Michigan Wolverines football severely underperformed expectations this season, after being ranked No. 17 in the preseason AP Poll but finishing unranked and with a mark of 2-4.
Michigan saw its final three games — against Maryland, Ohio State and Iowa — be canceled due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the program, which was a disappointing way to end an already dispiriting season.
The team went through a lot to even to have a 2020 campaign — after protesting to play in early September — including waking up at the crack of dawn to head to Schembechler Hall for their daily COVID tests. The amount of protocols, on top of a losing season, can weigh heavily on a player, redshirt junior offensive lineman Andrew Stueber explained.
“It’s definitely been a very different season, in terms of mentality,” Stueber said. “You really don’t understand it unless you go through it, going from your house to the facility and back for about a couple months on end, it gets kind of relentless.
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“Being worried to leave your house, in case you come into contact with anyone, is also kind of not the best feeling. It was a weird year overall, I think a lot of guys have started to feel some mental stress from it.”
Michigan's players were forced to come together, knowing they were all in the same boat, to cope with the challenges collectively.
"I think it’s just important to rally around the people you’re with every day," Stueber said.
"Not only leadership, this season has tested a lot from our team, in different ways," added redshirt junior linebacker Josh Ross, noting he's proud of his teammates for going through it all. "Specifically, just facing adversity and having to handle adversity. We haven’t had the season we wanted to have, but at the end of the day, we come back every day and keep fighting — despite who’s out, who has COVID, what’s going on — we keep fighting."
Still, Michigan players believe that having the season, and the stress and procedures that came with it, was worth the hassle.
“People come here to play football at a high level, so I think everyone on the team wanted to play,” he said. “And you know, I’m sure I don’t speak for just myself, I think everyone wants to play football at the highest level they can. We’ll do any protocol, anything that they want us to do.
“I’m very proud of everyone on the team for handling it in such a professional manner. I think everyone was fully on board with supporting all the COVID protocols in order to play the sport they love.”
Stueber couldn't imagine not having a season this fall, he continued, saying that competing and playing the game they love was one of the things that kept them going through all of the other trials and tribulations 2020 brought.
"Everyone comes to Michigan to play football in the fall," he explained. "Once the season got canceled, we were just starting to deal with it, come to grasp with what it was going to entail. Are we going to play in the spring? So many questions came up with that.
"When we found out the season was back, we all took a breath of relief to know that at least one part of our life is going to be normal this fall. Even though there’s all these COVID protocols, there’s all these differences this year, the one constant is that we’re still playing football."
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