One back, one maybe. Kwity Paye will play for Michigan this fall:

That was the response offered to me last night by a team source in response to whether Kwity Paye would participate during the newly announced season. The senior defensive end has reportedly informed the program of his intention to stay and play.

Unlike the other departures, Paye kept practicing with the team.

The maybe is Jalen Mayfield. Getting him back would be quite the turnaround. Yesterday:

Brian Mayfield, Jalen Mayfield's father, says his son will not re-consider decision to go pro. “He’s not playing. Not for eight games. And there’s no guarantee they’re making it through.”

— Orion Sang (@orion_sang) September 16, 2020

Today Sam Webb reports that it's not a done deal, in part because Mayfield's family is "actively pushing" for him to return. Anyone other than Sam and I'm dismissing that report out of hand, but it is Sam, so… yeah. I'm saying there's a chance. I'd still put that chance in the low to very low zone.

[After THE JUMP: LSU put it in the gumbo]

The worst! The Big Ten's schedule plan:

The new conference schedule, which Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said would be announced in full later this week, will be an “8+1” model in which each team will plan to play eight games in eight weeks, followed by a ninth matchup on Dec. 18-19 against a team from the other division to be determined based on the current standings, leading up to the Big Ten title game. Though the plan is to pit the East Division’s No. 2 team against the West’s No. 2, the East’s No. 3 against the West’s No. 3 and so on, the pairings will be managed to avoid teams playing multiple games.

This means that there will be a game to decide the Big Ten's worst team—unless the bottom finishers play each other. The loser should be relegated, but alas.

The most LSU way to approach the pandemic. Ed Orgeron:

"I think, not all of our players, but most of our players have caught it," Orgeron said during a video conference, adding later that he did not know the percentage of the roster that had tested positive.

"I think, hopefully, that once you catch it, you don't get it again," Orgeron added. "I'm not a doctor. I think they have that 90-day window, so most of the players that have caught it, we do feel like they'll be eligible for games.

"So we look at the players that have caught it and say, 'OK these guys should be eligible,'" Orgeron continued. "We look at the players who haven't caught it; we talk to them about being very, very careful so they're eligible for games."

I believe this space made some jokes about Clemson going for football herd immunity when they announced some large number of players had come down with coronavirus, and now here's Ed Orgeron more or less laying out the case why you might have done that. The case why you might not want to do that requires more memory than a goldfish and is thus inapplicable to college football.

Orgeron's athletic director then followed up with this:

Woodward said in a joint news briefing with interim LSU president Tom Galligan on Wednesday that Orgeron "was a bit too transparent" in his update.

"The beauty of this is that Coach O is totally transparent and honest to a fault, and it's a great thing," Woodward said. "This is very similar to what we're seeing across all schools that have been doing this."

LSU has not released any coronavirus numbers. Schools that have, like Michigan and Notre Dame, have reported nowhere near a majority of their teams getting infected. If you were going to get everyone infected to prevent in-season issues you'd approach it exactly like LSU did, except the head coach wouldn't brag about it in a press conference.

So this won't happen to LSU, probably. Once this starts happening to conference games then things get weird:

NEWS: Charlotte’s game at North Carolina has been canceled due to contact tracing depleting the Charlotte offensive line. pic.twitter.com/6uqeDG3xuk

— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) September 17, 2020

Maybe the SEC will be able to thread the needle and get point of contact testing up and going before big chunks of games go away. Maybe not.

The state of basketball. Extensive interview with Dave Gavitt lays out the situation as far as basketball goes. Like everything else, it's touch and go. Gavitt is asked about how large the NCAA tournament is going to be:

DG: Again, I think it's premature. I mean, we're only six months removed from the start of this pandemic, right? And we still have quite a lot of time before the tournament is scheduled would start. We're going to be guided by science, we're going to be guided by safety and health, and we will consider changes as necessitated by all that. But, you know this, you can look at that both ways. There's hope and optimism of all sorts of developments between now and March 2021, or there may not be, in which case,  decisions will be necessitated in a different way. So we have we have a lot of contingencies, we have a lot of plans that if needed to be activated will be, but Sept. 16 is not the time to consider that or even comment on it.

A lot of the interview goes like this and while it's frustrating it's hard to say it's anything but correct.

I will never tire of Duncan Robinson deep dives. Robinson's unlikely rise to Steph Curry shooting levels—not an exaggeration—has made him the subject of countless film breakdowns, profiles, interviews, and evaluations. I want them all. Give them to me. I shovel them into my mouth in great meaty fistfuls. The latest is from the Ringer:

After a run to the Sweet 16 in Robinson’s junior season, Beilein asked the NBA’s Undergraduate Advisory Committee—a panel of team executives who offer anonymous feedback for players considering the draft—to evaluate Robinson as a prospect. Most players are given a percentage breakdown of where the panelists believe they’ll be selected: in the lottery, later in the first round, in the second round (divided into halves), or even if they’re expected to go undrafted. Robinson was an exceptional case. “They did not have a rating on him,” Beilein says. “Which means that no one ever considered him being a pro.”

I'm not sure there's been a more unlikely Michigan star pro in recent memory. John Madden becoming a perennial Selke candidate in the NHL might be the closest. He was undrafted; on the other hand he finished his Michigan career by putting up 43, 57, and 63 point seasons. Robinson was a 16% usage player as a senior.

Etc.: Bacon preparation methods ranked. If you are precisely my age you will enjoy this retrospective on The Wizard. Cofopoff is like "dunno." Daniel Dash surveys various next men up. Hockey adapts its practice approach.