coronavirus

Via Alejandro Zuniga of 247, Michigan’s basketball game versus Michigan State this afternoon is off.

Todays’s Michigan vs. Michigan State basketball game has been postponed due to COVID issues within the Wolverines program.

— Alejandro Zúñiga (@ByAZuniga) January 8, 2022

Apparently they had fewer than seven players available. Michigan was already down Johns, T-Will, Zeb, and Frankie against Rutgers last week. Tuesday’s tilt with Purdue is probably in jeopardy as well. They’re going to work with the Big Ten on rescheduling. Likely spots would be the span between Maryland (1/18) and at Indiana (1/23), or the one between Ohio State (2/12) and at Iowa (2/17). Those are the only five-day breaks on the schedule.

9/4/2021 – Michigan 47, Western Michigan 14 – 1-0

I've got a spreadsheet now. I put it together a month ago when the idea of doing something, anything at all, was appalling. It has columns and if I do the thing in the column I get to bold it. Some columns are daily, or at least they're daily without the extraordinary intervention that causes the "shruggie" column to get bolded. Others are, uh, less daily. Kind of got knocked off a thing I wrote about in a column this March.

please come weed my backyard

The idea is that as we go along more things get bolded. Just two things are currently getting hit 90% of the time: walking, and people. I get to bold "people" when I undertake an activity (that does not count as another activity) in which I interact with another human, socially. Not usually 110,000 of them.

---------------------------------------------------

Being in Michigan Stadium was an experience bifurcated into competing feelings. One was a sense of unreality that this was actually happening. Carl Grapentine's "good afternoon" was met with a roar unlike any other "good afternoon" to date. Before the formal pre-game festivities were initiated it was just… nice? To sit in the stands as people filed in and the team went through its pregame warmups was nice. These days people use the word "nice" to mean "not nice" when describing an experience. Here I am saying that there was a real, mild pleasure derived from sitting in a place and doing a thing I used to do and then did not do as part and parcel of massive society-wide problems. It felt strange, like amnesia lifting.

The other was a sense that life had finally, truly resumed. Like the last year was about to be dumped out of the movie, replaced by a smash cut to kickoff. There was a guy with bad jokes on a microphone narrating three guys parachuting into the stadium.

we gotta talk about the smoke color though [Barron]

The band came out. I was vexed by first-quarter playcalling against a MAC opponent. A man holding a toddler was incensed enough to stand up and berate an official.

those are daddy's sports words, kiddo [Barron]

This was undoubtedly after the Bell OPI call and was thus justified. It was all very normal.

For a window on a fall Saturday you could believe that 2020 was a bad dream. I have to admit that I was not much moved by the game itself—I'm spending this fall's emotional capital on things closer to home—but even I, person about ready to drop-kick college football into the next town, could do nothing but see a real college football season as a ribbon-cutting ceremony for something called Real Life.

We can talk about whether all of the above was, you know, wise*. Even outside of the context where young men hurl their heads at each other for our entertainment and now the occasional sliver of NIL money, what with a pandemic on. But we can all admit that even in the depths of our collective malaise, sitting with our people and experiencing our thing together felt better than it had any right to.

There were some preteen kids sitting behind me who predicted a screen, and then a punt, on a third and long. (They were wrong, but correct spiritually.) They were possessed of a world-weary cynicism that made me wonder if the thing actually oozed from pores in the stadium concrete and seeped its way into our bodies, the environment guiding us into a common way of being. COVID was probably the less transmissible thing in that stadium Saturday. That just goes in your lungs. Michigan goes in your bones.

That's why we're all still here, in whatever capacities we are. Not hope or fun or desire, but a giant "we." A community, one that may be loosely bound but is nonetheless real. I felt that when I posted The Story and got hundreds of comments, DMs, emails, and texts expressing support, asking if there was anything they could do. The answer is both no, and also you've already done it. I bolded my people box Saturday, continuing the thing that's letting me climb out. Hopefully it meant something to you, too.

*[For me the combination of vaccinations, open air, and the fact that vaccinated people apparently don't transmit Delta readily if asymptomatic is makes me comfortable with the situation, though I'd prefer Michigan require proof of vaccination to attend games.]

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Ronnie Bell (RIP). Well... crap. Bell had the catch of the year taken off the board by John O'Neill Crew Hijinks, scored a long touchdown, and ripped off an impact punt return... on which he was lost for the season. This set off a firestorm on Michigan twitter, which is addressed later.

#2 Blake Corum. Corum had the most touches of anyone on offense with 14 rushes and two catches; he had two TDs and averaged 7.9 yards per carry. He also had a 79-yard kickoff return. That eases him out in front of Hassan Haskins. The two guys will likely continue splitting carries right down the middle, and that's fine by me.

#3 Dax Hill. Hill's your new spacebacker; he deleted every attempted screen to the wide side of the field and had a PBU on slant that looked impossible about a second before he made it.

Honorable mention: Seth's likely to hand some hardware to Andrew Vastardis in UFR. AJ Henning deleted a pursuit angle on long reverse TD. Mike Sainristil blocked like a demon that's into blocking instead of torturing souls. Haskins ripped through a tackle on short yardage to score and did well otherwise. Aidan Hutchinson had a sack-strip on which the WMU QB wanted to leave the state.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU)
5: Blake Corum (#2 WMU)
3: Dax Hill (#3 WMU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU), AJ Henning (HM WMU), Mike Sainristil (HM WMU), Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU), Hassan Haskins (HM WMU)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

[Barron]

McNamara nails Bell on his 76-yard touchdown, which followed on from the Bell catch wiped off the board and may indicate dude has a deep ball. Would be a major development.

Honorable mention: Swing pass to Corum on the first drive causes me to say "touchdown" as soon as Corum motions out. Henning and Wilson rip big gains on end-arounds. Corum's kick return.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Bell is lost for the year. Awful.

Honorable mention: Bell's catch is taken off the board, violating every principle from "it's too cool to call back" to the actual rules dictating college football. WMU drives down the field and scores a touchdown on their first drive, resulting many "here we go" feelings in the stands.

[After THE JUMP: Baldwin is crazed]

28 HOURS TO GO: If you haven’t gotten in on the Kickstarter for HTTV 2021 do so now! Friday night it ends. One guy said he’s buying it just for my writing (which, there’s a lot of it), so whatever excuse you come up with for why you want to have this, it’s definitely not the worst one.

I am printing only a limited amount this year and expect to sell out before they get to any shelves. Yes, I’ll have a Kindle version but that won’t be ready until mid-August. I wrote my piece this morning, not counting the Table of Contents and the title page. The covers have already been printed. Buy ‘em up!

RELEASE THE SPREADSHEETS: Texas got sick of carrying the league they thought they would dominate and Oklahoma did until Iowa State upset everybody. The wheels are now set in motion for the Sooners and Longhorns to join the SEC when the Big 12’s TV deal expires in 2025. At that point the Longhorn Network will become part of the Mouse, Texas A&M goes back to being the Michigan State of a larger state, and the SEC will become the super-conference (more of a league) that will finally be as strong as they incessantly tell people they are.

Here is the best take:

pic.twitter.com/N70UtjhcLj

— Maryland Terrapins (@umterps) July 23, 2021

The Big Ten is preparing its borders by letting it be known that only refugees with valid AAU membership cards will even be considered.

Notre Dame obviously would be an exception.

— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) July 26, 2021

…unless, of course, you’re rich.

It’s also set the college football anthill into a frenzy. The people who like neat and same-sized columns are busy working on their justifications why jamming regionally and culturally affiliated institutions into their specific 16-team boxes is right and good. The guy who’s got a source willing to admit that Michigan and Ohio State once got asked out by someone who knows Alabama is going to have his day circulated among pretend media until a critical mass of brains have rejected it as goofy.

The Big 12 has more existential concerns, like do they exist? Commissioner Bob Bowlsby sent ESPN a cease and desist letter accusing the network of trying lure 3-5 members to the AAC to get the Big 12 to dissolve. Why?

"It's not so much about the taking of the members, what it does — and what it's intended to do — is destabilize the Big 12 so that it implodes, thus absolving OU and Texas of their grant of rights obligations and their exit fee obligations. If the Big 12 fails to exist as an entity, they can move quicker and they can do so for less money.”

That’s fair, but as Mathlete recently pointed out, the Big 12 has some Monty Python vibes right now.

[After THE JUMP: What do we do?]