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Is BIG 10 closure a rush to judgement?

Now that it’s official as far as the Big 10 football season is concerned, one has to wonder just how far this rush to judgement will go.

When the Big 10 announced this week that it was scrapping the season because of COVID-19, it opened up a variety of options for those conferences who are planning to go ahead.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference say they will go by the advice of their own doctors on deciding whether football can be played.

In a way, that makes more sense than the Big 10’s close-it-down right now decision.

But the odds are very long there can be a season.

For one thing, the three states with the most cases are Florida, Georgia and Louisiana. That pretty much is the heart and soul of the SEC.

Another state with a record number of cases is Texas, another hotbed of college football. That could figure in heavily in any action by its conference.

It was interesting to note that the PAC-12 Conference also chose to shut down sports on the same day as the Big 10 for the rest of 2020.

The Pac-12 has teams also located in areas that are considered high risk for the virus.

Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh — never a personal favorite on mine — is against the closure for good reason.

He argued that out of 893 recent tests administered to his players and coaches, only 11 came back positive.

I like Harbaugh’s reasoning. And that is a careful and and measured response by qualified medical personnel to the problem.

If the ACC and SEC go ahead with plans to play football this fall, they will gain a big step on those leagues who don’t.

Expect to see more leagues drop football and talk in general terms about playing a spring season.

I can’t see that plan working for a number of reasons, which I won’t go into at the moment.

But I surely hope that 2020 won’t be a fall without any football. That could really damage how we see the sport …

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