It took only days before the Big Ten told its teams to slow down the preseason preparation timeline.Â
The league announced Saturday morning that it was requiring its member schools to not advance past the "acclimatization period," or the helmets-only rule that typically governs the first two days of preseason camp, until further notice.Â
"Each new phase of activity provides new intelligence and experience and allows us to evaluate the implementation of our Conference and institutional medical protocols in real-time," the Big Ten's statement said in part. "In order to make the right health and safety decisions for our student-athletes, we believe it is best to continue in the appropriate phase of activity referenced above while we digest and share information from each campus to ensure we are moving forward cautiously."Â
The league said the decision was made, "based on the advice and counsel of the Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee."Â
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Nebraska began preseason camp Friday. After a Saturday practice, the Huskers would have advanced to shells Monday, but now that will wait indefinitely.
NU is set to kick off its season Sept. 5 at Rutgers.Â
"We understand there are many questions regarding how this impacts schedules, as well as the feasibility of proceeding forward with the season at all," the Big Ten statement said. "As we have consistently stated, we will continue to evaluate daily, while relying on our medical experts, to make the best decisions possible for the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes."
Earlier this summer, the head of the Big Ten's infectious disease committee, University of Nebraska Medical Center's Dr. Christopher Kratochvil, told the Journal Star that each successive step up in preparations — from working out to walk-throughs to practicing to games — comes with more and more risk.Â
“We do anticipate that the risk is going to be significantly higher when you move from individual exercise to scrimmages and competitions,†Kratochvil said in June, “Because you have not only the physical contact but the proximity of the individual and because of what we know about the spread of the coronavirus. Having folks that are exhaling deeply and breathing heavily in very close physical proximity, all of those things are going to very likely increase the risk of potential spread.â€