College football’s house of cards of a 2020 season collapsed on Thursday. In this case, it was by design — a voluntary and preemptive reshuffling and retreat.
The Big Ten announced it was packing up and building its own place — canceling all non-conference games and playing a league only slate of nine, or maybe 10 contests. It’s an attempt to maximize control in the hope that it might make it through the COVID-19 pandemic.
No one knows if it will work, but smaller, swifter and more cautious seems to make sense.
The Pac-12 and ACC will reportedly soon follow and with that, you can expect just about everyone to do the same.