Like most Michigan Wolverines football players, redshirt freshman defensive end David Ojabo set off for home at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic. Except, for Ojabo, home is Aberdeen, Scotland, making his situation a bit more complicated.

Michigan's 2019 Defensive Scout Team Player of the Year has enjoyed the rare occurrence of being back home, especially during a global pandemic, where he doesn't have the constant worry about his family's health from thousands of miles away.

"I just never see my family, you know," Ojabo told Jon Jansen on the In The Trenches podcast this week. "Like last year, I didn’t even go home. I went home after the bowl game for like a week and a half. I went to boarding school when I was 15. I just haven’t been home for the last five years, for real.

"During a pandemic, the last thing I want to do is worry about how my family’s doing if I’m all the way in America. So, that was a no-brainer for me. That first flight, I was outta there.

"There’s no place like home, and I really mean that from the bottom of my heart. This is where I grew up, humble beginnings. Over in America, it’s just a lot of business, football. Now I just come back here, back to where I didn’t even know about football. Just coming from my humble beginnings, being with my friends who knew me when I was a little soccer player, it’s the best feeling ever. You can just come here and unwind."

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But, while most of his teammates are back in Ann Arbor working out and preparing for a potential football season this fall, Ojabo remains in Scotland due to the United States' international travel ban that was put in place due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Thus, the "#FreeJabo" movement began after Ojabo took to Twitter to express his frustration with being away from his team.

"It’s just plain and simple: If you’re from the U.K. and you’ve been there since lockdown started, you can’t return," Ojabo said. "Of course, there’s a lot of other countries on that list, too. We’ve tried everything. Tried to find loopholes, called every flight agency known to man. We’ve done our research. It just seems like never-ending, this lockdown. Everybody probably feels that way, but especially for me just being away from my teammates.

"I remember when I was trying to fight to come home, I was missing my family. Now, I miss my boys, so it’s just crazy how things can change."

According to The Detroit News, Ojabo has gone to great lengths in an attempt to return to the United States, including flying to Canada and then entering the country from there or heading to Australia, self-quarantining for 14 days, then flying to the U.S. But there hasn't been a feasible solution, at least not yet.

"It’s hard to put it into words," Ojabo told Jansen of his emotions during this time. "Just waiting for the day I can come back and be with my boys, man. It’s been a long quarantine.

"Honestly, we’re all in the same boat. We don’t know what’s going on. I put out that tweet just out of frustration. Man, I need some answers, but the frustrating part is we don’t have any answers because it’s all above us. It’s all the government, so until they give us that word, we can’t say nothing about it."

Until he returns, Ojabo is staying engaged with his teammates and coaches from afar, especially with defensive line coach Shaun Nua.

"Coach Nua has been my biggest supporter,” Ojabo told Angelique Chengelis of The Detroit News this week. “I really don’t know where I’d be without him, because he’s constantly checking on me. You know coaches are busy and have their own lives, but the way he looks after me and checks up on me, it’s almost like I’m one of his, and I really appreciate that.”

Ojabo's fellow Wolverines have also expressed their support for him on social media:

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