INDIANAPOLIS – Football season is in the process of clearing another hurdle on Thursday and Friday of this week with the annual Big Ten Conference Football Media Days. Sure, there may not be the talk of conference expansion going on like in the SEC, there may not be a lot of definitive answers when it comes to COVID protocols, but it was long on coach speak and non-answers with a few noticeable exceptions.

The two-day event moved from its usual Chicago backdrop to Lucas Oil Stadium with seven teams taking the stage on Thursday with Ohio State and six others set to take center stage on Friday to wrap up the event.

Things started off with conference commissioner Kevin Warren taking the stage, a first opportunity for most of the conference media to ask questions to the Big Ten's sixth ever commissioner.

RELATED: Warren has no regrets

After a near 20-minute opening statement, Warren finally took questions from the conference media that included questions about Name, Image, Likeness (NIL), conference expansion and COVID. Warren, an attorney, was able to sidestep the questions with the grace of an all-Big Ten caliber running back making a jump cut to avoid being touched and made it out of his required media session largely unscathed.

There were several announcements including the hiring of Barry Alvarez as a special advisor in football, to be there to handle a lot of the true "football" issues on the landscape while Warren also highlighted successes along the way over his term even if most people will only view the cancellation and resumption of the Big Ten season as his lasting first-year legacy.

The whole COVID season of 2020 saw sacrifices made at every level and Penn State's head coach James Franklin made just about as big of a sacrifice as anyone. Many coaches stayed away from their families for extended periods of time but for Franklin, that extended period has just come to an end.

"I have a daughter with Sickle Cell disease," Franklin said from the podium at Big Ten Media Days. "I actually just reunited with my family a month ago during vacation. We have been separated for almost 14 months."

COVID changed how interaction between players, coaches, families and just about everyone took place prior to the release of a vaccination. While Franklin was unable to be around his family, he still had to have distance from his team, something that was difficult based on how he is used to coaching, teaching and interacting with his team.

"I'm a relational leader, I always have been, I want to connect with people, I want to be face-to-face, I want to embrace, I want to hug, I want to scream, I want to yell. That's who I am," Franklin said. "Having every meeting up until Game 5 over Zoom and not in person and with a mask on when people can't see the emotion and the connection and the love that I have for them, had an effect. We made a change after Game 5, there's no doubt about it."

It should come as no surprise that Penn State's fortunes changed after that fifth game and after a 0-5 start, Penn State ran out a four-game win streak including a 56-21 win over Illinois in "Champions Week".

NIL will be one of the hottest topics of these media days, largely because we are only seven weeks into this new era, we have not seen any national or even conference-wide guidelines and the fact that almost every coach wants to point out how their school is "uniquely positioned to maximize" on NIL.

Every coach except Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald, at least from what he said on stage on Thursday afternoon.

"I just think it's comical listening to all of us head coaches talk about how great our fan bases and our Twitter handles are for NIL for our players," Fitzgerald said.

Is there any doubt that Fitzgerald could have made some money back in the day with the Wildcats if NIL were a thing in the mid-90s?

"I'm not going to lie to you, I'm a little jealous," Fitzgerald joked. "I mean, think about the mid 90s the dough I would have made. I mean, come on? If I was here in Indy, I probably could get a free cup of coffee."

At this point nobody is sure how the NIL formula is going to work, is it going to be a case of the biggest players at the biggest programs making the biggest windfall? Or will it be the biggest players at the smaller schools where they are the only game in town who make the big bucks?

Nobody is quite sure, but one thing is for certain, NIL is here and not going away.

For Ohio State fans, it is hard who they were more interested in hearing from on Thursday, B1G Commissioner Kevin Warren or Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh.

When it comes to memorable quotes, it is Michigan, hands-down. A first and rare win in Indianapolis for the Wolverines.

The question was asked about being able to breakthrough and beat the Buckeyes and win the Big Ten.

Of course, Harbaugh is not going to call Ohio State as Ohio State. But it was about as cringeworthy of a reply as anyone would expect, or hope to hear.

“To win the championship. To beat Ohio. (Have success in) our rivalry with Michigan State. That's what we want to do. And we're going to do it or die trying.”

Ohio State has won eight in-a-row in this series, granted not all against Harbaugh. A cat only has nine lives, how many more does Jim have?