The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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JUNE/JULY 2020 THE WOLVERINE 39 our student-athletes back without all other students is just not a position I'm going to advocate for. "Our student-athletes are students first, and if the students aren't re- quired to come back to Ann Arbor, it's going to be hard for me to tell our student-athletes they need to come back." NCAA President Mark Emmert indi- cated that's not happening, in any case. Emmert noted student-athletes will not be put in a special class and participate in sports on empty campuses. "College athletes are college stu- dents, and you can't have college sports if you don't have college [cam- puses] open and have students on them," Emmert declared. "You don't want to ever put student-athletes at greater risk than the rest of the stu- dent body. All of the commissioners and every president that I've talked to is in clear agreement: If you don't have students on campus, you don't have student-athletes on campus." Purdue made clear that barring anything unforeseen, its students will be back on campus in the fall. The same goes for Notre Dame and several others. Michigan has been one of the most locked-down states in the nation since COVID-19 began taking its toll. What affect state government has on the campus remains to be seen, and Manuel noted he'll take his cues from University President Mark Schlissel. Manuel is, of course, dealing with a near $200 million athletic budget and potential massive cutbacks, etc. That cannot be his chief concern, he's stressed. "Safety and the health of our stu- dents, staff and faculty are primary," Manuel assured. "Nobody is talking about doing this because we need dollars or want to save the institution money for athletic needs. "We just have to find a way in the short term, in the interim, to deal with those issues. That's just what you have to deal with when you put health and safety first. The econom- ics of it … it hurts, but not like people getting sick and potentially dying or giving the disease to somebody who eventually passes away. "I never would advocate for that, and I'm proud that nobody has put money or anything ahead of the health and safety of people who are part of this university." Many contingencies appear still on the table — shortening the season by wiping out non-conference games, thus playing a more regional sched- ule, performing without fans, etc. Few can imagine Michigan football in an empty Michigan Stadium. It's not hard for Harbaugh, who recently indicated to ESPN he's ready for that eventuality as well. "Heck yeah, I'd be comfortable coaching a game without any fans," Harbaugh said. "If the choice were play in front of no fans or not play, then I would choose to play in front of no fans." He will find out soon enough, along with the rest of the college football world, what the immediate future holds. ❏ Jon Jansen Makes Some Projections Michigan All-American Jon Jansen doesn't want to think about autumn rolling around with no football. He realizes, though, he might have to do precisely that. "I really can't imagine a fall without college football," Jansen noted during a recent TheWolverine.com Podcast. "But none of us thought we could imagine a year with- out an NCAA Basketball Tournament, so are all things possible? Sure." That said, Jansen — a communications specialist with Michigan's athletics depart- ment — said he believes there will be a college football season. He just sees it playing out differently than normal. "I'm not sure that we make the trip out to Washington to play the Huskies," he said. "I'm not sure we play a non-conference schedule. But every day we learn more." Jansen at one point even found himself mentioning Washington in the past tense. "Going out to Seattle as a player was always one of my favorite trips," he said. "I love that city, and it would have been a great match- up. Big Ten-Pac-12, blue- blood programs in Michi- gan and Washington — it would have been a great matchup." There is another match- up he wouldn't mind seeing as a replacement contest, if that game dis- appears. A certain nearby rival is said to be seeking games, including ones against Big Ten squads. "If you're going to bus, you can bus to a lot of Big Ten games," Jansen said. "You can bus to Notre Dame. "Notre Dame could play a full 12-game season, because they've got Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue right in their backyard. … They could play a really good schedule and never have to get on a plane." Jansen noted the College Football Playoff committee would have to be involved in any decisions made regarding a postseason for the sport, especially if football goes regional in the fall of 2020. "The question then is, do they possibly modify it?" Jansen mused. "The Pac-12 has been left out for three years now. The Big Ten was for two years, and we got in with Ohio State last year. How do they reconcile no common opponents and who the most deserving four teams are? "Maybe this is the first year of the expansion of the College Football Playoff, just because of necessity. We could get a chance to look at what it might be like." — John Borton If college football programs have to tweak their schedules this fall, Notre Dame could be an intriguing regional oppo- nent. After Michigan's 45-14 win last fall, the Wolverines and Fighting Irish weren't supposed to meet again on the gridiron until Sept. 3, 2033. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL