The Big Ten delivered what players, parents and fans deemed the most egregious personal foul of all — no football in 2020.

It locked down the stadiums. It threw a flag on a dozen decades of tradition, excitement and passion. It already sent some Wolverines packing, for home or the NFL.

Michigan’s seniors poured off rivers of sweat, labored tirelessly and bled through an on-their-own offseason, looking for one more chance. They coveted just one final shot at smacking down the Spartans, stiff-arming the Nittany Lions, and getting it right against the Buckeyes.

They’re left with nothing. No games, so season, no shot at a championship. They can’t imagine anything worse.

Morgan Trent can.

A dozen years ago, Trent faced a senior season of his own with increasing angst. He’d performed on Michigan’s best defense since ’97, a 2006 crew proving lights out until darkness fell at the end.

But a year and a half later, everything had changed. The coach who brought him to Ann Arbor was gone. The new guy didn’t care about all Trent knew and loved regarding Michigan.

Trent’s senior season was about to encounter a virus of its own.

“It was a bad hire,” Trent said, regarding bringing Rich Rodriguez to Ann Arbor. “It was a bad coach. It was a bad coaching staff. It was bad all around.”

Trent isn’t bitter about life these days — at all. He sells multi-million-dollar homes in Orange County, Calif. He’s been featured on the CNBC TV show “Listing Impossible.” He’s married, with two sons and an enviable life back in his home state.

But his senior year? Well, that’s a sore spot. And he’s never been shy about discussing it.

The topic came up in a much broader conversation about Trent’s career not long ago. The former Wolverine recalled finishing up the rocky 2007 campaign on the highest of high notes, the Wolverines out-gunning Urban Meyer, Heisman-winning quarterback Tim Tebow and Florida in the 2008 Capital One Bowl, 41-35.

In hindsight, Trent mused, it should have been his final game in a winged helmet.

“It sucked, man,” Trent said. “Hindsight is 20-20. I should have left after the Florida game. I had a great game. I should have left, and I probably would have gone in the third or fourth round [of the NFL Draft], at the worst.

“I knew I’d go to the Combine, do what I did, run fast, jump high and all that. But I wanted to finish Michigan right. You stay, you graduate. I wanted to stick it out.

“But I quickly knew it was a problem.”

Trent still fashioned an NFL career before hitting it big in real estate. He suffered considerable pain first, starting with an initial full-team meeting with Rodriguez.

“It’s unfortunate,” Trent said. “A lot of the traditions we had at Michigan, he tried to single-handedly destroy, act like he didn’t know about them. It was very interesting.”

One involved players leaping to their feet, wildly cheering and exhibiting unrestrained passion when the head coach walked in the door. The practice harkened back to the Carr era.

“We did that every single day,” Trent noted. “From my understanding, they started when we lost a game … [Carr] came in, and the team was upset and sad. He said, ‘Look, I’m walking out this door, and when I come back, you’d better be excited to be here.’ So that happened, and it went on forever.”

It stopped — almost immediately — with the new coach.

“When RichRod walked in, we did the same thing, right?” Trent recalled. “And he looked at us like we were crazy. He said, ‘What the hell is that? If that’s some type of tradition, you can cut that out right now.’

“He started this rant, that I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Listen, we’re going to do it my way. I’m too expensive. I’m going to be here. We’re going to do it my way.’ And this is our first five minutes of our meeting.

“I said, obviously this guy has no idea where he is. If he thinks he’s too expensive to get out of here … this isn’t West Virginia. We all know how that ended.”

It ended 3-9 in 2008, with a 33-year bowl streak blown up. It ended with embarrassing losses, disillusioned veterans and the winningest program in college football history coming apart. Trent insisted that only now is it finally coming back together.

“It was embarrassing,” he said. “We were losing to teams I’d never lost to. Never lost to Michigan State, never lost to Penn State. He just didn’t understand.

“We lost to Michigan State, and afterwards in the locker room, he goes, ‘You beat them three times already.’ That’s not the point. We don’t lose to Michigan State, ever. It was such a different standard. The expectation level was so different.

“It killed us, man. It ended up hurting all the seniors. We got blamed for it … I’ll leave it at that.”

Trent can empathize with Michigan’s present seniors. There’s more than one way to see a final year in a winged helmet stolen.

And you never forget.

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