Wish: if team can't play in Michigan, go play in Florida
Florida recently invited all pro football teams to come to Florida to play and practice:
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-invites-all-professional-sports-play-practice-there-even-those-new-york-1503888
I don't know if it is possible, but --
If Michigan the state or Michigan the university doesn't allow the football team to start going into the gym and practicing, or doesn't allow it to start the season, I wish that the football team would go to Florida to do so.
Get things going in Florida. Come back to Michigan whenever it is that Michigan decides athletes can be on campus.
If U of M doesn't allow players into the gym and to practice, they will be doing it elsewhere anyway. They are probably safer doing it at U of M (or at least under well-funded, well-equipped professional staff guidance) than elsewhere.
I also think that it is ridiculous to have any rule that says, if the campus isn't open to everyone, U of M will ban its athletes from facilities. Regular students can further their field of study online. Athletes can't eat, work out, and play online.
Pick Florida or some other state that is open to it.
In the scheme of life football isn't all that important at all. It sure is entertaining though.........
Ecclesiastes 3:19: Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless.
Life is pointless. Nothing is that important.
Life is pointless?
thats the point. get it?
a concise summary of "Intro to Buddhism" that i took junior year at UM
Says the man with over 44,000 mgoblog points.
Engaging in discussion about a sport doesn’t make the sport important. It makes it a passion.
Why Florida? The US had their first COVID case around South Korea. That country obviously knows what needs to happen since their death toll is less that one percent of the US. Send them all there to play. And, ironically, there are no people referred to as sheeples.
if you are going to say something stupid, OP, at least add a little intellect.
The irony
It's early in the morning, but I am asking you to think for a second.
How is this virus spread? Droplets of spit/moisture produced mainly by the mouth of the infected party.
What is the basic formation for football? Two lines of above-average sized human beings bent over within inches of each other's faces, breathing hard and sweating profusely. This is done roughly 73 times per game.
What do you do when you aren't on the field involved in a play? You stand close to your teammates and continue to breath hard an sweat. You occasionally drink fluids and sometimes spit them on the ground
Does everyone who has COVID-19 show symptoms? No, sir.
How many players, support staff and coaches are on each sideline? For the sake of math, let's call it about 150 (85 scholarship players, 40ish coaches, 25 support staff).
If one player is infected and spreads it during a play, you are endangering 299 other people. Those people will likely be asymptomatic for 2-5 days and will interact with their families, friends, and the people they encounter while travelling back home. We're talking one game having the potential to infect 1,000+ people.
Am I going to miss football this fall? Yes.
Do I miss it enough to risk the lives of the players? No.
a.) the players will want to play at some extraordinarily high percentage, well over 90%, probably something like 98%. their time in school and their seasons are extremely limited.
b.) the coaches will want it as much as the players, though i could see a guy like don brown wearing a mask.... ..and then subsequently yelling so loud it explodes.
c.) the goal is to flatten the curve of hospitalizations. we have done a great job of that. it is not to prevent infections, only delay them. your life, my life, the players lives will be threatened by this virus with a virtual 100% certainty unless we die before we get it. for the folks you rightly mention as attending to the process of the games, if they are understandably worried, they can choose to not participate. nobody forced to play. nobody forced to attend to the team. 100% their call.
a) Your stats are made up.
b) The coaches can/will be sued if/when someone dies due COVID they contracted while playing
c) Flattening the curve only works if you don't engage in mass gatherings after the fact. These mass gatherings WILL UNDO THE FLATTENING and make the Second Wave even worse than the first.
A.) From Jim Harbaugh's mouth
“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.
“… Darn near every guy I’ve talked to on our team, that’s the way they feel about it.”
"Darn near every guy" sounds like 90-98% to me.
stats made up? well, i didn't state them as concrete 'fact', but besides what harbaugh has said my oldest son is a college football player and they are 100% wanting to play, every member of his team. my next 4 sons, though not in college, all want to start their football season. do you have any 'stats' that contradict those data points?
i suppose the coaches could get sued, but as it relates to state universities they would enjoy at least qualified immunity. i also would hope that as a society we don't enrich those who pursue these types of claims. there is no way to prevent the spread. voluntarily engaging in those activities, knowing the risk as we all do, and then crying 'foul' afterwards seems to be the height of bad faith.
and spreading the virus among 18-22 yr olds will not 'undo the flattening' because they won't be going to the hospital, or at least, at any significant percentage. remember, its not us old guys playing, its the group that has been proven to be barely affected by the virus.
None of my sons wants to continue playing sports until this thing is gone. Look, more 'data points'. Data points in isolation, by the way, are called anecdotes. At least one of us should google "statistics versus anecdotal evidence"--and which one of is that is ain't me.
jon, no need to be snarky. and FWIW, my daughters want to play their sports, too. i've got you beat on data points....
a) Your stats are made up.
You are absolutely killing me right here...stats are made up...PLEASE stop with this one...there isn't a valid stat anywhere...if states are fudging...inflating or deflating...stats are not accurate. Cuomo came out yesterday and said he's done with the models, he's done with all the figures from everywhere they're all terribly wrong.
b) The coaches can/will be sued if/when someone dies due COVID they contracted while playing
student-athletes and most of the coaching staff are low-risk candidates for this disease... I mean you did say stats right???
c) Flattening the curve only works if you don't engage in mass gatherings after the fact. These mass gatherings WILL UNDO THE FLATTENING and make the Second Wave even worse than the first.
second wave...the fear mongers have nothing left to cling to except a 'second wave'...something we have ZERO idea...oh wait, yeah at this point it's nothing but an idea. We never overwhelmed hospitals the first go round and as many stated then we waited too long we did all the wrong things, we were so far behind, our Potus didn't act and blew it off...yet here we are...NYC under 100 new cases and it was the epicenter in the US for mortality and explosion of cases. YOU are not dealing in fact. You are dealing in perception and expectation. COULD it happen it sure could.
1918 Spanish flu at the time was the most catastrophic event imaginable...and then came the roaring 20's and they partied their asses off...haven't seen the Spanish flu since.
Great depression hit...one of the worst global economic crisis imaginable. Yet here we are with more global wealth than ever, well just prior to every business in the world halted in their tracks.
I actually remember the great recession in the 70-80s with oil embargos and power grid problems...yet...at one point last month, a barrel of oil was NEGATIVE value and gas dipped below 99 cents per gallon...WE WILL ENDURE.
According to a Sydney Morning Herald story from May 24, an Oxford vaccination trial might have to be scrapped because of low virus rates. Their trial with 10,000 participants may return a "no result" due to low transmission of corona in the community.
This is outrageously stupid.
second wave...the fear mongers have nothing left to cling to except a 'second wave'...something we have ZERO idea...oh wait, yeah at this point it's nothing but an idea.
There have been second waves of other illnesses. For example...
1918 Spanish flu at the time was the most catastrophic event imaginable...and then came the roaring 20's and they partied their asses off...haven't seen the Spanish flu since.
The Spanish flu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Deadly_second_wave
WTF?
a) There are a ton of things I WANT to do right now, but guess what I’m not doing them because it is not safe.
b) See a
c) The state of Michigan has done a good job at flatting the curve so far. Things need to be opened up slowly to allow data to continue to be presented as to whether or not those things are safe. Sports is pretty far down that list. The actions of what others do affect many people.
a) you're doing what you think is best given the factors as you see them and as you weigh them. Good for you.
b) not everyone weighs those factors the same, nor should they. They have different family responsibilities, different needs, and different abilities to deal with this situation. They have to weigh them for themselves at least to some extent, because no overarching body can know all of our individual needs outside of ourselves and our families.
c) the state of Michigan's curve has been flattened. Have they done a good job? That's subjective. It's easy to argue yes because the curve has been flattened, it's easy to argue no because other states made decisions differently and also flattened their curves (Ohio's rules were never as strict as ours, they're more densely populated, and WAY flatter than us, for example). Discussions need to happen with regard to opening, and everyone in on those discussions needs to understand and respect BOTH sides of the argument. Keeping things closed has costs (including risking lives) too.
Well if the players want to play then by all means...
Come on man, we don’t let 20 year old college kids do whatever the hell they want. They are one part of the puzzle but they aren’t the end all be all. The 20 year old college student in the highest leadership positions of any line of work is very rare. There aren’t many 20 year old public health officials, epidemiologists, MDs, elected government officials, etc.
but they can volunteer to put their life on the line in the military - which is still a higher risk job than COVID.
They can drive, which has equal levels of capacity to hurt others if people aren't being smart about what they're doing.
They can vote. They're adults. We can either choose to treat them like adults and let them make decisions, or we shouldn't be letting them decide whose in the Oval Office.
20 year olds can join the army yes. But find me a 20 year old Colonel or higher rank... 20 year olds in the army aren’t making the decisions they are doing what they are told. Schlissel and Warde and calling the shots here. Not the players.
They can drive but there are still restrictions imposed on them by laws put in place by people in positions of authority. Getting a license, following traffic safety, etc these are not things a 20 year old can decide for themselves simply because they have access to a car.
Again can’t believe I have to point this out but yes 20 year olds vote and participate in elections but there are no 20 year old Governers or state representatives or higher offices. Again they are part of the process but they are not the decision makers. We generally don’t put the fate of society in the hands of 20 year olds and we never have.
Just because a 20 year old wants to do something isn’t a valid reason to have a large organization operate that way. The army and the United States government doesn’t operate that way. And the university will not be operating that way.
So yeah you’re analogies are shit, and completely irrelevant to the point in my comment.
Because I don't think you make a good point - and you're deliberately missing my point.
They still volunteer for the army, an inherently risky job. THEY decide. They may not decide what they do in the army, but they decide to put themselves in the position where others can put their lives in harms way.
If there were a 20 yo nursing student working at a hospital, and they volunteered to help on the COVID ward - a hospital would weigh the positives of what they can offer vs. the negatives of their experience and risk. If the student can help and understands the risks, the hospital might say, "yep, here's what you need to know", probably give the student some extra training on PPE and specialty training on what they're going to do in the ward, and away they'd go. There would be risk, and yet they'd be allowed to help. The hospital wouldn't say, "you're too young to volunteer", they may decline based on what good the student can be, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the student's age.
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Should football players make the final decision on whether there's football? No of course not, but you saying their opinion doesn't matter is crap. They're the one's putting themselves at risk. Guess what, they deliberately run full on forward into another body of roughly equal mass going at roughly equal and opposite velocity MANY TIMES. These are young men who deal with risks that allow significantly less decision time and require a great deal more training to manage than managing COVID, I think they'll handle it.
I'm not sure if I should even bother beating this dead horse because you're intentionally being obtuse.
First I said their opinions are part of the process but they dont have the final say, I never said their opinon doesnt matter, so not sure what you're reading. Them wanting to play is only step 1. The people in charge still make the calls. Sometimes college aged kids make emotional and selfish decisions, without considering all the ramifications. I expect the higher ups to have a more considered decision.
People choose to join the army. Players choose to join a football team despite injury risks. So far thats similar. Beyond that you completely lose the logical train of though. Saying "people join the army, knowing the risk of injury/death, so if players want to play, then the University has to let them" makes no sense. The players who accepted the risk aren't hiring the coaches, and the people who join the army aren't deciding battle plans.
The leadership makes the decision. You can disagree with that decision, and thats fine.
I'm not missing your point, you're point just isn't nearly as good as you think it is. The University of Michigan, its athletic department, and its football team are an organization much larger than the will of 85 18-22 year old players. Making a choice to accept risk in your life does make you the master of your own destiny. And the players aren't the only ones at risk, it doesn't matter if they can handle it or not.
73 times per game? It’s actually significantly more times than that. Each team averages about that many plays in a single game. Which doesn’t include kickoffs, punts/field goals and extra point attempts.
Every day threads get dumber.
The worst part is posers and pretenders who think this is anything more than another form of twitter, just a lower level due to it being a college football fanboy echo chamber.
Leading by example.
It is a pipe dream for Michigan to conduct their season in Florida(to put it kindly). I'll tell you one thing though, I'm shocked if high schools down there aren't playing football. The fact that JJ McCarthy just transferred to IMG wasn't because of their academics.
I mean a big part of JJ transferring to IMG was the fact that he wants to enroll early and his current school doesn’t allow early graduation. So... kinda academics related
I get everyone is upset about the thought of a lost season, but this FL thing isn’t happening.
Honestly, you’re getting too worked up about the whole thing because this problem will most likely solve itself on its own. How? Well, I refuse to believe if 75% of other P5 members and 75% of our Big Ten brethren have football this fall (even with no fans) Michigan will too. If you think this program is in a bad place now, wait till you see what the ramifications are of having no season while the majority of college football rolls along.
This board is hardly representative of Michigan football fans, let alone Michigan alumni, let alone the University itself and the administration. This board is a niche within a niche within a niche. Not playing will certainly generate loud objections, but not from most alums.
I think he was referring to the huge negative effect on recruiting if most of the top programs and most of the Big Ten play while Michigan does not...
You’re correct, though a bigger problem than recruiting is the possibility of players on the team fleeing the instant they hear Michigan isn’t playing and the majority of teams are. Again, I hope it doesn’t come to this, but it has to be a thought (not the primary one) for the university.
That's not going to happen. Michigan will be in school if the majority of the Big Ten is in school and Michigan will play if the rest of the Big Ten plays.
Is that being the LEADER and the Best?
Yeah, Im of the mindset that theyre playing.
2 months ago the talk was whether we'd be locked down for 12-18 months.
A few weeks ago the talk was whether we are opening up too fast.
Now the arguments are about masks.
In two weeks they'll be talking about how many fans are allowed to attend.
I agree with the sentiments and progression. Well said.
You are not wrong about what they'll be talking about. But you might be wrong about whether this shifting conversation reflects a lessening in the severity of the pandemic. It does not. All that's happened is that the Trump administration decided the pandemic was bad for his re-election chances, so they decided to act like it's over. That doesn't mean it is, and the whole country is going to be paying for it soon.
Trump doesn't have shit to do with when Whitmer decides to open up Michigan,
He shouldn't have anything to do with it. His attempts to foment rebellion create a lot of pressure, though.
C'mon, man, that's ridiculous. It's the data (except some fudging in FL and GA) telling us that these measures we've imposed are working well. The severity is lessening. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are down.
It's not over but we can ease restrictions because we slowed the spread and are now better prepared to keep it steady, instead of exponential, because we have far more testing, the healthcare system has learned much, and people are behaving responsibly for the most part.
We are not going to see a significant uptick this summer (nationally, we'll see flare ups here and there). Next fall/winter? That's a different story if we stop being vigilant.
I'm not sure which states, if any, have adequate testing. Which of the states reopening had 14 days of declining case numbers before they started reopening? That was the administration's experts' advice, and it was not followed, because what the experts said was not politically expedient.
There will be a large uptick in cases 2 weeks from now related to idiots being idiots on Memorial Day. I'm guessing there will be 130k+ deaths in the US by the end of August. It's just my guess, and I will revise that number upward if the spike from Memorial Day does not result in reversing the early reopenings, especially if there is still no adequate testing and tracing regime in place 2 weeks from yesterday.
This is a good point, granted due to a lot of mess ups on testing/data collection we probably will never know the instantaneous net IFR or real-time Ro, my guess is that it’s going down significantly with time in the US bc of learning and adapting to living with C19.
At the start there were acute, dire, and completely justified concerns about medical professional wellbeing, and tragically some lost their lives. We’ve seen a lot of those stories slowly disappear with time, largely bc the health care providers learned and implemented new best practices. I think that the public as a whole (Or at least mostly) will move toward these new behaviors in the coming months and the severity of C19’s weight on the downside risk to commencing a lot of the activities we enjoyed pre-pandemic will be reduced. Enough so for 100k people stadiums to be full? I’m doubtful, but I do think students will be on campus and some form of football will be played
Probably depends a lot on how it goes. If all the B1G teams except Michigan play and there are no health issues among the players, coaches, and their immediate circles, it might be an issue. If one or more schools have an outbreak, seems like the recruiting pitch would be pretty obvious: We care more about your wellbeing than other schools do. We looked at the evidence and made the best decision even though it wasn't popular.
That said, recruiting should be the last thing on the minds of the people making these decisions.
To me it’s not all about recruiting. I don’t think it’s difficult to imagine the almost total cratering of the program with one missed season IF the majority of other teams play. You would have to assume all players would be immediately eligible to transfer and I’m sure the majority of our starters wouldn’t have a problem finding someone to give them a scholarship on short notice. Can you imagine the response on here if we don’t play and Dax transfers to a college closer to home and suits up this fall?
Well, that reaction should also depend on whether there are issues at other schools with outbreaks. Can you imagine the response if everyone transfers and then football games happen to be the worst possible environment with a pandemic going on and teams have outbreaks with hospitalizations of players? Michigan would look pretty dang prescient.
I would be very surprised if Michigan was the only school not participating. But if the information U-M administrators have is indicating that they should not participate and others decide to move forward, I'd much rather they make that mistake than the other way around.