The fall of the fall. Part Deux.

So I've got this map in front me, and a football schedule.  The football schedule is Indiana's, adjusted now to account for the Big Ten's desperate Hail Mary to save its fall sports.

I want to see how much eliminating everything but conference games, which is the Hail Mary, is really going to cut down on travel. And therefore lessen the risk of exposure to the Bastard Plague, the way the Big Ten says it will.

So here is this schedule, and here is this map. The schedule tells me Indiana plays at Rutgers on October 17. The map tells me Rutgers is 735 miles from Bloomington.

Now I have this other schedule. This one is Nebraska's. It tells me Nebraska plays at Rutgers a week after Indiana does. The map tells me Lincoln, Neb., is 1,162 miles from Piscataway, N.J.

It also tells me Lincoln is 625 miles from West Lafayette, In., which is where Purdue is. Purdue opens the season, if there is one, at Nebraska on Sept. 5.

Hmmm.

Look. I get it. Eliminating all non-conference games eliminates about a third of a team's schedule, which theoretically limits travel, which theoretically limits exposure.

But most of the non-conference games played by Power 5s are home games anyway. Only a relative handful compel Big Ten schools to travel somewhere else. And an even smaller handful compel them to travel ...

How far is Nebraska from New Jersey again? 1,162 miles?

So it's absurd to think a conference that now sprawls across half the country is going to be safer as a self-contained unit. That's a hell of a big bubble to operate under, after all. And all because the Big Ten decided some years back to stretch itself all out of round to grab some TV dollars.

So, yes, this is a Hail Mary. It's Doug Flutie going deep to Gerard Phelan as night comes down in Chestnut Hill -- except Gerard Phelan likely isn't down there to haul it in this time.

The Power 5s are probably headed where the Ivies have already decided to go, as the Blob noted yesterday. But, as the Blob also noted, they will move mountains to preserve what they can -- especially in football, whose money props up so much.

That means all of them will surely follow the Big Ten down this path. It also means the concept of women and children first has now been replaced by "To hell with them, we're saving ourselves."

Here's the thing, see: A lot of the non-conference games the Power 5s either have tossed or will toss overhead involve non-Power 5 schools who need those guarantee games to pay the bills.

As Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star has pointed out, Ball State was scheduled to rake in $1.675 million for playing at Michigan and Indiana this season. That money represents a good chunk of its athletic budget. Now that money is gone.

Likewise a bunch of other MAC schools, some of whom are barely hanging on by their fingernails as it is. What happens to them without the guarantee-game windfall?

I'll tell you what: No more track-and-field.

Or wrestling, Or baseball and softball. Or soccer. Or whatever.

Lest we forget, even Stanford, a Power 5 school itself, is cutting 11 sports to deal with a Bastard Plague-induced budget crunch. That doesn't augur well for the Ball States or Bowling Greens or Central Michigans, especially without those guarantee games.

In the meantime ...

In the meantime, eight or nine games in the Big Ten still means eight or nine times student-athletes from all over half the country will be breathing on each other for three-plus hours on a Saturday afternoon or night. It means those student-athletes will then take the Bastard Plague back to their own campuses -- where, given how cavalier college kids tend to be about such things, it will likely already have taken hold anyway.

So, yes, expect the Power 5s to soon join the Ivies, just like they did in March. Everything else is a delaying action.

Sorry, Gerard Phelan. Don't think you're gonna catch this one.