Q&A: Gophers legend and parent Omar Douglas on cancellation of B1G football in fall

Gophers legend and parent Omar Douglas talked to KSTP Sports about the Big Ten’s decision to cancel football in the fall.

Omar finished his Gophers career with 130 catches, 1,681 yards and 14 touchdowns. He set a school and Big Ten record with five touchdown receptions against Purdue on Oct. 9, 1993.

Omar’s son, Demetrius, is a red-shirt junior receiver for P.J. Fleck’s team. With Rashod Bateman declaring for the NFL Draft and opting out of next season, and Tyler Johnson’s eligibility up, Douglas has a chance to play a big role whenever football returns.

***Click the video box on this page to watch our chat with Omar Douglas***

He had 14 receptions for 157 yards and no touchdowns in 2019. He stepped up big on two consecutive plays to convert third-and-30 late in a comeback win against Georgia Southern last September at TCF Bank Stadium.

From the Associated Press:

A crumbling college football season took a massive hit Tuesday when the Big Ten and Pac-12, two historic and powerful conferences, succumbed to the pandemic and canceled their fall football seasons.

Five months almost to the day after the first spikes in coronavirus cases in the U.S. led to the cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournaments, the still raging pandemic is tearing down another American sports institution: fall Saturdays filled with college football.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott called the decision “extremely difficult and painful.” Despite pleas from players, coaches and President Donald Trump in recent days to play on, 40% of major college football teams have now decided to punt on a fall season, a decision that will cost schools tens of millions of dollars and upends traditions dating back a century.

Both conferences cited the risk of trying to keep players from contracting and spreading the coronavirus when the programs are not operating in a bubble like the NBA and NHL are doing. They also cited the broader state of the pandemic in the United States, which has had more than 5 million cases of COVID-19.

All fall sports in the Big Ten have been called off and a spring season will be explored.