Big Ten expected to cancel 2020 football season amid COVID-19 pandemic (Report)

The string of coronavirus-related cancellations in the sports world continues. Big Ten football isn’t expected to occur this fall.

With the lingering COVID-19 pandemic still upon us, the Big Ten conference is reportedly expected to make a move that a significant number of people saw coming.

According to Orion Sang, David Jesse, Chris Solari, and Chris Thomas of the Detroit Free Press, the Power 5 conference is expected to cancel its 2020 football season. The vote, taken on Sunday by the presidents of the conference, was in favor of a cancellation by a wide margin — 12-2 to be exact. The only two schools that voted to play were Iowa and Nebraska, per sportscaster and radio personality Dan Patrick.

It’s unclear if the Big Ten will hold a season in the spring, but according to sources close to the Free Press, commissioner Kevin Warren prefers to make that move.

Once the cancellation is officially announced, the Big Ten won’t be the only conference to have made such a move. The Mid-Atlantic Conference did so on Saturday after UConn became the first FBS school to cancel its individual season last Wednesday. On Monday of this week, the Mountain West Conference additionally postponed its fall sports season, per Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.

Fans should additionally perceive this slated move by the Big Ten as a major fallen domino for the 2020 college football season. Now that one of the bigger conferences in the country will likely be taking this massive step, expect other Power 5 conferences to potentially follow suit.

Sources close to Patrick told him the Pac-12 will cancel its season and that the Big 12 and ACC are going back and forth on whether to make that same decision. The SEC, rather, is looking for teams to join its conference in order to play out a season.

DP was told an hour ago that the Big 10 and Pac 12 will cancel their football seasons tomorrow… The ACC and the Big 12 are on the fence.. And the SEC is trying to get teams to join them for a season.

Watch live: https://t.co/sMaeXQkLfl pic.twitter.com/oSUNGMTEqw

— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) August 10, 2020