Last Tuesday, the Big Ten postponed its fall sports slate due to health and safety concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic. The league hopes to play a spring football season, but that didn’t exactly cushion the blow for Big Ten players and coaches.

“Tuesday was a really tough day for us,” Maryland head coach Mike Locksley said on Tiki & Tierney. “My heart breaks for our players. The way it broke for us, it was virtual. We had been breaking up and meeting in smaller groups and defensively and offensively have been meeting separately just to continue to practice the social-distancing protocols. But nevertheless, it’s never easy to tell these guys who made some sacrifices this summer [that the fall season was canceled]. The ones that opted in, we kind of created a bubble-esque type of environment. We moved into the hotel two weeks prior to the start of camp, just to try and create an environment to give ourselves a chance to play.”

It wasn’t enough. The Big Ten deemed a fall season would not be feasible due to COVID-19. The Pac-12 made the same determination. So have several other conferences.

“A lot of thought and a lot of people played a part in the decision, so I respect the decision of the Big Ten and the medical professionals, as well as the administrators to create an atmosphere and an environment to allow us to play the game safely,” Locksley said. “As of right now, they just felt like postponing it was the best thing to do. And so, we’ll move forward and start preparing for whatever a spring [or] winter season looks like.”