Random Thoughts: 2020 football

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports editor

This week’s Random Thoughts center around new high school football schedules for the Northwest Conference and the Western Buckeye League, an interesting scenario for the WBL, plus college football and the NFL. 

NWC

Northwest Conference principals will meet Wednesday to discuss revised football schedules and the upcoming season.

There’s no word if a new master schedule has been made yet. 

Let’s just hope that a new schedule will be needed. Personally, I was pretty confident last Friday that games would be played. Today, I’m less confident. 

WBL

We could see a revised Western Buckeye League football schedule as soon as Wednesday. 

Work was done on the schedules over the weekend and a vote will likely take place tomorrow (Wednesday), depending on what/if Governor Mike DeWine says at his usual Tuesday press briefing. 

More WBL

Scott Alan of WERT 1220AM/104.3FM mentioned an interesting idea for the Western Buckeye League for football this season – two divisions of five teams. 

Imagine something like Defiance, Van Wert, Ottawa-Glandorf, Celina and St. Marys Memorial in one division and Elida, Bath, Shawnee, Kenton and Wapakoneta in the other. Obviously, that could be tweeked, but that’s a first-glance type of idea.

Each team would play four division games and two crossover games during the six-game regular season. In a year where nothing is right, I like the idea. It makes sense and it makes scheduling easy. 

Unless a WBL made it all the way to the state semifinals or the state title champ, a Western Buckeye League title game could be staged with the two division winners. 

Again, it’s something different in a different year.

Preseason WBL, NWC predictions

I had planned to release the VW independent’s annual preseason predictions for the Western Buckeye League and Northwest Conference on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. However, I’m going to hold off on that until I see what the new schedules look like first.

Since they’ll be shortened schedules, matchups will be even more crucial in the face for league and conference title races. For example,it would be huge if a team can avoid the likes of perennial powers St. Marys Memorial and Wapakoneta.

Keep checking the Sports page – unless we receive word there’s not going to be a season, preseason predictions will be posted here.

College football

What a roller coaster ride for Big 10 football fans. Last week, the conference issued a new 10-game schedule for each team.

Now, it seems the conference is ready to scrap it and push football to the spring of 2021 because of COVID-19. A vote could come as soon as today, but there has been a great deal of pushback from schools and coaches. Will it be enought? I’m not sure, but I hope so.

In fairness, when the new schedule came out last week, officials did say there was no guarantee games would be played, that the schedule was put in place as part of the planning process.

I’m still not sold on spring football because at any level it seems to lead to new problems. But it’s better than nothing I suppose. 

NFL

If Division I college football is indeed put on the shelf this fall, the NFL would be smart to shift some of the Sunday games to Saturday to fill the void. 

One has to think that’s already been discussed at the league office. 

As always, if you have thoughts or comments on any of the above topics, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com.