Nebraska press conference quotes: Return of 2020 Big Ten football
Opening Statements
UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green
“Well, good morning. It’s a good day to be in Nebraska and a good day for Husker Nation as we announced earlier this morning, as you all know, the plans for the Big Ten to resume its fall sports season for football on Oct. 24 this year. So we have had a long road to get there. To be able to celebrate this day for our student-athletes and for our coaches who have been ready to play and want to play and return to competition. I know everyone knows that the decision to pause the season back in early August was a very difficult decision for the conference. Based on as you’ve heard concern about being ready for that season to commence safely under all of the protocols that were needed And as we have worked diligently over this past month, led by our athletic directors, led by our medical directors across the Big Ten campuses to address those questions and to be able to check off the boxes for us to be able to return to play and to return to play safely and mitigating risk has been impressive to watch and to be able to see that come together and the way that it has. So as you’ve heard earlier today, the recommended protocols by the medical team have been approved unanimously by the Big Ten board for us to be able to implement and move back to a conference season beginning the weekend of Oct. 24. So we’re looking forward to that, we are focused on that, we are looking forward to being able to support our student athletes, as they return to play and return to what they love to do. So it’s an exciting day and I know we have a lot of details that will be able to talk about in our coverage. So I’ll turn to Athletic Director Bill Moos who has been at the center of these conversations, not just since August 11, but since March 11 when COVID-19 first became a real thing for all of us. And Bill, I’ll turn to you.”
Nebraska Athletic Director Bill Moos
“As Chancellor Green said this truly is a celebration lot of hard work. I think over 125 at last count, zoom meetings, by the athletic directors every morning since mid-March. We got set back in August, and we went back to it found a way that was approved by the presidents and chancellors and I’m very excited about that. Our players want to play our coaches want to coach and our fans want to watch and we’re going to be able to do all these things now. And that’s why it is a celebration. And I believe very strongly that the State of Nebraska, Nebraska needs football and believe me in the World I live in football needs Nebraska. We’re going to be able to deliver that. And I’m very, very excited. So look forward to questions. I think we may not have all the answers, but I think we’ve got quite a few.”
Thoughts on the protocols that were put into place by the league, the percentages of positivity rates? What you’ll need to do in Nebraska to be able to continue to practice and eventually play games and just your thoughts on as far as being optimistic that you’ll be able to meet those as the season gets underway and also that your opponents will be able to?
Chancellor Green: “The protocols themselves – I know that there’s been conversation about that already this morning about what the requirements are that are being put into place are for the conference. I mentioned the exhaustive review of the way we should move forward safely for our student-athletes, our coaches, our support staff, our game management staff. In terms of risk mitigation around COViD-19 so the everyday point of care antigen testing approach that was recommended by the medical group and being put into place so on all 14 university campuses for the football programs is the key part of that. Which we think and know is the most stringent protocol of any athletic conference that exists and mitigates that risk down to where we are, we are very comfortable with being able to move forward. So I’ll just say that first of all the specific protocols around test positivity rates and population positivity rates on that everyday testing, again on the advice of the medical recommendation committee recommendation, they are appropriately stringent, but we do think they are reasonable for being able to meet them moving forward. So we’re optimistic about being able to get those tests in place and get that moving as quickly as possible in the next couple of weeks.”
AD Moos: “That has been a big piece of this, obviously, and it was the major concern back in early August when the vote was taken that we were going to postpone and a lot of a lot of things have evolved since then. And I think we’ve been on top of it as Chancellor Green said there’s no conference in the country that is more detailed in our testing and the requirements to return to play. And this is going to continue throughout the season so it’s important that the central theme remains the health and safety of our student-athletes to make sure they’re comfortable, their parents are comfortable and that we can return to play with everyone feeling that they can return to practice and competition and feel good about the fact that we have a clean field.”
Chancellor Green: “I might just add to that Mitch that what’s different today than what the case was a month ago when we were going through this decision making process and in early August is that availability of those point of care tests and the ability to administer that to know that we have that capacity in order to have that clean field and have that in place for the student-athletes, as we move forward.”
Would we be in this place today if it weren’t for kind of the pushback that you know with Scott Frost right out of the gate, the parents and the players? Without Nebraska’s general pushback, would we be in the spot we’re at today?
Chancellor Green: “The decision in August was a very carefully taken decision by the conference. And that decision was made, we actually said at Nebraska that we felt we were prepared to play. We were prepared to move forward safely we wanted to move forward safely, that is the case. We were and still feel very strongly that we were prepared to play, but fast forward now to where we are today and I think this was very well put today – the conversation about how we are able to move forward with what we have now in place. We are in a considerably better place than we were a month ago. In terms of having those tests available and understanding how to completely mitigate that risk for our teams and for our student athletes. So we’re in a different place than we were a month ago. We absolutely feel the importance of needing to play and having that opportunity for our student athletes to be on the field and competition. We’re celebrating the fact that we’re here today and we’re able to move forward with a successful season, we believe, now on Oct. 24.”
AD Moos: “The athletic directors were all in favor of returning to play back in August and I’m going to take this opportunity to say for six months it’s somewhat ironic we’ve gotten to know each other and respect each other. I’m talking about the athletic directors, having been in on zoom meetings practically every morning, including weekends and we were solid in the return to play. So the pushback when we did not get the vote that we were hoping for, we just went back to work and tried to address. and I think we did successfully, what we needed to accomplish in order to go back and get other chancellors and presidents take another look at this and I couldn’t be more proud of my colleagues and the conference office and of course the entire Big Ten. So we were outspoken, both Scott and me, and again, we’re in a different location here in this footprint and it is safe in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I pointed that out from the beginning. The safest place for our young student-athletes is Lincoln and the safest place in Lincoln is in our facilities and we emphasize that and from the very beginning. And in the end, we’re getting the result we want.”
Chancellor Green: “It’s also consistent with the fact that we were from day one, to stress the importance of being able to be an academic session here at the University of Nebraska, which we work very hard to do, and successfully to do. It also paralleled our belief that that moving forward and moving forward safely that we could do that.”
The Big Ten Commissioner said that this decision was not going to be revisited. So something obviously, the science changed, but did the push that that Nebraska and Ohio State was on the front end of – do you think that that pushed along the reconsideration of it when originally that wasn’t supposed to be revisited?
AD Moos: “We postponed the season and we were first talking about after the first of the year, but our presidents and chancellors listened from the directors and the conference staff that we were making great strides in some of the areas that they had concerns.”
Chancellor Green: “Yes, there was a considerable push to revisit the decision with new information and with new knowledge of plot to how we could safely move for this, I think we all understand that this is not a static conversation, you know the World we live in around COVID-19 and mitigating COVID-19 is not one that’s static. it’s dynamic. It’s fluid. We continue to learn more. Knowing what we know today about point of care antigen test is considerably more than what we knew going into early August, that is something that has changed dramatically for us. But I will say we pushed hard and we pushed repeatedly hard for getting to this point and I thank my colleagues who did that as well.”
Is there appreciate to Ohio State for pushing too and with there not being any public sale of tickets for these games and only families of players and presumably coaches will be accommodated, what’s the reaction to that?
AD Moos: “Both Chancellor Green and I pushed very hard in our meetings respective meeting, that attendance should be based on local authorities, health officials, governments, etc. Again in our footprint are situation is different. But that does not appear that it’s going to be the case, certainly did not want it to be a deal breaker and we’re going to think of some innovative ways to have our fans involved. We love our fans, they are the greatest fans in college football and hopefully we can get them involved in some innovative ways and we’re already working on that. The important thing is that our fans are going to have Husker football and they’re not going to be able to be in their seats, hopefully, just for a year, but we’re going to need them. Now, as much as we ever have.”
Chancellor Green: “We did personally believe as an institution that should be a local decision on being able to have fans in the stands, so to speak, under appropriate guidance with public health, obviously, but the medical team of the Big Ten did recommend as part of their recommendations that there’ll be only family and staff in person at the games. We all know Nebraska – we all know that our fan base Husker Nation, the State of Nebraska and beyond – they will be in Memorial Stadium, whether that they’re there physically or not. And as Bill said, I know that that might not be perfect, but they will be there in spirit and they’ll be there supporting our team and we know that will be the case. Might this be revisited or might it be considered, I’ll go back to what I said earlier, this is of course a fluid and dynamic situation when I said we know a lot more today than we knew in August 11 I think we’re going to know a lot more in November than we know today and we will continue to evaluate what those conditions are. It is not lost on me that there are other conferences that are playing and competing as well as we know is started over the last couple of weeks. And we’ll see more of here in the coming weeks ahead. And there are examples of where that is being done successfully and so we will continue to learn more, as we move forward.”
Can you give a general thought on what was the primary concern of medical officials as it relates to their fans in the stadium and in was it related to specific locales in the Big Ten?
AD Moos: “I believe that it gets back to the safety of the players, some of that I question because I know here at the University of Nebraska we were very careful of how we protect the players and would be in the situation as well. But there’s talk about the total overall campus in the community and so forth. And we want to be good citizens in both but again, some of our venues are different than others. Some of our locations are very different from others, and in the end of the day, this is how it came down and it was a unanimous vote. I wanted to make sure that that everyone knows that that was a concern to Chancellor Green and myself, and we worked very hard in hopes that we could have done locally and not as a conference.”
Chancellor green could you expand a little bit on this community or population positivity test, what specifically does that mean? And for Bill, would there be ideas out there to engage the fans now that they cannot be in the stadium? Are there may be plans to do something of that nature, once the season gets started?
Chancellor Green: “We’ll try to keep from getting too technical on it. It has to do with the team group. So specifically to the team being tested every day with the point of care test and supporting staff that interact with them daily, so that congregate group. If you want to think of it that way. So within that group the test positivity rate, so the percentage of those tested on a given day that are positive on that test is one measure, the other is the population, the entire group of active cases that were identified as positive. So those are the two statistics. The medical community that was working with us gave us those parameters for what they thought those thresholds should be in order to be able to continue to have contact practice and compete.”
AD Moos: “We have one of the most outstanding, not the most outstanding staff, in regards to marketing and promotions and very innovative, you just need to go back to the spring game the virtual spring game and look at the numbers, who watched that. And that was a make-believe game. We’re going to have real games, we’re going to have BTN, ESPN, we’re going to have Greg Sharpe, Matt Davison, and we’re going to have all the action that our listeners on our tremendous radio network are not even going to know that we don’t have fans in the stands. But we will have an array of again innovative ways to involve our fans. That’s what’s fun about this business are some things are more fun than others, but think of ideas and think outside the box. This staff does that, as well as any of I’ve seen in my career.”
There have been some marquee players who have opted out of the season. It doesn’t appear that’s been at the case in Nebraska. What do you think that says about how much the players have bought into to Scott Frost’s program and from your vantage point, how has Coach Frost and the coaching staff handled this last month and a half in your opinion?
AD Moos: “We’ve got a tremendous family in Husker Athletics and specific to your question in our football program – very passionate caring. Scott Frost is a player’s coach. He’s got a fabulous staff. They’ve just been wanting to compete. We may many more (players) in town over the summer than any of our competition. We were all in the voluntary workouts beginning June 1 and it’s been frustrating for them for everybody, but think of the players, they’ve been doing walk-through and all these kind of things. Here we are well into September and they’re ready to go out and play football and now they have a schedule to look at and soon they will have an opponent to prepare for and that is very, very important. I point out that they grew up, they dreamt, they worked to come to a place like the University of Nebraska to play in truly the big time, one of the premier programs in football history, and now they’re going to get to do that. Not as they had hoped with 90,000 and Memorial Stadium, that will come back in time, but they’re going to be able to play. And that’s going to be so valuable to everyone. The coaches, they’re competitors too, they want to be playing. They care about their players and now there’s a sigh of relief. They still have to wait a while but at least we can start to prepare and look forward to a competitive season. And hey, there’s a championships out there. There’s bowl games out there. Now there’s Top-25 ratings. There’s all these things. And now we can be involved with and be included, you know, depending on how we perform.”
Chancellor Green: “No one chose to be a student-athlete in COVID-19, no one chose to be a high school graduate in a global pandemic. No one chose to be a student as a freshman at the University of Nebraska in a global pandemic. We all understand that and recognize the magnitude of that for all of us. We’re all living this, no one in our lives has lived like this before. It’s the first major challenge we’ve had societally, so I want to thank our players. I want to thank our coaches. I want to thank them for what they have done to persevere through this to get to this point now where we can have a path forward is a big deal. It is absolutely a big deal to be able to return to play.”
How much thought was given to an October 16/17 start? And what do you think about the schedule as it’s configured now?
Chancellor Green: “On October 16 and 17, that was seriously considered as a possible start date for the return to the season, the decision came down to the (Oct) 24th, on the basis of the test availability and getting that implemented. So that was the reason for the move to the 24th.”
AD Moos: “I think it’s a sound plan. I was pushing and hoping, as was Chancellor Green that we could have it on the 16th, 17th so we could have a break. But hey, we’re being very cautious in regards to the medical piece of this, so eight games – conference games – four at home and four on the road. We will play everyone in our division and that of course is very important and then that will produce as always, a division champion that will meet for the Big Ten Championship, along with matchups with the rest of the teams depending on how they finished who their opponent will be. And I think that brings a little bit of a unique aspect to the season and also allows all of our teams to get nine games in.”
Are there any plans to do anything with the season ticket holders have already paid their yearly dues and paid for their tickets? Will you discourage any tailgates for large gatherings, especially the Lancaster County is under phase three of real pain, who would you consider responsible for this?
AD Moos: “Our amazing fans were all notified when it looked like we were not going to have a traditional season and given an option to respond in a couple of ways and the results of that were pretty much these percentages. 20% of our fans said please keep our money for our donations and for our season tickets, this is a rough time we want to support you, we want to be with you. About 60% said you keep our money and please apply it to next season when hopefully we’re going to be back to normal and only 20% said we would like a refund. We’re with you, but these are tough times for everybody, not just in athletics and they’ll be back next year. So I think that was a tremendous response. And again, a true indication and proof that we have outstanding wonderful fans – the best in the country.
Chancellor Green: “We had already made the decision going into the planning for the season when we were planning a Sept. 5 season, there would be no tailgating on the campus. Because for us in having our academic mission under underway, we are not having group gatherings of any kind, beyond the public health directive in Lincoln of size so that that decision, it already has been made.”
If there were an outbreak to occur, who is responsible and protecting the rest of campus because obviously these are student-athletes, other students and faculty could be affected?
Chancellor Green: “We work daily hand in hand with the Lincoln Lancaster County Health Department and all of our ways of risk mitigation and handling risk mitigation. We’re actually very pleased with where we are in our fifth week of our semester that we’re now in or the academic term. And so it’d be the same approach.”
On the Dec. 19 games, are they looking at neutral sites for those games or would they be a home
AD Moos: “That has not been decided again being on the scheduling committee, we’re going to be talking about that perhaps as early as this afternoon. There are a couple of options. Obviously on the various campuses and that would be the, the higher seed of those games – best record. I would presume not having that cast in stone or even possibly in dome stadiums, maybe two or three dome stadiums that we would have a couple of games in each and we got to remember that our weather’s going to be a little sketchy in this part of the country in the entire 11-state footprint of the Big Ten. So these are things we’re going to take into consideration as we work on the schedule throughout this week. None of this stuff’s been done before so I will look at it, you know, we’ve played in tough conditions and I learned real fast, you get into mid to late October, you can have snow going sideways, whether you’re in Lincoln, or you’re in Ann Arbor or East Lansing or wherever. So our players they understand that and our coaches, it just might be a little bit better environment. Taking into consideration. That’s where the championship game would be played in a normal season would be in in a dome in Indianapolis that all of those games be in that kind of an environment, but we’re going to take a good look at that.”
Chancellor Green: “Also one other consideration on that – so each of the 14 Big Ten institutions has had their own approach to the fall term as we’ve adapted and pivoted to the conditions of COVID-19. So we have some institutions like us, that are in session academically and finishing at Thanksgiving. We have others who are going forward through the whole semester so that’s part of that conversation as well. And what’s happening on the campuses.
Will team travel be any different?
AD Moos: “We could explore all that now, we will be looking into charter flights, making sure that everything is clean – the buses, the planes, the hotels, certainly the food preparation and such. But I foresee right now getting back to fairly normal in regards to team travel and especially again with a footprint that covers our wide array of campuses, it would be a little tough to go in turn around and come back. But we’re not going to take that off the table will look at it all.”
Will test results be made available to the public?
AD Moos: “Well, the big part of the decision in the basic part is to protect the student-athlete and their rights, we do report these things to the Big Ten confidentially. Certainly on campus, the proper authorities know as well. But we’ve got to follow the rules and regulations and be very sensitive to the student-athletes and their privacy.”
Chancellor Green: “That’s universally true of all students. As you pointed out directly the test results do come through the aggregate group on campus and are reported in that way. And as Bill said have been and continue to be reported to the Big Ten along with all of our other institutions and that will continue.”
The teams and the support staff are being separated out in terms of the population, but their results are still going to be reported as part of the broader aggregate results of the university. Is that correct?
Both: “That is correct.”
Follow up – If that population at risk in this context is the teams and the staff. Is there anything being done to keep student-athletes separate or in a bubble away from the rest of the student body at this point?
AD Moos: “We’re very cautious there, and certainly the testing protocol that we will be implementing will help us in that regard, social distancing and contact tracing all these things. I think we’re doing as well, if not better than anybody. A lot of the campuses in our conference are operating without students, overall students on campus. They’re operating remotely. And some of our classes are that way as well. But I don’t believe our biggest risk is within the student body and within the campus, it would be more of socializing and not being very careful in what people are doing in their time off. And now that we have a schedule. And it’s not just, hey, if you’re not living up to what we’re asking for and what are our requirements are. You’re not going to be practicing this week. Well, okay, I’m going to miss 12 hours of practice. Now you may not be playing against Minnesota next week. And that’s a big piece in regards to the control and discipline of a sport program.”
Is there anything being done to expand testing for the broader campus community at this point?
Chancellor Green: “We are in the process of expanding available testing. We have met all of the needed testing needs, we’ve met the demand for what those testing needs have been. But we are in the process beginning as early as this weekend of expanding availability of testing for some targeted testing on campus to help us to further mitigate risk.”
Are the colors going to be reported? For example in a certain week Nebraska is green, orange is that information going to be released to media and public, other than to the Big Ten?
AD Moos: “That is not the plan at this point. Again, we’re going to be doing everything that allows each and every one of our eligible players to be in in competition. This is all new to us too. So we’re going to have to feel our way through it a little bit and how we report these things and who we report them to has yet to be determined.”
Chancellor Green: “The Big Ten will require all of that data to be reported daily. So that’s part of the protocols that we’ve accepted to move forward. So at the point of care antigen testing will be reported daily by an official here at the university. And that’s the will be the use of the data in that sense.”
A lot of traditions in the conference, especially that Thanksgiving weekend. Do you want to try to play that Friday or do you think you will stick to Saturday games?
AD Moos: “I think there will be Friday Games. Especially due to the inventory we want and need to provide to our TV partners. I pressed all along and all these different models to situate the schedule so that Nebraska had our Black Friday game, which as you know is a tradition and hopefully with Iowa who we are now establishing as that rival. And I think we can probably work, work through that and again that remains to be seen. And probably have that answer within the next two or three days.”
How much input will you have on the schedule? Are those crossover games decided yet? Would you go back to the schedule that was originally set for the season?
AD Moos: “The schedule that we put out in early August had four crossover opponents and now we will only have two so who’s going to be taken off of that, and who’s going to stay on? We have to be very sensitive to that, especially in regards to the schedule and how fair it is to the participants. So that’ll be a big part of our discussion and everyone that’s on that committee which we, I think, have done good work so far. I think we’re going to be fair and equitable and the traditional games you we will still have – Purdue and Indiana, even though that’s a crossover. That’s an important rivalry, we will have Ohio State and Michigan and all the ones that that are traditional big-time rivalries. It just depends when they will fall in the season. It will probably not at the end. Again, we want to be good partners with our TV companions in and they will have a say in this as well.”
Final Statement
Chancellor Green: “The last thing I would say is, as we started. It’s a good day for Nebraska. It’s a good day for being able to return to competition. We look forward to that. And the excitement that will come with that for everyone who is anticipating it and wanting it so badly. There’s something to be said about hope here, you know, we live in a tough time. We live in a time that is challenging for everyone. That the time we’re living in, and I am really hopeful because we’re being able to move forward we’re being able to try and to make this work. And we’re trusting that it’s going to work. And I thanked earlier our players, their families, our coaches our staff, Bill and his leadership team, for everything that’s been done to get this work done and be able to be at this point. We’ve been aligned in Nebraska from the top to the top down on what we believe is the right thing to do and moving forward. And it’s an exciting day to be able to move forward.”
AD Moos: “Very excited for our players, our coaches and our fans. We have a chance to have a very, very good football team. This is this is Scott’s third year, we’ve got sophomores and juniors and seniors that understand the program. They’ve worked very, very hard. This is a fabulous reward for them and I applaud Chancellor Green and his colleagues in the presidents and chancellors and my colleagues and as a ADs and the conference office. A lot of hours went into this and thank you – the media. You guys have been pretty good and we’re excited to have an opportunity to give you something to write about, because you’ve been somewhat starved. So we thank you for your patience as well.”