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segments to avoid having the whole team on the field at the same time. "We have taken a very conservative approach from the beginning, and it has worked," Franklin said a few days before the Lions' trip to Rutgers on Dec. 2. "We've gone another week now. We still have false positives, but we've gone another week now keeping everybody safe. So our protocols have been really effective in keeping our team as safe as possible. "Our protocols have been really good, but we've also been very conservative, probably more conservative than most. And that's philosophically here. That's Penn State, that's our doctors, that's the state of Pennsylvania, that's Centre County, that's the university, that's all of it. It's the approach that we took from the beginning. When we decided to play football in the Big Ten, we were going to do everything we possibly could to keep everybody healthy. But not having in- person meetings and not having full practices [was difficult]. We were having split practices as long as anybody I'm aware of. And we obviously didn't have any spring ball." The inability to practice in the spring was a significant problem, as the Lions had hired four new assistant coaches in the months preceding the expected start of their off-season drills, including a new offensive coordinator in Kirk Ciarrocca. When the Big Ten canceled all spring athletic activities on March 12, Penn State lost the opportunity to conduct any organized off-season drills. That wasn't the case at some other schools, including some in the Big Ten. Franklin noted that Northwestern was able to hold 12 prac- tices, while Indiana completed eight be- fore the shutdown. The Wildcats ended up winning the Big Ten West Division title, while the Hoosiers went 6-1 and would have claimed the East Division crown had the league not intervened to make Ohio State eligible despite playing only five regular-season games. One of the benefits of Penn State's conservative approach to pandemic safety was that it was one of the rare Power Five teams that was able to play its entire regular-season schedule. As of Dec. 12, 128 games across the country had been either canceled or postponed. Only 10 teams in the Power Five confer- ences had been able to play all of their scheduled games. Only three Big Ten teams were able to do so: Penn State, Rutgers and Iowa. By Dec. 19, that list was down to two: the Nittany Lions and Scarlet Knights. On Dec. 8, the conference lost its marquee game when an outbreak at Michigan forced the cancellation of the Wolverines' annual matchup with Ohio State. This year's game had been set to take place Dec. 12 in Columbus, but in- stead the Horseshoe sat empty that day. It marked the first time since a five-year gap from 1913-17 that the famed rivalry game wasn't played. With Ohio State-Michigan off the schedule, Penn State's game against Michigan State was abruptly moved from a 3:30 kickoff on ESPN into ABC's noon time slot. It was the last home game of the Big Ten's eight-game regular season, and as such, it was Senior Day for the Nittany Lions. But the celebration was muted for the 12 seniors who were being saluted, as Penn State was forced to play in an empty stadium. The university had previously been allowed to welcome par- ents of players and staff into Beaver Sta- dium, but when Pennsylvania tightened its restrictions in response to a surge of coronavirus cases, Penn State an- nounced the day before the game that no spectators would be allowed to attend. In the news conference that fol- lowed his team's 56-21 victory over Illinois on Dec. 19, James Franklin laid out the process for deciding Penn State's postseason future. Franklin said there would be a postgame meet- ing with the team captains and sen- iors, following up on a meeting they had conducted earlier in the week. By 11:30 p.m., that process had run its course: The Nittany Lions would not accept a bowl invitation, even if one were to be o:ered a

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