Not that I subscribe to that politics theory, but the football budget at Ohio State is minuscule compared to the whole. They have a 5 billion dollar endowment and don't need football to survive not matter how much we football fans want it to be true.
The people making this decision care lots more about politics than they do football.
One does have to wonder how much more will be known about the "unknown long term risk" of myocarditis in January than is known right now. . . given that no one will have survived Covid for more than 9 months or so.
My personal theory is they have no intention of letting them play in the winter/spring and are setting the players up to pull the rug out from under them yet again.