Ohio State will return a week from Saturday at home against the currently undefeated Indiana Hoosiers in a game that surprisingly could determine the East Division title and accompanying trip to Indianapolis.
A few words about the Covid crisis that is returning to the country with a roar.
I'm becoming more and more negative on many things involving Covid-19.
I'm extremely skeptical that we are going to see the college football season come to its conclusion and if it should, I think it is likely that there will be controversy over the four selected teams.
Ohio State started late and now has lost a game, will that cost them a spot, and should it?
Alabama is losing their game this weekend vs LSU, and there are already rumblings after Notre Dame's upset of Clemson (Minus Trevor Lawrence) that the SEC and ACC should each send two teams and to hell with any other qualifiers.
Granted, this is the usual M.O. of ESPN's Heather Dinich, who spoons out this garbage every year it seems ( Before you hit me as a chauvinist, the definition of equal treatment is being able to say someone is liked or disliked regardless of an outside reason), but it is going to result in controversy no matter how things tumble out.
Bill Landis of the Athletic offered this scenario, which is not farfetched in this environment.
Indiana defeats Michigan State on Saturday.
Next week's Indiana visit to Columbus is canceled.
Both teams run the table with Indiana winning the East at 8-0 to Ohio State's 7-0 and the Hoosiers play in the Big Ten title game.
Indiana wins that game (vs either Wisconsin or Northwestern of this writing) and yet it's Ohio State that gets the ticket to the playoffs.
Imagine that uproar- Do you take the better team that had a game (or two) canceled or the team that did finish the season undefeated, but did so likely because their game with team A was canceled?
Especially when the argument could be made that one team is always in the hunt and the other would be in the middle of a once in every forty years season.
What it's going to take to finish this season is the bubble version of housing teams and college football just isn't set to handle that with college students.
Perhaps they could do it if they make it to the final four teams, but nothing more than that.
The NFL can make it because they have the type of money that they can sequester teams in their town, bus players to the hotel to practice, and otherwise only leave a controlled area when they travel to a road game.
I'm also skeptical that basketball and hockey are going to start on-time and even more skeptical that either league will see more than maybe a scattering of fans for their games.
The NHL with a weaker television package and relying so much more than the other leagues on the gate revenue could be in the biggest danger zone of all, but the NBA isn't out of the woods.
Even boxing, which has handled things well thus far, could be in some danger of shutting down under certain conditions, should interstate travel become restricted.
No matter the side of the political side of the street that you reside on, I fail to see how the country has handled this crisis even close to an average manner, and the lack of empathy by so many boggles my mind.
As our country craves a return to normalcy on so many topics, the irony is this- we so desperately want our day to day life to be what it once was, but many don't want to pay a small fee such as wearing a mask.
Until the steps are taken by both the leaders and their followers to finish the job, we may not have a normal life for quite a while.
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