Illinois-Ohio State Game Canceled

[Chukwuwumba]

Dont like lack of transparency here. Should provide a list of numbers, position, at the least.
Skeptic could say not revealing, and not identify contract tracing, in order to prevent those players from missing next game.
It should be revealed to BIG, at the least, as names may want privacy.

 

[Deleted member 747277]

Boy was this a frustrating thread to read. Just two groups of people talking past each other, one of whom seems to be willfully ignoring the point.

it is not about OSU being afraid of big bad Illinois (we don’t need another person to tell us their third stringers could beat us with one arm tied behind their back).

It’s about the fairness of the decision. Applying rules consistently. That’s it.

But It’ll be interesting to see how we feel when this comes up in basketball—where we’re the “OSU” in these situations...

 

[champaignchris]

Or perhaps that OSU applies a different set of policies to OSU than Illinois does to itself. Each program defines its self-interest differently because of their respective outlooks this fall.

Sitting out for two weeks for contact tracing and three weeks for a positive test is not an Illinois rule. It’s a Big 10 rule. Which agains leads me back to the question of how Ohio St could not have enough players to play against Illinois this week and yet might have enough players to play against MSU next week.

 

[pvaughn8]

Sitting out for two weeks for contact tracing and three weeks for a positive test is not an Illinois rule. It’s a Big 10 rule. Which agains leads me back to the question of how Ohio St could not have enough players to play against Illinois this week and yet might have enough players to play against MSU next week.

It's a good question. We should wait and see how it plays out before we are all up in arms about it though.

Do we expect OSU to immediately declare "we are cancelling the next two games"? They aren't going to say anything definitive like that until they have to.

 

[altgeld88]

Agreed. Anyone willing to get it because they think it won’t affect them is an idiot in my view.

It's not binary. "Willing to get it" really means, whether the "willing" person in question understands it or not, "willing to be exposed to a virus having relatively fat-tailed outcomes compared with the seasonal flu and generally little to no effect, short- or long-term, on young people based upon our understanding at this point." The conclusion "because they think it won't affect them" may actually an intelligent one for most 20-year-olds, for example, whether or not their processes of reaching that conclusion are based in rational thought. The benefits to most of them of living their lives may far outweigh the risks.

Or maybe not. It's an individual matter. Maybe a risk-averse 20-year-old thinks "The chance that this virus will impair the rest of my life is de minimus but I've got a lot of life left and I don't want to take the risk that I'll get this and it will create long-term problems for me. So I'm going to be extremely careful."

On the flip side, I took a long walk yesterday with a 72-year-old neighbor who has been struggling with non-COVID health problems since June, to the point at which over the summer he couldn't even walk around the block without getting completely gassed. He got together on Thanksgiving on a big screened-in porch with his in-laws and extended family, many of whom are over 90. His attitude was "I'm not going to see these people much longer and we all decided mutually that missing one Thanksgiving together was actually a big deal to us at this point." And this is a guy who's constantly-masked and conscientious.

Then there's the matter of the effects of contracting a low concentration of the virus or a high one, what sorts of activities and interactions would lead to the latter, and even then what the risks are to the young. And the knock-on effects to others, though if I'm in a vulnerable population then it was clear many months ago that I probably shouldn't be in circulation unless, like my neighbor, I've thought it through very carefully.

I sympathize with the university administrators, athletic and otherwise, grappling with all this. It's obviously a very tough problem to manage. As for OSU, whatever Gene Smith and university leadership are doing regarding their COVID situation, I'd guess it's primarily aimed at maintaining CFP viability within the rules that the BT and the university have established (and thanks to champaignchris who pointed out to me earlier that the BT, not the universities, sets the rules here.) Several have noted here how OSU saying "we're cancelling the Illinois game but leaving MSU open" seems illogical. Agreed. It seems like PR spin to me.

I just hope the guys are able to play Iowa, NW and whatever team they draw subsequently. I don't care about that for the fans' sake but I do for the players'. This is a brief period of opportunity in their lives and I can understand why many don't want to miss these practices and games. Here at home I'm currently watching (likely) 1-1/3 years of a teenaged child's high school experience go up in smoke. I sympathize with all of the young people enduring these losses, which are not trivial and are irreversible.

 

[SeattleSlim]

It's not binary. "Willing to get it" really means, whether the "willing" person in question understands it or not, "willing to be exposed to a virus having relatively fat-tailed outcomes compared with the seasonal flu and generally little to no effect, short- or long-term, on young people based upon our understanding at this point." The conclusion "because they think it won't affect them" may actually an intelligent one for most 20-year-olds, for example, whether or not their processes of reaching that conclusion are based in rational thought. The benefits to most of them of living their lives may far outweigh the risks.

Or maybe not. It's an individual matter. Maybe a risk-averse 20-year-old thinks "The chance that this virus will impair the rest of my life is de minimus but I've got a lot of life left and I don't want to take the risk that I'll get this and it will create long-term problems for me. So I'm going to be extremely careful."

On the flip side, I took a long walk yesterday with a 72-year-old neighbor who has been struggling with non-COVID health problems since June, to the point at which over the summer he couldn't even walk around the block without getting completely gassed. He got together on Thanksgiving on a big screened-in porch with his in-laws and extended family, many of whom are over 90. His attitude was "I'm not going to see these people much longer and we all decided mutually that missing one Thanksgiving together was actually a big deal to us at this point." And this is a guy who's constantly-masked and conscientious.

Then there's the matter of the effects of contracting a low concentration of the virus or a high one, what sorts of activities and interactions would lead to the latter, and even then what the risks are to the young. And the knock-on effects to others, though if I'm in a vulnerable population then it was clear many months ago that I probably shouldn't be in circulation unless, like my neighbor, I've thought it through very carefully.

I sympathize with the university administrators, athletic and otherwise, grappling with all this. It's obviously a very tough problem to manage. As for OSU, whatever Gene Smith and university leadership are doing regarding their COVID situation, I'd guess it's primarily aimed at maintaining CFP viability within the rules that the BT and the university have established (and thanks to champaignchris who pointed out to me earlier that the BT, not the universities, sets the rules here.) Several have noted here how OSU saying "we're cancelling the Illinois game but leaving MSU open" seems illogical. Agreed. It seems like PR spin to me.

I just hope the guys are able to play Iowa, NW and whatever team they draw subsequently. I don't care about that for the fans' sake but I do for the players'. This is a brief period of opportunity in their lives and I can understand why many don't want to miss these practices and games. Here at home I'm currently watching (likely) 1-1/3 years of a teenaged child's high school experience go up in smoke. I sympathize with all of the young people enduring these losses, which are not trivial and are irreversible.

Might an apt comparison be (for the youthful males in question) the decision of whether to use a condom or not?

Practicing safe six? Masking for a friend.