By their own choice or a cancellation of their schedule by school presidents, 23 preseason college football All-Americans will not be playing this fall. The annual selection of many future NFL stars by the Associated Press, announced on Tuesday, included players from the Big Ten and Pac-12, two members of the Power 5 conferences that postponed their fall season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite Big Ten and Pac-12 presidents voting to nix their fall season two weeks ago, the AP nonetheless still included players from the conferences on their All-American list. Some are projected as high first round picks in the 2021 NFL Draft, including Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons, Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, Oregon tackle Penei Sewell and Ohio State defensive back Shaun Wade.
How players’ draft positions will be impacted by not playing is an unknown that weighs heavily on them. First rounders stand to lose millions of dollars if they fall four or five spots. Case in point: In last April’s draft, the Giants picked left tackle Andrew Thomas from the University of Georgia at No. 4. The total value of his rookie deal is $32.34 million dollars.
Only four picks after Thomas, Clemson linebacker Isaiah Simmons was taken by the Arizona Cardinals at No. 8. His rookie contract, $20.66 million, is nearly $12 million less. It is one of the reasons why some players and their families are vehemently opposed to the Big Ten’s and Pac-12’s decisions.
Of the aforementioned preseason All-Americans from the Big Ten and Pac-12, only Penn State’s Parsons voluntarily opted out of playing this season prior to the conferences’ determinations, citing the novel coronavirus pandemic as the factor.
“As I considered my options for the 2020 season, I decided that I needed to make a choice not for myself, but for my son and those dearest to me,” said the 21-year old, who was the Big Ten Linebacker of the Year last season. “…The potential risk to the health and well-being of my son far outweighed my urge to play football…”
Conversely, last Friday, parents of some Big Ten players held a protest near the conference’s headquarters in Rosemont, Illinois, organized by Randy Wade, father of Shaun Wade. Chief among their grievances was what they deemed to be the obscure process by which the conference came to the decision to postpone the fall season.
“The biggest thing is not necessarily for my son,” said the elder Wade in an interview on ESPNU’s Sirius XM channel, “the biggest thing is for all of these kids to have dreams and work so hard to compete where they’re at in the Big Ten.
“…We don’t trust you saying we’re going to have football in the spring,” Wade maintained in referring to the conference’s leadership, including its commissioner Kevin Warren. “We don’t trust uncertainty. A lot of the words Kevin Warren used in his statement, we just don’t trust. We need transparency and communication.”
In shutting down the fall season, Warren emphasized that the “mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward.”
There is ample evidence Warren’s concerns are justified as many colleges and universities, Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina among them, have suffered from COVID-19 outbreaks. Additionally, on Tuesday, Texas Tech disclosed that 21 players in their football program are currently infected with COVID-19.