Jim 
Harbaugh 
knows 
Michigan has to beat Ohio 
State. Don Brown is falling 
right behind him in line.
“I think coach (Harbaugh) 
addressed the Ohio State issue 
yesterday, am I right?” Brown 
said on a Zoom call with 
reporters. “So he’s the boss, 
that’s what he said, that’s what 
I’m gonna try to do.”
Speaking on Mike Tirico’s 
show Wednesday, Harbaugh 
said, 
“Nothing 
makes 
us 
angrier,” than losing to Ohio 
State. Over the last decade, 
though, that’s become almost 
a yearly occurrence, as the 
Wolverines have lost eight in a 

row against the Buckeyes.
Lately, much of the issues 
have come as a result of the 
defense Brown coordinates. 
In 2018, Ohio State put up 
62 points on Michigan in 
Columbus, and last November, 
it was 56, both leading to 
blowout victories for a program 
that has become accustomed to 
beating the Wolverines.
“I don’t blame players for 
anything, OK?” Brown said. 
“You blame the old guy, right 
here. OK? I gotta do a better 
job of getting our players ready 
and I promise you I’m going 
to.”
Last spring, Brown struck 
a similar tone when asked 
about the Ohio State game, 
and it didn’t lead to much 

improvement. His defense, 
in other games, has been one 
of the best in the country. 
Michigan 
ranked 
11th 
in 
defensive SP+ last season 
and has consistently been in 
or around the top 10 since 
Brown’s arrival in Ann Arbor.
But against bigger, better 
teams — the kind Michigan 
needs to beat to vault itself into 
the higher tier of programs in 
the country — the defense has 
fallen short.
Last year, prior to Ohio 
State, 
those 
shortcomings 
came against Wisconsin and 
Penn State, two road games 
in which the Wolverines fell 
short.
“We had four to five bad run 
fits, two bad plays in the pass 

game (against Wisconsin),” 
Brown said. “And we’re out of 
the football game.”
A few bad plays is all it takes 
against a high-caliber team. 
At Wisconsin, that meant a 
72-yard touchdown run for 
Jonathan Taylor, part of a 203-
yard performance on the day. 
At Penn State, it was a coverage 
miscommunication resulting 
in a 53-yard K.J. Hamler score. 
In the Citrus Bowl against 
Alabama, it was an 85-yard 
score by Jerry Jeudy on the 
first play of the game.
That’s the gap Brown now 
needs to bridge, between good 
and great. 
“We took all the pieces of 
that (Alabama) game that 
are negative, and I promise 

you, we’re gonna practice 
those plays against assorted 
looks,” Brown said. “And we 
took the same thing from the 
Ohio State game and we’ll be 
practicing against those plays, 
too, because in that scenario, 
again — it’s college football. 
When you’re not successful, 
it’s eight or nine plays, or it’s 
a group of plays that you just 
want back.”
There are positives from 
which to build, and Brown will 
talk about them passionately, 
even from the spare bedroom 
of his house in Cape Cod over 
a video call. The Wolverines 
came off that shellacking at 
Wisconsin and held Iowa to 
just three points, with eight 
sacks and 14 tackles for loss. 

They held Penn State to 72 
yards in the second half and 
came within a goal-line stand 
of forcing overtime in a white 
out. They hung with Alabama 
for three quarters.
That’s not nothing. Neither 
is winning nine games and 
finishing just outside the top 10 
as a defense. But it’s not where 
Brown, or Harbaugh, want 
to be. Especially if it means 
another embarrassing loss to 
Ohio State in 2020.
“Once again, the Ohio State 
game was a huge negative for 
us,” Brown said. “So I’m not 
gonna live in that world. And 
I don’t want the players to live 
in that world. We acknowledge 
it, we move on from it, and 
hopefully I do a better job.”

Bakich spearheads proposal to change college baseball schedule

Michigan coach Erik Bakich’s motto of “You can’t get hot 
if you don’t start cold” might need to change soon, should a 
proposal he’s spearheading to change the structure of college 
baseball be accepted.
The proposal, penned by Bakich and several other prominent 
coaches, and released on May 21, is still in its infancy and has yet 
to be formally presented to NCAA legislators. However, Bakich 
feels optimistic that it will be met with a positive response by the 
NCAA because Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel has 
been very supportive of his ideas. 
This proposal hopes to solve many problems within college 
baseball, especially in the wake of COVID-19, by limiting the 
budget damage of an incredibly expensive program to operate 
and helping athletes thrive both on and off the field. 
The proposal aims to push back opening day by four weeks, 
from mid-February to mid-March, allowing northern schools 
like Michigan to start their season by playing home games, 
instead of spending their first month on the road. This change 
would come with a corresponding extension four weeks later 
into summer — with the Men’s College World Series ending in 
mid-July.
This is not a new concept, and different ideas of pushing back 
the college baseball season have existed for years. But with the 
impending financial burdens due to COVID-19, this proposal 
not only makes sense for cold-weather schools, but for warm-
weather ones as well. 
A major impetus for this proposal is the large amount of 
money that can be saved by eliminating the early season road 
trips consistently taken by northern teams. Additionally, 
warm-weather schools won’t need to hand out hefty financial 
guarantees in order to make the travel feasible for the cold-
weather schools. 
“Athletic directors and administrators around the country 
have a concept of more regionalized scheduling, not just in 
baseball, but among a lot of teams,” Bakich said in a video press 
conference. “(This would help by) cutting down travel budgets, 
improving student welfare by not taking these long trips and 

jeopardizing their academics and missed class time.”
Over the last five years, Michigan spent on average $232,000 
on travel costs during the first four weekends of the season. 
Should the proposal pass, Michigan could add eight to 12 home 
games each season, which would save approximately $60,000 to 
$75,000 per season.
“It’s going to be really hard to invest in a sport that loses 
money every year that operates at such a significant financial net 
loss,” Bakich said. “And I’m not talking about a loss of 100,000 
bucks. I’m talking about seven figures of net loss.”
The benefits for cold weather schools are obvious, but Bakich 
emphasized in the proposal how the schedule change would help 
warm weather schools as well. According to the data presented 
in the proposal, teams across the country have much higher 
attendance in April and May as opposed to February and March 
— due to both poor weather and the finale of the basketball 
seasons.
For Michigan, Ray Fisher Stadium rarely reaches capacity 
until late April and May, when students have already left and 
there’s only a couple more weeks left in the season. Bakich 
argues that even the general baseball fan and families, which 
make up most of the attendance at games and subsequently the 
revenue, don’t associate baseball season until the beginning of 
the MLB season.
The financial aspect of this proposal has helped it earn 
attention, but Bakich emphasized that Michigan players, and 
players across the country, stand to gain from this academically 
and in terms of their overall well-being.
Michigan, for example, will benefit from fewer early-season 
road trips because their student-athletes won’t have to miss 
classes and won’t have the same level of stress on their bodies 
from travelling.
With a pushed back start date, players will also have more 
time to properly condition their bodies leading up to the season, 
leading to fewer injuries. 
“Student welfare should be enough to stand alone and make 
it pass,” Bakich said. “But now that you have finances attached 
to it that has real traction with athletic departments and athletic 
directors and administrators looking for ways to improve their 
bottom lines.”
Student-athletes would lose four more weeks of their summer 

with the proposed schedule, but it allows players to have a longer 
off-season in the fall, which would benefit their academics 
greatly. 
The change in off-season would also affect coaches’ recruiting 
calendars. Coaches typically focus their recruiting efforts 
through the duration of the summer and many expressed their 
concerns about how the change in schedule would affect their 
recruiting ability. 
However, Bakich said that the teams that make postseason 
runs, and thus would lose most of their summer, would actually 
benefit from the exposure they receive. Bakich found TV 
exposure was more beneficial than time spent on the recruiting 
trail. 
Having discussed the proposal with the team’s upperclassmen, 
Bakich is optimistic about their response and those of other 
players around the country and hopes it will translate to the 
decision makers in the NCAA. 
“(The players) were very, very excited about it, as they should 
be,” Bakich said. “As a cold weather team, not that we need the 
season moved back to have any type of success, but the idea of 
packing Ray Fisher stadium with a game in June… would be so 
awesome.”
Bakich and the other coaches that created this proposal set 
an aggressive timeline to implement these changes, hoping for 
them to be put in place before the 2022 season.

ARIA GERSON

Daily Sports Editor

Don Brown says he has to do better getting players ready for OSU

LILY ISRAEL AND JACOB COHEN
Daily Sports Writers

12

Thursday, May 28, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS

FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan coach Erik Bakich takes lead on proposal pushing back season.

