Big Ten’s Announcement Brings the “Juice” Back to Practice

Image: Indiana Athletics

Written By: Nate Comp (@NathanComp1)

Forty-three days ago, the Big Ten announced its postponement of all fall athletics until 2021. Since then, a flurry of parent and player protests, misleading reports, and “he said she said” stories have left all Big Ten followers utterly confused on the direction of the conference.

Meanwhile, high school, NFL, and even collegiate games in the middle of Big Ten country have gone on with few mishaps.

“It was extremely difficult,” said Coach Allen on Zoom today. “I enjoyed watching the games because I enjoy watching football, but man just to be able to watch people play, especially local high schools and Notre Dame plays in our own state, it's just frustrating.”

“It was probably more frustrating than I was expecting. It was kind of depressing, to be honest with you, watching and just knowing that we're not playing.”

But today, the mud got a little clearer.

The Big Ten announced today that the conference would begin a modified “eight plus one” game, conference-only schedule starting the weekend of October 23-24. The news brought feelings of elation to everyone, but especially the players.

“Due to social media, they already knew [the good news],” Allen continued saying, “but they cheered, they were excited and there's definitely different juice out there today. We've had these practices before, but you could tell pretty quickly there was a different bounce in their step so they’re just excited.”

Since the original postponement, teams have been allowed to continue practicing on a slightly lessened 12 hour a week schedule, down from the normal 20 during a season. But it’s been hard for players to keep their normal energy levels, especially when they’re unsure of when their training will next transition into game play.

“It's just hard to be training for something that you're not really sure what that is. Was it going to be November, was it going to be even as late as January? Was it even going to happen at all?”

“They've worked really hard and it's been a hard several months, there's no doubt about it. It's been hard on everybody. I just think they're relieved.”

As they did after the postponement in August, players took to social media to voice their opinion on the announcement. This time, there was no #WeWantToPlay trending.

Because this time, they get to play.

See player and coaches’ reactions here:

https://twitter.com/i/events/1306249071024275457?s=20