Blue White Illustrated

yard line, on Indiana's side of the field, Michael Penix Jr. appeared to be out of bounds. An improbable sequence of events had led to the final play of Penn State's game at Indiana to open the 2020 season. Re- gardless of its outcome, this was already a day that was going to be remembered long past the bounds of the calendar year. A few minutes before Penix's lunge, it had appeared as though this game was safely in the win column for the Lions. That their fate was in the hands of the replay officials following a two-point conver- sion attempt in overtime was unbeliev- able in itself. Penix had taken the snap out of the shotgun formation, Indiana head coach Tom Allen having decided he wanted to end the game on that play. Scanning the field, Penix remained patient in the pocket as the Nittany Lions' defensive ends pushed past him upfield. Seeing no one open in the end zone, he burst to his left, scrambling to avoid a collision with defensive tackle Antonio Shelton. Posi- tioned on the goal line, cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields was forced to abandon Ste- vie Scott, who had slipped into the end zone as Penix stretched the field. When administered right now, with more in the development pipeline. But before the vaccines start driving down rates of infection, we must en- dure a difficult winter. As of Jan. 11, all 50 states were seeing a daily average of 25 or more COVID cases per 100,000 people, indicating unchecked commu- nity spread. Of the 16 states with the most COVID cases since January 2020, eight are home to at least one Big Ten school. The national numbers have given pause to some in the college basketball community, which is playing its season during the months that the college foot- ball community sought to avoid. In early December, Mike Krzyzewski questioned the wisdom of continuing to play amid an escalating crisis. "I don't think it feels right to anybody," the longtime Duke coach said. "Everyone is con- cerned." A few weeks later, the Duke women's basketball team acted on those concerns, announcing on Christmas Day that it was canceling the rest of its sea- son after two people in its traveling party tested positive. Basketball teams do more traveling than football teams do, but Big Ten foot- ball teams would have been on the road every weekend if the league had followed through on proposals to play its spring season in domed NFL stadiums. Also, football teams have nearly 10 times the number of players that hoops teams do, so when there's unchecked community spread, the potential for outbreaks within a team is magnified by the sheer size of the full roster. While it was un- fortunate that the Big Ten had to cancel 14 games this past fall, that total would almost certainly be higher if it had waited till now to open its season. The other advantage to playing in the fall is that the Big Ten finished up at the same time as the rest of the Power Five. As underwhelming as their season may have been, Penn State and its Big Ten counterparts can now make a clean break, turning their attention to winter workouts and spring practice. Players who were injured in the fall, such as Nit- tany Lion running back Noah Cain, will have the luxury of a full off-season in which to rehab. Penn State's injury list this past year is a reminder of why those extra months matter. Another reminder: The third game of the Nittany Lions' 2021 season is against Auburn, which wrapped up its 2020 campaign with a 35-19 loss to Northwestern in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1. Imagine the competitive disparity if Auburn had a conventional off-season in which to prepare while the Nittany Lions had to skip winter workouts and reschedule spring practice. And while we're imagining that, let's imagine this, too: Big Ten teams having to focus on game prep while their coun- terparts in the SEC, ACC and Big 12 are using the midwinter downtime to assess their rosters and fill holes via the trans- fer portal. Penn State recently picked up a running back from Baylor, a defensive back from South Carolina and defensive linemen from Duke and Temple. Would that have happened if Franklin and his staff had been focused on prepping for their season opener? Would the staff have even had a good feel for what the team's most acute needs would be in 2021 with the 2020 season yet to be played? Other Big Ten teams have even more pressing questions than the Nittany Lions. Michigan, Illinois, Rutgers and Ohio State will have to figure out who their starting quarterback will be in 2021. Illinois has a new coach, Bret Bielema, who will need to get his staff together, assess the roster he inherited and install his offense and defense. Those are big challenges for any off- season, but they would have been a whole lot bigger if the league's off-sea- son had been shortened by three months. The Illini might not have even been able to make a change if the season hadn't ended until late March or April. By that point, the pool of potential can- didates would have been smaller than usual, and the school's administration might have been reluctant to move on, knowing that the new staff would have inadequate time to prepare for its debut. So with the possible exception of Lovie Smith, we should all be thankful that the Big Ten chose not to dawdle any longer than it did. The 2020 season won't be remembered as an unequivo- cal success by any means, but it isn't likely to create the kind of lingering problems that might hinder the league's competitiveness going forward. In that sense, it wasn't an unequivocal failure, either. These days, you take what you can get. ■

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