Big Ten Football Media Days get underway in less than 24 hours in Indianapolis (away from its usual location of Chicago) at Lucas Oil Stadium and there will be no shortage of storylines going into the event. Last season the Big Ten made waves by being the first league to shorten its regular season by cancelling non-conference games and then led the way along with the Pac-12 in cancelling their entire seasons, only to come back with an about-face but at a delayed date, opting for a shorter season than many other Power Five leagues.

Fast forward to this upcoming season and the plan is to move forward, with fans in stands, tailgating lots open and as close of a return to normalcy as possible, but not complete.

It got us to thinking about some of the top storylines that we are looking forward to getting to the bottom to, if possible, at the annual conference meeting of all 14 Big Ten team’s head coaches, the conference commissioner and 50-plus players.

1. This season is moving forward, right? – The idea of not having a season last year was foreign to fans and many football minds until we were in the midst of cancellations and the very real thought that the Big Ten would either be playing in the spring or not at all. Proposals were making their way on to social media of alternative plans, you didn’t know who was going to be playing from week-to-week and many of the biggest league games were not played.

Now the question comes into vaccinations, which teams are nearly fully-vaccinated, which are not? How will game week and gameday differ for players and personnel that have made the personal choice, one way or the other. Will there be any mandates put on teams? We are not sure that we will get any deep answers here but it is still something that we will be keeping an eye on as it is the question we are asked the most in the build-up to the season.

2. NIL – Name, Image, Likeness is a tricky topic, we have watched other conferences go through their own media days and we still don’t know a whole lot more about how it will work, especially as states have had to go out and enact their own laws with nothing on the books from the NCAA at this point. What do players think about this opportunity to profit off of their own NIL? What do coaches think about this whole situation and how it could either enter recruiting or potentially enter the locker room?

3. Expanding the playoff field – While nothing has been determined yet in moving the College Football Playoff from four teams to 12, recommendations of sort have been made and we could see the field of teams left standing at the end of the season triple with this expansion. With teams sending upperclassmen to events like these, any changes will not impact the players who are taking part in the event, but many of these coaches would be expected to remain with their teams in the timeframe that something could be enacted. What are the thoughts about how that could change things? Would scheduling strategy change? Is the Big Ten at a disadvantage playing nine league games while other conferences play only eight?

1. New faces, new places – Gone are guys like Justin Fields, Trey Sermon, Shaun Wade, all of the experienced linebackers, Tommy Togiai, others… who is going to be ready to step into many of those roles? Even in Columbus (Ohio), Ryan Day is not one to single out players who are doing this or that at risk of leaving a name out, so it will be tough sledding to get a lot of names associated with these positions, no matter how many different ways we attempt to get a window in the quarterback room, but we hope to have some ideas of who had a strong offseason and is poised for a big fall and potential ascension into the starting lineup.

2. J.T. Tuimoloau – While this is not going to be the biggest story of the event, it is still big to Ohio State recruiting fans as this will be the first chance for Ryan Day to talk about Ohio State’s 22nd and final signee from the class of 2021. He is on campus, ready to go through fall and we are looking maybe to get a little more insight on how this unique recruitment went down and what the addition means.

3. Palaie Gaoteote – We almost rolled this one in with No. 2 but they are different situations and Ohio State still might not be able to comment on a player that has not met all of his transfer obligations. We will still attempt to see what is the latest on the former USC linebacker as we know he is in Columbus and we have seen him in pictures hanging out with the team. Could this be the time that there is news to share with fall ball not far off?

4. A quick start – Ohio State does not have any time to build up to the season once the games start in September. A Thursday opener at Minnesota is followed up by a home game against Oregon, arguably the biggest OOC game in the league, along with Auburn at Penn State and Washington at Michigan. Does Ohio State do anything differently in getting ready for a season that is front-loaded with a pair of meaningful games, especially breaking in so many new starters at key positions? We will get some insight here.

5. A little bit of normalcy – We know that things are not back to the 2019 levels of practice and ability to meet in groups, and with fall ball not quite here yet and the team turned over from Mickey Marotti to Ryan Day, just how different are things at this point of 2021 than where they would have been in a normal year. How will things be different once the 105 players open fall camp? What lessons from 2020 will carry forward here into 2021 and beyond in terms of distancing, safety and things of that nature?

We will get things kicked off on Friday morning at 10:15am (EDT) when conference commissioner Kevin Warren takes the podium to answer questions for approximately 45 minutes.

Ohio State will enter Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday and stick these media appearances:

Ryan Day Podium - 12:30pm - 12:45pm

Ohio State Athletes Breakouts - 1:15pm - 2:15pm

Ryan Day Breakout - 3:30pm - 4:30pm