Jim Harbaugh said it with the succinctness of a man facing a charging grizzly, armed with only a yet-unholstered can of bear spray.
“Stay positive,” Harbaugh offered. “Test negative. Let’s play football.”
He no doubt said it with a smile, matched by millions across the Midwest and across the country. Football has returned to the Big Ten.
Forget all the acrimony. Forget the who was right, who was wrong, and the Big Ten’s insistence that “the facts changed” so it changed its formerly declared irrevocable position of no football this fall.
However they got there, the conference and its university presidents and chancellors decided the game could be played safely. On Oct. 23, we’ll see it again.
That wasn’t guaranteed, no matter how much anyone wished it so. The seemingly settled reality of no football brought about a profound melancholy, from players, to parents, to coaches, to fans, and even to many in the media.
Angelique Chengelis of The Detroit News admitted she “teared up a bit” when considering the prospect of no football this fall. She’s been on the beat since 1992, one year after a rookie editor of The Wolverine first began haunting Schembechler Hall.
He sat on the carpeted floor of the entrance to the football fortress that September of 1991. Sitting nearby was Desmond Howard, veteran wideout who pined for a big season.
“Not too many people know my name yet, nationally,” Howard mused, one night after practice finished and the building emptied. “I hope by the end of the year, everybody does.”
By the end of the year, he’d won the Heisman.
Twenty-nine seasons later, so much has flown by. An interim coach many wrote off wound up winning Michigan’s first national championship in a half-century. The sure-fire winner who succeeded Lloyd Carr then drove straight into the ditch.
The scramble to rediscover the Wolverines’ way ensued, and some say they’re finally back under Harbaugh. At the same time, they’ve yet to win a Big Ten title since 2004 — unthinkable.
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes 2020. Season 30 — since that foreshadowing conversation with a Heisman winner — looked like it wouldn’t happen at all.
Now it will, and the celebration’s on.
“The last couple of weeks, I’ve found out I don’t have a life, because without Michigan football, I’ve been kind of hollow here,” laughingly noted Tom Crawford, fellow veteran of the press corps.
“I love college football. Labor Day weekend, I started watching BYU and Navy, which was a horrible game. Some of these college football games … if my conference, and my team is not involved, it was really difficult for me getting lathered up, and even just following what we were seeing…
“This just changes everything. I’m going to be watching every lick of content for college football now.”
Michigan fans from Maine to Maui can relate.
They’ll see the Wolverines battle their way through a still-unnamed eight games plus one, with a championship week featuring crossovers between the divisions — 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, etc.
They’ll watch and wonder whether the rumors are true, that 6-5, 243-pound redshirt sophomore quarterback Joe Milton really has surged into the No. 1 spot for the Wolverines. If so, what might that portend?
“What I think has been missing from Michigan football is the ability of stretching the field,” Crawford said. “Joe Milton has the arm to do that, and good enough feet, quick enough feet, elusive enough, strong enough.
“I thought Jim Harbaugh would end up saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do a little something different.’ When you watch Michigan play offensively against good defenses, you saw them struggle stretching the field … it just wasn’t there.
“You have to have a deep-ball threat from the quarterback standpoint, and that’s been missing…”
You know what else has been missing? Precisely what you just heard. Football talk. Not contact tracing. Not masks. Not social distancing, possible vaccines and rapid test results.
All of it’s important, obviously, and staying healthy is certainly more important than football. All of the medical aspects had to be in place, or we’d still be focused on Syracuse-Pittsburgh and Navy-Tulane this week.
Instead, it’s the anticipation of seeing Michigan’s schedule come out. It’s trying to sort fact from fiction. Is senior tailback Chris Evans really making his way to the top of the depth chart? Who plugs in for departed starters Jalen Mayfield and Ambry Thomas, early casualties of the Big Ten’s delay of game?
Who else might be gone, and who leaps to catch the opportunity?
Whatever else happens this fall, Michigan fans embrace the chance to find out. The rites of fall have returned. Football’s back.
Stay positive, test negative. Let’s play…
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