By Santiago Rubio

After a long wait and great uncertainty, college football fans, and especially the Big 10 Conference, will be able to enjoy their teams competing, since after having announced that they would not have a football season due to the Covid-19 pandemic in August, the Big 10 returns tonight with an atypical seasonal system, but as they say, “Better late than never”.

As will be?

All universities in the conference will play, and each institution will test daily for Covid-19, having started on September 30 to prevent the spread of the virus.

As already stated, it will be a season where teams from the same conference will only face each other, consisting of 9 games, with a “Championship Week” where not only the two best teams will face each other to define who wins the conference, but also there will be clashes between teams from the West division facing their counterpart from the East, matching the clashes based on the position in which they finished the season within their division, these games will be the weekend of December 19.

Who is in?

As we have said, what we will see in the coming months will be something abnormal, this is also due to the absences of various athletes who won’t appear this season, some players, for health or personal reasons, have decided not to participate in 2020.

Players who will not be in the 2020 season of the Big 10:

Micah Parsons, LB, Penn St
Rashod Bateman, WR, Minnesota
Everett Wormley, WR, Rutgers
Ambry Thomas, CB, Michigan
Ra’Von Bonner, RB, Illinois
Josh Jackson, QB, Maryland
John Jordan, OL, Maryland
Jalen Alexander, DL, Maryland
Jordan Reid, OL, Michigan St
Justin Stevens, OL, Michigan St
Rashawn Slater, OL, Northwestern
Christian Turner, RB, Michigan
Jalen Mayfield, OL, Michigan

This is something that will certainly affect the different teams as they have lost key players for the season and will have to show how they adapt to this situation.

Although these players are out of season for now, this list can change at any time, such was the case of Purdue’s star WR, Rondale Moore, who initially decided to enter the 2021 Draft by skipping this season, finally decided return with the Boilermakers for his senior year of college. Players continue to have the decision to play again in their hands.

Star games of the Big 10:

Although this season will be different from what we were used to, one factor that will not change is the rivalries and the extraordinary confrontations that we will have.

The most prominent games of the season are:

Michigan vs Minnesota, October 24

Ohio State vs Penn State, October 31

Michigan St vs Michigan, October 31

Wisconsin vs Michigan, November 14

Penn State vs Michigan, November 28

Wisconsin vs Minnesota, November 28

Ohio State vs Michigan State, December 5

Michigan State vs Penn State, December 12

Ohio State vs Michigan, December 12

Finally, it is difficult to imagine what will happen this season, we know that we will have great players, but just as we will lose the talent of many others, we will miss the essence of the fans in the packed stadiums and many more ingredients of this, the sport that we love so much, it is a situation that we never thought we were going to experience, but it is the reality that we face today, college football is back, and the Big 10 conference opens tonight and whatever happens, it will be a season to remember because it will go down in history as one of the most challenging.

Follow me on Twitter @SantiagoRubioGS