Ryan Day is as smart as everyone else when it comes to expressing his thoughts to the public. An Ohio head coach understands how the media works, how not to lose information, and how to get people to hear what he has to say.
Typically, he has a message that he wants to convey every time he walks behind the microphone, and this is the mindset that he propagates to his players.
“During the Tuesday season, when our guys are available (reporters for interviews), I often meet with them before and just talk to them about my message for the press conference and the things they need to discuss,” Day said in June during conversation with the Ohio Sports and Society Initiative.
So, when Day’s Zoom press conference took place on August 12 – six days after his performance after his first pre-season training in Ohio and a day after the Big Ten postponed the fall football season – it was progressing, by then it was clearer that he hoped people would listen as hoped the conference would take the next step. The plan of the Day was to start the football season in January, play eight matches, and end it in time to play the entire fall season this fall.
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He seemed to fully support his idea, saying, “I am very worried about what I said and I will work hard to make it happen.” And after the offseason, when he constantly waited for answers only to get ready for the start of the season and cancel it in less than a week, he also had a schedule to launch it.
“I think we need to tackle this right now and give these guys some answers,” Day said. “It must be weeks; there cannot be months. ”
It’s been 27 days since Day’s comments. Twenty-seven days since he announced his plan.
Since? Nothing. Nothing specific from the Big Ten about what will happen next in the football season, which is now in limbo.
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren has succumbed to immense pressure to say something about why his conference pushed the season back to an as-yet-to-date date, and to answer questions about when games of the season will begin, doing the least: he’s released open letter eight days after the decision was made. Neither that, nor the interview he gave to a small group of national reporters, reassured those who wanted further explanation and a plan for the future.
Thomas J. Russo-USA TODAY Sports.
Anyone who thought the first eight days of rage, confusion, and terror after the delay would be the most chaotic was, to put it mildly, wrong.
Nearly impossible to follow storylines over the past couple of weeks have included a lawsuit from Nebraska players that backed the Big Ten’s 11-3 vote to postpone the season, parent-led protests that took place at both the Big Ten headquarters and On several campuses, including Ohio, President Trump called Warren, reportedly with the assistance of Clay Travis, a prominent lawyer for Tom Mars, who spoke openly about the possible prosecution of the conference for his responses, and politicians are sending letters asking him to reconsider the conference’s decision. In the midst of all the confusion, a lack of continuity materialized within the Big Ten – and, to go further, within the various schools.
Good luck to everyone in your quest for clear and concise answers about what happened or what will happen next. How many times can you say, “Okay, the time has come for the Big Ten to come up with a plan and be transparent about the process,” and prove yourself wrong before you throw up your hands?
The public may never know an accurate account of everything that has happened behind the scenes in the past five weeks. The Big Ten will certainly not reveal what happened any more than the minimal information she has disclosed so far – although it will likely help her case, given how little she even tried to control the message after hiring Carrie. Cecil, CEO of Anachel Communications.
The next step of the Big Ten shouldn’t take that long to materialize, but somehow it did appear.
Reports of a possible upcoming re-vote on whether to cancel the deferral and lose in early October surfaced around the last week, although they were not confirmed by national reporters. If that option – reportedly promoted by conference coaches, including Day – is possible, even after Warren ruled it out entirely in his open letter just a few weeks ago, the decision must be made now to use the season’s runway.
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Obviously, this is the option that is most beneficial to the Bakkeys, who have arguably the best college football team in the country who are desperate to play for a spot in the college football playoffs.
However, if October football remains a pipe dream, the Big Ten have to say so and they will do it soon. It should give players some clarity as to when this season will take place, be it early October, November, January or elsewhere. The inexplicable but still acknowledged complete absence of any discussion between the conference president and sports directors about what the spring or winter season would look like before postponing the game to spring or winter certainly didn’t help, but now they have almost month. It’s time to make a decision.
However, as long as Warren and the presidents take their time, beyond a glimmer of hope a month or two ago when a season seemed possible, Ohio’s players and coaches are left to do what they’ve been doing since March: just wait for the plan to come out. …
