3-2-1: Leaders rise while the Big Ten sinks

I have held off on writing my 3-2-1 for the last couple of weeks for a multitude of reasons, mostly because I really don’t trust myself once I start writing a column like this.

As someone who makes their living directly tied to the resumption of sports, I have a different type of skin in the game that most people who just want to see their favorite athletes back out on the field of competition.

That has not stopped me from writing a couple of long columns, expressing my views and disappointment with how things have been handled so far in this whole vacuum of football within the Big Ten and demise of the conference as one of the preeminent powers in college athletics and instead turn into a punchline.

But I also know that while I may be preserving my own sanity by passing on this piece for a couple of weeks, I am not doing a service to my loyal customers by not taking a swing at the weekly 3-2-1 and have had more than a few notes to check in on me, make sure I am doing okay and find out where the 3-2-1 has been and if it is coming back.

RELATED: The league will wear a scarlet letter forevermore

It is back, I can promise you, and I am writing this one without and framework in mind. It is just going ‘on paper’ as things come to mind and as we try and make sense out of a situation that has made no sense from the word go.

So, let’s welcome back the 3-2-1 (from the team side), presented by our friends at Hague Water Conditioning, to BuckeyeGrove as I try to hit on some key points and maybe even make a point or two along the way.

1 - Here we still sit

We are now a couple of weeks into the college football season and the Big Ten sits and fiddles in the corner while other leagues play.

It would be hilarious if this were happening to someone else, but it really hurts when it happens at home.

#FeelsBadMan

It really will feel bad for everyone associated with the Big Ten when the ACC and Big 12 start playing 'this' week and then when the SEC gets on board at the end of the month.

Yes, the games so far have largely been uninspiring but they do prove that this can be done, if you are willing to put in the efforts.

Some football games that would have been relegated to internet providers, carrier pigeons and gametracker made their way to center stage this past weekend with a BYU at Navy tilt taking center stage on Labor Day, a very ugly game that we will touch upon in a little bit.

I have now watched Central Arkansas play twice. How much Central Arkansas had I watched for my previous 47 years (not all of them watching college football, but most of them)? Zero minutes and zero plays.

But if it is college football, I will watch it (more or less, my patience for bad games is not great with the promise of no Big Ten football for the foreseeable future).

The point here is not how much we are starved for college football (because we are), but it is the fact that it is occurring in a safe manner.

Sure, there was the story out of Knoxville how the University of Tennessee was unable to go through with a planned scrimmage because of "an outbreak" of positive tests. But even that was a little deceptive because the actual number of positive tests ended up being just a tick above half a dozen and the remaining 30-plus people who were held out were people that came into close contact with those players and had to be held out due to contact tracing.

Yes, we have seen the TCU/SMU game postponed as well as the Oklahoma State versus Tulsa game because of positive tests. Nobody said this was going to be easy. There were going to have to be considerations put into place to move games and even cancel games or play games without key players if positive tests occurred.

The Big Ten did not even allow itself to really go through those discussions, punting just six days after releasing a schedule, running for high ground the moment the first drops of precipitation hit the pavement.

What about Myocarditis? The Big Ten in one of its rare moments of communication flew that banner, only to have its 'findings' disproven, mis-represented or just outright opposite of what the rest of the nation was seeing and reporting.

That has not stopped the army of "Coronabros" from coming out and marching in unison to put out a message of fear, terror and just downright contempt toward anyone who does not agree with them.

If you want to see football played, you are a monster sir or madam, good day.

What they fail to tell you is that they are also cheering on the leagues that are playing football at this point or right on the brink of playing football.

So, the Big Ten (and Pac-12, but we really don't care about the Pac-12 at this point for the sake of our argument) is right for NOT playing football and the rest of the leagues are right FOR playing football?

That sounds odd, right?

Well, Desmond Howard and Lee Corso said during a socially distanced pregame show this weekend on national cable television that they agree with the B1G and P12 for their decisions, but yet they were more than happy to appear on their show, dovetail from that topic to a predictable SEC love and admiration segment and of course will be cashing checks.

Either football during these times is good or football during these times is bad.

Sure, there are going to be smaller leagues that don't have the financial resources to institute testing in a timely and meaningful enough manner or just can't check off all the boxes to do things at a responsible level.

But this is the Big Ten that we are talking about. 12 months ago we were all talking about the league brings in more money for its member schools on its television deals for football than anyone else. It has a conference commissioner that makes more than four-million dollars a year.

Hell., the White House has been in touch to try and free the log jam in terms of getting the testing protocols for the league up to a rapid level. Even the Pac-12, a league that has not said boo for this entire process since being Louise to the Big Ten's Thelma, has made steps to up its testing capability.

It has to be something more. And it is.

2 - It is more but we are going to be delicate here

Hats off to Nebraska, Iowa and Ohio State for being ringleaders in trying to right this ship. They have been the most vocal of the 14 member schools in this conference to try and play. It certainly does not hurt that Ohio State far and away has the best team in the league and maybe the best, if not one of the best, teams in program history while Nebraska is a school synonymous with college football.

There are schools that just seem dead set against playing and they are not going to move off of that position, even if it kills their programs.

But it also does bring the question into play if this is more of a matter of university presidents and chancellors being stubborn or if it is coming from statehouses.

After the state of Michigan reluctantly agreed to allow contact sports, yet discouraged them, you would have expected to see at least the University of Michigan move forward with a plan of getting back to football. Jim Harbaugh said he needed just two weeks to get his team ready and most of the return to play ideas being talked about would give him more than twice that.

But the president of Michigan, Mark Schlissel has doubled down and even appeared to be taunting the most ardent of football supporters with some ridiculous social media post over the weekend. We understand that he is a medical doctor and hopefully he is a good one because is university administration skills are lacking. The next time he finds his way to the football facilities in Ann Arbor (Mich.) will be his first as he has not been responsive whatsoever in talking to the Michigan head coach.

Let's not put this all on Schlissel, it takes two to tango and more than two to completely **** up a college football season and this season is well on its way to being ****ed up.

Some have gone to social media to state that Schlissel has been actively campaigning to get other school leaders 'on his side' and while we cannot confirm nor deny that, it shows the tribal nature that this whole situation has taken on.

And this also brings another question to the forefront, why is "late November" maybe okay and "late October" not? Let's see...

#StickingToSports

If you take that off the table, it sure does seem as if these leaders are hellbent on not aligning the seasons and allowing a conference champion participate in the College Football Playoff.

It is funny (in a tragic way) that these institutions are more than happy to cash checks on the backs of the accomplishments of other member schools along the way while they provide little in terms of the bottom line. Why exactly are Rutgers and Maryland getting full votes when they don't even get a full share of conference revenues at this point? Why is it that it appears that teams that would be destined for 3-7 seasons (on the 10-game model) suddenly appear to be hyper-concerned about all of this but if they had a Justin Fields or Shaun Wade on their team, they probably might want to give it the old college try?

And ultimately, if you want to pick up your ball and go home, why are you not allowing those who want to move forward, in a safe manner, to try and attempt to play a season? Why exactly are you standing in the way? It sure seems if all hell broke loose and lawsuits started flying, if you were not playing, you would be pretty well insulated from any legal action. Since we know that is what these men and women are most concerned about.

What could it be? What could it be?

3 - Practice

We are going to step away from the main issue for a moment just as I continue to get more and more upset as I write and talk about something we saw this week when it came to football on the field, a problem that Ohio State fans would love to have to talk about.

Navy made the decision this preseason not to practice tackling against live opponents. Instead the Midshipmen used tackling dummies and blocking bags as it prepared for its season.

BYU rolled out actual human opponents and a 55-3 final score shows that Navy Head Coach Ken Niumatalolo made a mistake in that approach.

He claimed that it was his care for his players during these COVID times that led to that decision and while it was a bad performance, he would do it all over again.

Well, Tulane is hoping that Navy does not learn its lesson and continues to tackle at a first-grade level.

Now, why are we talking about this here?

The point is while we all want football back as soon as possible, you have to make a decision if you are all-in or all-out. Navy, a proud institution that molds and creates some of the greatest military officers in the world was all-out when it came to football, something that is completely uncharacteristic of that program and academy.

#WeAreTalkingBoutPractice

If you make the decision to play football, you need to be ready for all aspects, you can't just sleepwalk through this process and show up on gameday and hope for the best.

If week one is any indication of what to expect this year, we are taking Army in the annual rivalry game and laying the points, no matter how many that may be.

1 - So what's next?

This is the million dollar question.

Will a vote take place? Did a vote every actually take place?

Will Tom Mars end up owning the Big Ten by the end of this?

Will the conference ever furnish results to his FOIA requests?

What comes of the lawsuit by the Nebraska players?

What can lawmakers do about this?

Does this league even care about athletics any longer?

What will be the long-term fallout from this?

Will anyone care about JV football in either November or January?

Will Kevin Warren ever speak in public again?

#Fight

There are a lot of questions here, some more serious and pressing than others.

The truth is, we have no idea what is going on here when it comes to the Big Ten season and that rests on the shoulders of a leadership vacuum at the top of the conference.

I have said in the past that the Big Ten leadership has to be hoping that other leagues run into a brick wall of positive tests (that does not mean that they are wishing for ills on any athletes, let's not confuse topics here) that will force other leagues to cancel and the Big Ten to take a giant victory lap of "I told you so".

But that does not appear to be the case, and now giant egos and other ulterior motives have set into a motion a bunker mentality and waiting this out until the bitter end.

Attorney Tom Mars has laid out a case of "what if" the Big Ten really did not take a vote and conference leadership continues to walk into the trap by talking about "consensus" and never really using the word vote. Heaven help us if the league was dishonest in its Nebraska court filing when it comes to the nature of the vote.

Winter is coming and September 12th is the next major date in the court case and the Big Ten has some serious explaining to do. Once again the arrogance of the conference to just roll in there and expect to get this dismissed providing the minimum amount of transparency, while not unexpected, is showing and if you are a fan of meaningful football, you should tune in for all of those happenings if we don't get some sort of resolution before then.

2 - Don't like the news today? Wait an hour

Things are changing by the minute. Last night I went to bed feeling optimistic and that ended when I heard the Dan Patrick report on Tuesday morning.

There have been days where I have started the day feeling great about the impact of the parent groups, the law community and the fans overall to tip this in the right direction only to have those feelings dashed by lunchtime as the league either puts its "trusted allies" out to shoot down any optimism or just does it on its own with inaction and lack of communication. Only for all of that to circle back by the end of the day to feeling just as confused as the day prior.

The point is, don't let one report, no matter how positive or negative sway you. This is not over until it is over, even if the Big Ten said in its one lone statement that it is over.

#NoConfidence

The truth of the matter is that the Big Ten leadership has shown that it has no grasp of this situation, whatsoever. There are forces at work on both sides of this argument on these calls. And while it may require converting on a 4th-and-goal from the 32-yard-line, there is still a chance here and that is all we can hope for at this point.

Because without hope, there would be nothing.

The Big Ten will always be the league that ran when it should have stood firm and fought.

The Big Ten will be remembered as the ringleader of leagues looking to take the path of least resistance.

The Big Ten will always be the butt of all of the jokes.

The conference could produce the next 20 National Championship football winners and will still be remembered as the conference that voted not to play and then doubled down on it while everyone else played.

#B1GDisappointment

The Big Ten could reverse course and start its season mid-October and will still have to wear this.

The Big Ten took the Pac-12 down this dark path and thought that it had the ACC in its pocket as well, until it didn't.

There is no undoing this now. Now it is a matter of trying to pick up the pieces and move on.

Let's move on in October. Do something right. We are begging you.