Will Ohio State football get to play this fall? Will the Horseshoe be packed with 100,000 screaming fans when Michigan comes to town in November?
“I wish I knew the answer to your question. I don’t,” said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Tuesday.
That’s probably not the answer Buckeye fans were looking to hear. It’s not a “no” but more than three weeks into Ohio’s “shelter in place” order, it’s also not exactly reassuring.
The Buckeyes’ season opener against Bowling Green is 144 days away. For perspective, the 2019 Ohio State vs. Michigan game happened 136 days ago.
DeWine has talked about re-opening things in Ohio in a responsible manner in the coming weeks, but it doesn’t sound like football games or other major events are likely to happen any time soon.
“I would say that as you look at any kind of coming back, that large gatherings of people are going to be the last thing that you check off the box and you say, ‘We should be doing that,'” DeWine said.
The Buckeyes aren’t the only team being impacted right now. The state also has an NHL team, an MLS team, and NBA team, and a pair of MLB squads, all of which are on the sidelines right now. And DeWine said there’s not a clear, simple answer as to when thing will get back to normal.
“Again, it’s not going to be what the states do only but what fans think is safe. What do restaurant customers think is safe? What do people who go to bars think is safe? If you go to a (Cincinnati) Reds game, do you think that is safe?” he said. “That is our challenge and the state’s challenge, to do everything we can possible to make people feel safe and it be true.”
In addition to the uncertainty surrounding Ohio State football, there are also a lot of questions about OSU as an academic institution that are still unanswered. The school has already announced that it will not hold in-person classes until at least the end of the summer semester on August 9.
Beyond that, it’s all still up in the air.
“It’s much too early to be making any decisions about fall,” DeWine said. “I don’t think we know enough. I don’t think we know where we’re going to be. I don’t think we know how many tests we will have.
“What we do know is whether it’s a business, whether it’s a college, whether it’s K-12 — whenever they do open again, it’s going to be different.”