use to describe it

 

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14 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

perhaps the use of that word is innocuous, but more likely it's revealing, like he thinks playing is "trudging". That's not the word most people who get actual joy out of college football would use to describe it

 

I think it's more generally about the process of having a season and is biased in the direction of, "This is a lost cause but they're too proud to admit it."

The premise being that the only reasonable outcome is CASES! and DEATHS! and SUFFERING! therefore the only reasonable decision is to cancel in advance because the smart people all agree that there's no chance it might actually work out OK. 

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Desmond Howard is ranting against Nebraska's alleged disloyalty to the Big Ten  because his Heisman Trophy win over Peyton Manning p!issed off the SEC, which in turn voted Nebraska National Champions in 1997 for a split between Michigan and Nebraska for the two polls.  Scott Frost was the QB of that team.  So for him, it's personal.  Whatever.

Charles Woodson you mean. They don't all look alike, bro


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1 hour ago, crimsonlonghorn said:

I think it's more generally about the process of having a season and is biased in the direction of, "This is a lost cause but they're too proud to admit it."

The premise being that the only reasonable outcome is CASES! and DEATHS! and SUFFERING! therefore the only reasonable decision is to cancel in advance because the smart people all agree that there's no chance it might actually work out OK. 

Teams have already been caught hiding their cases. There’s practically no way this won’t end up somewhere in the range of ‘kinda bad’ to ‘outrageously bad’

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30 minutes ago, JMFP said:

Colorado State and FSU players are accusing their coaches of shenanigans.

 

 

I don't think there's any way forward for the seasons. I think the big xii and acc are at least proceeding with caution. The SEC schools are going full retard. 

There's a really good chance this all gets called off by the presidents of universities if students come to campus, there's an outbreak and they send everyone home. It's just stupid to think that 18-22 year olds are doing to make the right choice when we know the big spike in Texas at least was from bars opening back up and drunk people just not caring about anything but partying. When I was 18-22 all I wanted to do was fuck bitches and get drunk. 

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if i'm the PAC i would count every sniffle as C19 to get inflated numbers out there and accuse the confs that are still pondering a season of suppressing the numbers.  because fuck you, if i can't have nice things then you can't either.*

* I am not endorsing this line of action but if my football/athletics program and last vestiges of national relevance was on the line...

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10 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

if i'm the PAC i would count every sniffle as C19 to get inflated numbers out there and accuse the confs that are still pondering a season of suppressing the numbers.  because fuck you, if i can't have nice things then you can't either.*

* I am not endorsing this line of action but if my football/athletics program and last vestiges of national relevance was on the line...

Maybe the Big 10 could pull that off, but nobody gives a shit about what the Pac thinks and to be honest, most have forgotten they even play football 

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10 hours ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Blasted on patio bars in Chicago.  Gold coast with a few hundred cops in the area but nobody is scared of shit.  Well, running out of booze would suck but you get the point.  2020 MF’s!!!

Spent 15 years there and miss it (like old Melvin B's now over a decade in the dirt)...hundreds of cops, sounds more like the Viagra Triangle!

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The SEC leadership has been smart about all this. They haven't actually said "We're playing!" Their medical team isn't looking a month ahead, they are simply judging current conditions and so far they feel it's safe to proceed (Athletic interview with an LSU medical task force doctor). They are waiting to see how NFL camps go, as well as campus reopenings.

The fact the SEC hasn't released a specific schedule is also pretty telling. They don't want to appear reckless, even though their students are probably planning myocarditis parties for Labor Day weekend. I think they privately realize it's still a long shot to play, but politically they can't pull the plug until COVID hell breaks loose again in their markets.

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11 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

It was embedded in an email.  Sorry it was so difficult to scroll a little.  This thread blows up by the minute.  I figured you’d be used to doing that.

I mean you posted a wall of black-on-black text including multiple advertisements as images. And yes, it is a pain in the ass to scroll through on mobile.

But I get that everyone here is looking at different variations so it may have looked better on your screen.

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1 hour ago, SwanderedTalent said:

what do you think 'outrageously bad' looks like, specifically?

I would say if there is one death related to this season that would be outrageous. 
I would similarly say it would be outrageous if there were no virus and officials decided to ignore lightning interruptions and someone were killed because of it. 

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55 minutes ago, immamac said:

I don't think there's any way forward for the seasons. I think the big xii and acc are at least proceeding with caution. The SEC schools are going full retard. 

There's a really good chance this all gets called off by the presidents of universities if students come to campus, there's an outbreak and they send everyone home. It's just stupid to think that 18-22 year olds are doing to make the right choice when we know the big spike in Texas at least was from bars opening back up and drunk people just not caring about anything but partying. When I was 18-22 all I wanted to do was fuck bitches and get drunk. 

ND student pop already having an outbreak from an off campus party 

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1 hour ago, Hurtlocker said:

Spent 15 years there and miss it (like old Melvin B's now over a decade in the dirt)...hundreds of cops, sounds more like the Viagra Triangle!

Haha, yep.  Viagra triangle is in the Gold Coast.  You nailed it - they were actually supposed to be there though lol

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