B1G Football News - Covid Policy; Karlaftis Named Second Team All-American

When the Covid numbers began rising in communities all across the country in these last few weeks you began to see college football conferences begin to announce what would happen if a game had to be cancelled due to Covid infection. There was silence from the Big Ten. There was nothing firm discussed at media days nor was there any announcement since then. However, today the conference finally made their announcement and they were nice enough to make it simple enough to fit into one tweet.

If you don’t wanna take the time to click through and read the thing I’ll spare you the extra clicks. If a team is unable to play due to a Covid outbreak on their team that team will earn a loss and their opponent will earn the win. There will be no rescheduling games. If both teams are suffering from Covid outbreaks and neither team can muster enough players to field a team the game gets labeled a no contest. What that means for conference rankings and final standings remains to be seen. Just ask Indiana how that worked out last season.

To me this is the most logical and simplest way to handle this. We don’t know how individual teams are doing as far as Covid infections, Covid vaccinations, or other safety protocols. The onus will be on those teams to ensure they are keeping their players healthy or else they will see the losses pile up. I do have a question about the both teams having Covid situation. Are we just relying on the honor system here? So assume that Ohio State is playing at Michigan. Does the onus fall on Michigan to announce “hey we’ve got a Covid issue, we can’t play”? What if Ohio State also has an issue? Do they just shut their mouths and take the victory and move on? It’s sort of a mini game theory problem. Not quite a prisoner’s dilemma but close enough. Let’s hope these rules never come into play and that everyone stays healthy throughout the season.

George Karlaftis Named Second Team Pre-Season AP All-American

We all know that Big George is very good. It just generally seems like he’s not getting the positive press and attention that a guy with his talent should be receiving. Sure he’s been named to a few watchlists but I feel like his name should be out there a bit more. Well, today the AP announced their pre-season All-American team and Big George found himself on the second team. He of course was the only Purdue player mentioned.

Karlaftis is the anchor of the Purdue defense and will be asked to carry a major load up front. With a set of three defensive coordinators now on staff for Purdue how does this change the way in which Karlaftis is used? Will there be better schemes for him to be able to be the impact player we know that he is? It can’t be worse than what happened last year with Diaco when all reports were that no one liked Diaco and that included the players. A change in coordinator may be just what this Purdue defense needed.

Pre-season awards are nice but ultimately they are just expectation setting. There’s really no prize for being named a pre-season anything. You’ve gotta back it up on the field. Everyone wants the end of the year recognition. This is a step in the right direction for Karlaftis but without the in-season production it doesn’t mean anything. Big things are coming for Big George this season.