As many of you college football fans are already painfully aware, the Big Ten Conference postponed its 2020 football season in hope of being able to play it next spring. The Pac-12 quickly followed suit. Many other conferences with smaller schools (including the Mid-America Conference) have already cancelled theirs.
It's not surprising. Even if this country had a coordinated and effective response to COVID-19 (spoiler alert: we don't), college football would be unwise before a vaccine (a real vaccine) can be administered nationwide.
Still, my first inclination was to poke fun at the superfans (But where are middle-aged men going to go to openly and freely unleash abuse upon 19 year-old kids?) or at the anti-fans (At last! Now competitive quilting is really going to take off!). But in the end, neither felt right. I like college football. The money around it is all messed up, and I worry about the long-term effects on the players, but it's fun to watch, and it's fun to be part of supporting a school.
Good thing Scott Frost, coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, spoke up and provided me a focus. Earlier this week, while school administrators were deciding what to do about the season, Frost let it be known that his team was looking for other options. Wait...what? Options? What kind of options do you really have? Either you're part of a conference or you're not. There are no other options, technically or realistically.
For somebody who gets paid millions of dollars and has done pretty well by the system, he sure doesn't seem to understand or respect the system.
John Auchter is a freelance political cartoonist. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management, or its license holder, the University of Michigan.
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