2020 maryland

Minutes after the story broke on Twitter, Michigan confirmed the game on Saturday is off due to a COVID outbreak in the Michigan program. Press Release:

December 2, 2020

Football Game against Maryland Canceled as Michigan Pauses Practice until Monday
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan Athletic Department announced today (Wednesday, Dec. 2) that it will be pausing football practices and that Saturday’s game against Maryland has been canceled and will not be rescheduled. This decision to pause in-person football activities was made in consultation with medical professionals and the local health department.

“The decision by our medical professionals to stop practices and cancel this Saturday’s game against Maryland was made with the health, safety and welfare of the student-athletes, coaches and staff as our utmost priority,” said Warde Manuel, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics.

“We have seen an increase in the number of student-athletes unavailable to compete due to positive tests and associated contact tracing due to our most recent antigen and PCR testing results.”Daily testing will continue and medical professionals will make a determination when to resume practice. The earliest practice can resume will be Monday, Dec. 7.

These outbreaks typically cancel at least two games so The Game now seems unlikely to happen as well. I'm off to burn my FFFF charting.

The status of Michigan's game this Saturday against Maryland is now in question. TMI's Sam Webb reports the football program is pausing all team activities while they work to confirm a few "presumptive" positive tests for COVID:

The Michigan Insider has learned that the Michigan Football program is pausing team activities effective today based on presumptive positive tests. The team was alerted to the shutdown earlier this morning.  Whether this is a momentary stoppage or something lengthier will depend upon "confirmatory PCR test results. All meetings planned for the day will commence virtually in order to continue the preparation for Saturday's matchup with Maryland if it winds up not being canceled.

Feelings about the state of the season aside—and I realize those are difficult to put aside—it's hard not to look at the state of the pandemic and wonder if shutting down the program for the season isn't the best course of action.

Another Big Ten game originally set for Saturday, Northwestern-Minnesota, has just been canceled. The conference championship game is likely to feature one, and probably two, teams that wouldn't have won their divisions without other teams failing to meet the minimum games played threshold. Who could've anticipated these issues when trying to play through a pandemic? Who knows.

Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery to anyone affected.

We'll update the situation through the week as news comes in. There's no content after the jump.