Michigan Wolverines Football: How Quickly Will Michigan Football Return To Practice, Games?

Michigan football has conducted all team activities virtually this week, after an increased number of positive COVID-19 tests within the program. Wednesday, the Wolverines joined eight other Big Ten teams in seeing a game get canceled — with Saturday's contest against Maryland being taken off the slate.

Though ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit insinuated on national television that the Wolverines may "wave the white flag," against Ohio State next week, U-M Director of Athletics Warde Manuel made it clear the decision to pause team activities was based on the health and safety of all involved, not anything having to do with gamesmanship.

"In the conversations with our medical professionals about the uptick that we were seeing in positive COVID cases with our team, it led them to bring forth the decision that we needed to pause, for the health and safety of our student-athletes, our staff and our coaches," Manuel said in an interview with MGoBlue TV.

The football team, including head coach Jim Harbaugh, were saddened — but understanding — of the decision and necessity to shut down, Manuel said.

"I talked to Jim earlier, and he was really disappointed by the decision," Manuel said. "Understands the decision, supports the decision. But we want to play. Those student-athletes want to play, and this is an opportunity that we have to pause, and we all understand it. But they are disappointed because they worked so hard to get this far into the season, and nobody wanted this to stop this way."

Though there have been no official announcements about the number of positive coronavirus cases among players, coaches and support staff members, it's safe to assume the Wolverines — as of Wednesday afternoon — have not yet hit the Big Ten's threshold to force a seven-day shutdown, since Michigan announced that Monday, Dec. 7 would be the earliest day the team could return to practice.

If Michigan did return Monday, the team would have five days in person to prepare for a game against the Buckeyes. But looking at the trends across the Big Ten, it's unlikely to say Michigan will be able to return in such a quick manner to play in Columbus Dec. 12.

Coming into this week, all three programs (Wisconsin, Maryland and Minnesota) that had outbreaks leading to a canceled game were forced to miss two straight games — not including Ohio State, who canceled its game with Illinois last week but returned to team facilities this week and may play Michigan State Saturday.

So what would it take exactly for the Maize and Blue to be able to gather at Schembechler Hall once again and get back on the practice field? Dr. Sami Rifat, Medical Director for Michigan Athletics, broke it down in his own interview with MGoBlue TV.

"I’d like to see a good two, three days of us trending in the right direction before we feel comfortable getting people back together," Rifat revealed.

"And I will say that I feel incredibly responsive. We have a great deal of support throughout the university, so we get this information, it seems like in real time. So we’re able to act quickly and hopefully mitigate spread."

While they're being cautious on when to return, they want to be able to do so swiftly once it's safe.

"But also the other way around — when it’s safe to go back, we hope to act quickly in that direction as well," Rifat said.

That said — and once again — the decision to return, whenever that is, will be made by medical experts who are not willing to compromise health and safety for any sort of competition.

"The important thing to remember here is that this is medical information, and as a healthcare professional, I’m bound by my state license," Michigan Athletics Senior Associate AD and Chief Health & Welfare Officer Darryl Conway said. "So if I were to lie, if I were to be nontransparent and not tell the truth on what’s being asked of me every day, I can lose my license.

"And I’m not going to lose my license over a football game or over gamesmanship with another school. And I think that’s true all across the conference, that every single person who’s doing the reporting is a healthcare professional that’s licensed and can lose their license if they’re not truthful."

As of now, Michigan's game with Ohio State Dec. 12 is still on the schedule, as is its divisional crossover game — with the venue and opponent TBD — Dec. 19.

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