This should have been game week for the Michigan Wolverines' football program and the rest of the Big Ten, with the Maize and Blue originally slated to travel to Washington on Saturday to take on the Huskies.
Game weeks in the fall are a whirlwind at TheWolverine (and probably at most other outlets that cover U-M), and we've decided to give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at what a typical autumn week looks like leading up to game day.
Monday
Mondays are oftentimes the busiest day of game week, with an action-packed slate that kicks off at noon with Jim Harbaugh's weekly press conference. Anywhere from 20 to 40 members of the media gather every week inside Schembechler Hall's Towsley Museum to listen to Harbaugh, with the event primarily consisting of the same people each week.
Well-known national media members make appearances on the Mondays prior to Michigan's biggest games, with several ESPN writers and Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel, for example, in attendance last year prior to the showdown with the Buckeyes.
Harbaugh's Monday pressers are basically a social event for much of the media as well, with plenty of laughter and joke-telling to go around. Seeing the same colleagues four days week for four consecutive months (August through November) has allowed many of us to create strong bonds.
Michigan Associate Athletic Director Dave Ablauf (the man in charge of organizing the football team's pressers and media events) often joins in on the fun as well, with one of the ongoing jokes revolving around the fact that the media is no longer provided lunch at the event (they used to be).
"If [so and so] doesn't show up next week, then you guys will be fed," Ablauf will joke. The butt of the joke usually changes, though Angelique Chengelis of The Detroit News is the most frequent target.
