'It's positive to see': College football players make voices heard with #WeWantToPlay movement

When the #WeWantToPlay movement started to take off Sunday night, Michigan defensive back Hunter Reynolds, who this summer helped create College Athlete Unity, saw tangible evidence of the strength of the collective college football players’ voice.

After one of the biggest names in the sport, Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, took to social media with the #WeWantToPlay hashtag atop a list that concluded with the desire to “ultimately create a college football players association,” this was yet another indication the players want a place at the table to share their opinions in decisions that ultimately affect them.

As the Big Ten stood on the precipice Monday of making a decision about the upcoming season just days after announcing a 10-game schedule, Big Ten coaches hit Twitter with the #WeWantToCoach hashtag. Big Ten officials are meeting today and a decision about the season is expected at some point in the afternoon. Perhaps the push from players and coaches on Monday was enough to delay the start of the season instead of canceling as several Detroit News sources said will be the case, but regardless, the players are encouraged their message is being heard.

“There’s a ton of good coming out of all this, and it is the voice of the players,” said BTN college football analyst and former head coach Gerry DiNardo. “I’m glad to hear the student-athletes are more engaged. It's all positive."

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Reynolds, for one, wants to play this fall. The Big Ten released a 10-game composite schedule last Wednesday, and teams began to open preseason camp last Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, the Big Ten announced a pause on teams moving to padded practices, meaning helmets-only.

“Of course,” Reynolds said Monday night when asked if he wants to play. “A thousand percent.”

But aside from whether he will actually play this fall, Reynolds is more encouraged by how college football players are unifying. The Pac-12 group, #WeAreUnited, #BigTenUnited of which Reynolds has had active role, and now #WeWantToPlay have worked collaboratively on this latest push as college players across the country have said they want to play this fall as long as there are “universal health and safety” protocols.

Members of these groups, many of whom did not know each other, met last weekend over video conferencing and galvanized their efforts.

“Those three movements, they’ve generated a lot of positive discussion,” Reynolds said. “The three of them were being pitted against each other in the media and social media, and I think when we all came together, we were really convinced that we were all trying to convey the same message. We were just conveying it in different manners.

“All of (Monday) was about making the public and media aware that players wanting to play safely still means that they want to play, and players saying they want to play doesn’t mean they’re disregarding safety. They want to play safely. We’re seeing that everyone is coming together and those three movements are under the same umbrella.”

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Reynolds is encouraged that university officials are listening to the players and that the players have gotten their attention. As name, image and likeness legislation becomes closer to reality for college athletes and as they seem to be organizing to attempt to create a players’ association, the players don’t intend to be ignored and feel like they’re getting a seat at the table.

“I feel we’re trending in that direction, but there’s still work to be done in that regard,” Reynolds said. “We’re definitely moving in the right direction. We’re making progress. You’ve got to go day-by-day and step-by-step and make sure you’ve got a well thought-out plan and just trust in ourselves being college athletes that we know what’s best for us. By us voicing our thoughts, those thoughts are going to be representative of what we’re thinking.”

He said the players “needed” some of the biggest names in the sport, like Lawrence and Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, to get behind the #WeWantToPlay movement. 

“The fact they have the platform they have and they’re willing to speak out and are not afraid of repercussions, the fact they’re willing to, even though they’re potentially going to be high draft picks, they’re still advocating for the wants of some college athletes,” Reynolds said. “It’s real positive to see.”

Having multiples groups of players under one organization, he said, is an advantage as they move forward and determine their next steps.

“We have a lot of highly intelligent members, a lot of highly motivated members,” Reynolds said. “All of us coming together under one organization is going to allow us to tackle these issues in a pretty broad scope of problems.”

achengelis@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @chengelis