For a few hours on Tuesday, the first to know that the Big Ten was about to reverse course and attempt to play football this fall appeared to be a retired lieutenant general from the United States Air Force named Bob Hinson.
What does Hinson have to do with Big Ten football? Absolutely nothing, which somehow made perfect sense for this meandering, maddening, madcap, Midwestern, Shakespearean saga (“to play, or not to play”).
The league finally ended months of pouting, protests, politics, lawsuits, drama and backroom dealing early Wednesday by officially announcing that it would attempt an eight-game regular season starting the weekend of Oct.