UM cancels spring game/practice
This is a mistake. Harbaugh needs to go back to having a spring game and they need to play it AND televise it. I'd make it super kid-friendly and offer free tickets to anyone that can show that they were vaccinated. We need to have the band out there and have safe interactions between kids and the players, etc. It's a fantastic opportunity to get young kids excited about UM football. They should be able to put 20,000 people in there and make the best of it. Sadly, they're not interested in even trying to put on a fun, safe, experience for the fans.
Meh.
I'm not seeing a good reason to shut down the spring game when the State opened up seating to 20%. I was looking forward to seeing JJ perform at Michigan Stadium. Call me a fanatic.
March 25th, 2021 at 10:59 AM ^
You (and many of the posters in favor of a fan attended "Spring Game") are not looking at the bigger University picture.
This is likely not an athletic department decision. The University has already crap-canned any form of graduation at all. What kind of look would it present from the University to allow any version of a fan attended spring game while telling this year's graduates and their families that honoring their four years of hard work towards a degree is less meaningful/important than a glorified football scrimmage. No chance the University powers-that-be ever gave Warde/Harbaugh/Anyone on south campus any choice on this.
If I was a senior and they allowed a fan attended spring game while denying me my graduation ceremony I'd be pissed. It's one thing if they do something closed to the public that they can air on BTN but doing anything with fans simply isn't happening.
"If I was a senior and they allowed a fan attended spring game while denying me my graduation ceremony I'd be pissed."
Hopefully you'd be "pissed" at the the decision of bed wetting bean counters in the University and not wolverine fans.
"Free tickets to anyone that can show they were vaccinated"
That sounds fun.
Should they have their certificate stitched onto their jersey that they wear to the game?
Bring vaccination card and ID. I guess you could sew it onto your fan jersey if your wanted.
Nothing better to start to build a little excitement for the football team. It would take a little effort to look at vaccination cards and ID, but it would assure safety. It would be a great way to help break out from the long shutdown and maybe even encourage more vaccinations if more events did this. A decision actually based on science!
Most people under 50 will not be vaccinated by the time of the spring game and nobody under 16 for sure. It would be a bunch of old people falling asleep due to boredom.
Isn't that everyone other than the student section anyway?
March 25th, 2021 at 11:00 AM ^
You mean like almost any game? “DOWN IN FRONT!”
No, it's not a mistake at all. It give BTN a chance to air something that will not be dreadfully boring, and it spares the board many threads worth of hot takes that really have nothing to back them.
You really think BTN will air something 'exciting' in place of a Spring football game? Tell me, what exciting programming does BTN air that doesn't include actual games?
The world wants to know what LSA finds exciting from BTN!
I didn't say "exciting", did I? That's really not something BTN can manage either. I simply said "not dreadfully boring", which leaves the world wide open for "merely boring" or "uninspired" or perhaps even "simply uninteresting". Those are things BTN has a much easier time airing.
This post is a mistake. Patrick Starr needs to go back to creating posts that have a point and he needs to make it so people want to read it. I'd make it super interesting and offer free MgoBlog T shirts to anyone that can show that they read the damn thing. We need to have the MgoStaff out there and have safe interactions between board posters and the curators of this blog, etc. It's a fantastic opportunity to get other posters excited about MgoBlog. They should be able to get 20,000 people to read it and make the best of it. Sadly, he's not interested in even trying to put on a fun, safe, experience for the other posters here.
He's getting a lot of downvotes for it, but I get his point. No Spring game will ever be 'competitive' (from an actual game standpoint), nor would it ever be designed to show us something re: schemes. Or even to highlight players. But it's fun for both the players and the fans.
Harbaugh used to love the Spring game. Remember him surveying the field with that shit-eating grin back in 2015? When have we seen that grin since? We haven't...
I get that a glorified scrimmage is one less practice you get to have during Spring camp. But if one practice will be the difference between success and failure in the Fall, well, you've already failed. And doing something - anything - to get some excitement for football back into this fanbase should be a priority for a coach that a significant amount of fans wanted gone last year.
March 25th, 2021 at 10:57 AM ^
Agreed.
COVID year aside, the spring, ahem, game has been cancelled more than once and when it has been held, it's really just drills and reps.
COVID Year aside, Patrick_Star brings up good ideas about the spring game overall.
Michigan is supposed to be an elite program but doesn't have an elite program's approach to the game. Look at all the fans at Bama's... and it looks like they are playing actual football:
Or Ohio's
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Or Tennessee
Or Penn State
This is what annoys me. We're supposedly a top tier team (recent results notwithstanding). If you want to stay at the top, you gotta pull out all the stops. Everyone knows Spring stuff isn't for showing an honest assessment of your team at that moment or holding a competitive scrimmage for competition's sake, it's marketing and fan engagement. Since 2016, it's felt like the AD has given the finger to football fans on AND off the field. You don't have to be in the CFP every year to take advantage of things like a Spring Game event. Hold it without fans, make it a huge production, invite the top recruits, make a whole deal out of and squeeze every bit of excitement you can and then put to good use on the recruiting trail.
Which kids have been vaccinated?
This. Exactly. OP wants a family friendly event with kid interaction. Does OP really not know that no vaccines are approved for anyone under 16 yet?
You really think we are going to keep stadiums closed until kids are vaccinated? Everyone over 16 who makes any effort at all will be vaccinated by the end of May. We will be 100% capacity in the fall.
I'm not going to go as far as you. I understand why they don't want to take unnecessary risks at this point and time. But I don't understand why they wouldn't just put it on BTN, make it a glorified practice like normal and go on with it. I don't quite understand how we went from Harbaugh doing the Signing of the Stars show to what we're seeing now where there's almost no access.
The atmosphere around the program is incredibly negative and I don't think he wants to show any in-progress elements off to the public so we can "Panic and run around screaming" before he has time to keep working on the team in the summer.
I think making it seem like we're doing something abnormal (not having a spring game) is bringing attention to it. I bet most other B10 teams will have them, show them on TV and we'll constantly get talked about during those broadcasts for not having one.
The 2016 Spring Game was fantastic. Under the Lights on a Friday night. Probably 50-65k people there. There was a draft so the teams were pretty even. It was the first we saw of O'Korn vs Speight. They did an introduction of all the incoming freshman (plus the early enrollees were playing as well). Goal line stand on a 2pt conversion to end the game. The kids were legitimately having fun out there; and that carried over to fall practice and the season.
The program was in such a great place at that moment. I have yet to attend a home opener where the buzz and optimism was as great as it was in 2016 vs Hawai'i. The defense came out blitzing on every play and Hawai'i looked shellshocked. Chris Evans was bursting through open holes, and Jabrill Peppers was all over the field defensively. The fact was, we were a playoff caliber team that season, and it was only Year 2 of Harbaugh. In fact, it has a lot of parallel's to Juwan's second year this year (looking like this one will have a happier ending thankfully). The trajectory for this program was shooting up and up until we went to Iowa City; and even then we went into the shoe and were a call or two away from beating them in Columbus in Jim's first appearance there.
What the hell has happened to this program? That fall was so much fun. We opened with 5 home games, trounced Penn St, and had a dogfight against Wisconsin where we came out on top in games we were used to losing. Now we are getting toasted by Rocky Lombardi and if it was High School we would have had a running clock vs Wisconsin. We went from 78-0 @ Rutgers to OT win @ Rutgers.
Take us back to the Spring and Fall of 2016 Jim. You had the program right where it needed to be.
We are not getting back to that point under Harbaugh. I am with you in the sense that 2016 was such a good feeling as a Michigan fan, but that is just not the case anymore. He has destroyed this roster and coaching staff, bringing us back to the years of 2013/2014. Michigan probably have two players on the roster that would start at OSU, Aidan Hutchinson and Daxton Hill, that is it.
I miss the spring game as well, but like many others have said, they didn't want to show how ugly this team is going to be. I acknowledge I am a debby downer about this team, but they have not shown me anything to be excited about. My wish is that Harbaugh decides to send off after this season, and Michigan hires Matt Campbell.
The prevailing thoughts in my head for this season are: 1) a defense with a new coordinator installing hybrid (more complicated?) NFL schemes with many of the same players that had trouble executing the schemes that Don Brown and staff taught for multiple years; 2) an offense that needs to make up for what appears to be a below average defense again but with a data point from last season that proved they couldn't get out of their own way.
Yeah, I am pessimistic until proven otherwise in games.
March 25th, 2021 at 10:27 AM ^
I'm not as down as you are, Debbie. I believe there is a good amount of talent on the field, especially on offense. The drawback I see is that the head coach refuses to get out his own way. I sincerely doubt that he ever really relinquished majority control over the direction, philosophy, and schemes the offense runs. I do believe he gave up daily control of the offense to Gattis, and allows some input on play calls. Defensively, all will be okay. Brown's radical scheme change from Durkin worked out okay in 2016, and MacDonald's radical scheme change from Brown will also work out okay.
The question will be whether Harbaugh can allow the offense to run plays that are suited to the players they have. Or whether he'll continue to push the Harbaughffense - grinding, ball control, West Coast passing with a slow pace and no concern for clock management (you know, the offensive staples we've grown familiar with over the last 6 years).
March 25th, 2021 at 12:06 PM ^
Username/avatar checks out
i honestly can't tell if this is a serious opinion or not.
I mean Nico said the talent gap is non-existent...well wtf why not show it off to the fans?
At this point, everyone could be entering the portal and since no one will see the spring game to identify who is or isn't on the field....... it doesn't look good.
BUT, we're in the sweet sixteen (both of them)!
GO BLUE
I’ve never been more disinterested in football in my life.
My family is already planning to spend the fall camping and fishing every weekend. If the team turns it around this year, that's great. I'll dvr them. Nothing worse then being a disgruntled fan when you could be somewhere fishing and reading rcmb instead.
Then don't fucking post on the football threads. Just like most of us do with hockey and basketball.
Stop posting your opinion and get back to your show.
- It’s still CVD SZN - let people get vaccinated and stuff. Shit, instead of a spring game, try and make the stadium a mega vaccination center for students and the surrounding area. The big vax at the big house.
- Saying this is year 3 of no spring game is a bit much. There has been 1 non-Covid game missed.
- However, Harbaugh (or hopefully a new coach) needs to reconnect and re-energize the fans. Obviously winning does that, from this fall onwards, the AD needs to make the coach/program emerge a bit out of submarine mode.
- Its basketball/baseball season. Screw football for a few more months.
It'd be nice, but it'll be even nicer next year when there won't be a gigantic "Is it worth it?" back and forth with University Administrators, State of Michigan government, various Michigan media groups(the majority of which take the pandemic more seriously than most, no value judgment just stating facts), and so on and so forth.
Besides, with the atmosphere around the team being so negative a Spring game in which they look bad would just make things worse. Given the Jackson news I am assuming morale/buy-in is getting difficult to maintain, so why make the atmosphere around the program worse than it already is?
If they don't want the fans due to covid, why not have the game but televise it? Surely the BIG Network would show it, and a zillion people including me, would watch it.
The above seems so obvious and beneficial, that not doing it, I wonder what the real reason is.
I agree with some of what you wrote OP. I’ve become pretty annoyed at the bunker mentality coming from the football team over the last few years. I’m more annoyed about some of the losses of course, but there is almost an us vs them thing going on and it’s disappointing.
Because we as fans have been so supportive recently?
Full disclosure, I have been just as negative and reactionary, but I imagine putting your hand out only to get bit by the "Why can't you beat Ohio State?" dog has to get old after awhile.
March 25th, 2021 at 11:22 AM ^
That’s a really fair point. Twitter is a toilet. This place is a toilet in every game thread. If we go 3 and out on the first drive, people want to burn it all to the ground. I’d be perfectly happy with the board being shut down every game day, win or lose.
I would hope that the program would cater to the majority of the fans that aren’t awful and make the team a little more accessible. A spring game is a gift to fans that the team certainly doesn’t have to do, but I still have a suspicion that there is a resentment of all the fans based on the actions of the loudest and worst fans.
I’d be perfectly happy with the board being shut down every game day, win or lose.
The soccer league I coached for is like that... offices are closed on Mondays.
So the dysfunctional parents (which is like 75% of them) have to stew 48+ hours after Saturday games to call the league office and cuss someone out about the refs or how their Suzie and Johnny was wronged in some way.
We all live in a maizen submarine
a maizen submarine
a maizen submarine......
"and our friends are all aboard-many more of them just next door"
"and the band begins to play"
Ra ra Wump de dump de dump Ra ra rump de dum
'We all live in maizen submarine"
Any record predictions for this season??
What's with all these football posts????
Is this an RCMB groupie?
The program has become a national punchline. Having some sort of spring game/fan fest isn’t going to change that. Stop looking like a disorganized mess on field. Figure out how to finally run a two minute drill. Flip the script and figure out how to win games instead of always finding ways to lose.
I mean, there would be a ton of restrictions even if the event was allowed at all in accordance with whatever the state and local guidelines would be at the time. Why bother going through all that so a few people can watch a practice?