Purdue University President Mitch Daniels releases statement on B1G decision
Purdue University President Mitch Daniels has broken his silence on the B1G’s decision to cancel fall sports in 2020, including the college football season.
On Tuesday, Mike Carmin of the Journal & Courier received a statement from Daniels, who was one of the 11 presidents and chancellors who voted against moving forward with a fall schedule, prompting the B1G to postpone the football season. Only three schools voted to move forward this fall — Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio State.
The B1G is one of four FBS conferences not playing this fall, along with the Pac-12, MAC and Mountain West. It was the first Power 5 league to decide to move towards playing in the spring.
Below is the statement from Daniels:
As an active supporter of Purdue athletics and one of our team’s biggest fans, no one is more disappointed than I am that the pandemic has brought us to this point.
The Big Ten’s decision was a collective one, after the Commissioner and several presidents received very strong advice from team doctors and other medical experts that the unique health risks to athletes, especially in collision sports, as well as the risk for coaches and support staff, were too uncertain to proceed in good conscience. As you have seen, 28 of the 34 Division I conferences, although not yet three of the so called “Power 5”, were coming to the same discouraging conclusion. And, to state the obvious, this had to be a collective action; it would have been impossible for Purdue to play, when many others were determined not to.
We hope earnestly that we can go forward with competitions later this year, or at least in the spring semester. You may have noticed that Coach (Jeff) Brohm’s creative suggestion is getting national attention. Until then, I share our fan’s disappointment and eagerness to see Boilermaker student-athletes back in action as soon as possible.”
The B1G is currently working towards implementing a spring schedule model for the B1G football season. Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm developed a model to have a safe and successful season just two days after the conference postponed fall football.
Brohm’s model may not be the one the B1G moves forward with, but it at least got the conversation started.