18 — Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
I
t’s too bad we
couldn’t see Jim Har-
baugh’s face under-
neath his mask on
Saturday. It might have been
revealing.
Speaking
to reporters
while par-
ticipating in
a parent-led
protest on
the Big Ten’s
postpone-
ment of foot-
ball season,
Harbaugh
was asked
six times in seven minutes
about University president
Mark Schlissel. He did his
best not to publicly criticize
a man who’s technically his
boss, but the subtext wasn’t
hard to see, even without the
benefit of Harbaugh’s facial
expressions.
His conversations with
Schlissel?
“I have had none,” he said.
Does that upset him?
“You think maybe I’ve got
some inside information or
something. I really don’t,” he
said.
He said later that he’s text-
ed and emailed Schlissel to
show him the football team’s
COVID-19 testing results. Has
Schlissel responded?
“Talk to Warde (Manuel).
Warde talks directly to Presi-
dent Schlissel,” Harbaugh
said.
You don’t need me to
explain what that means. The
very reason Harbaugh was
there on Saturday was to pro-
test a decision that Schlissel
helped make.
“Free the Big Ten,” Har-
baugh said. You know,
because Schlissel and 10 other
University presidents shack-
led it.
So let’s stop here for a
minute. The football coach,
whose salary and public pro-
file dwarfs the University
president’s, publicly protested
a major decision that the Uni-
versity president helped make.
That’s a huge deal in a
vacuum. But let’s add in some
context. Harbaugh is in the
last year of his contract and
extension talks got tabled
because of the pandemic.
Harbaugh also left his last
job in large part because he
clashed with people in the San
Francisco 49ers’ front office,
a pattern that’s followed him
throughout his career.
So, forget the 2020 season.
Michigan football might have
a bigger issue on its hands if
this doesn’t get sorted out.
Schlissel’s transparency, in
all aspects — be it the football
season or the fall semester
writ large — has been embar-
rassingly poor. As it relates
to this column, his only com-
ment on the season was a
statement on Twitter in sup-
port of the Big Ten’s decision
last month. The Daily request-
ed to speak with him this
week and was told questions
on the Big Ten and football
season are being referred to
Manuel, the athletic director.
That’s fine — and it’s worth
noting that Manuel, not
Schlissel, is Harbaugh’s direct
superior. (He also declined
an interview request through
a spokesman). But Manuel
didn’t have a vote in the deci-
sion to postpone the season.
Manuel won’t have a vote
in whether to play later in
the fall or during the spring.
Jim Harbaugh didn’t protest
Warde Manuel’s decision on
Saturday. He protested Mark
Schlissel’s.
It’s one thing for Schlis-
sel to duck questions from
reporters. It’s another for him
to duck questions from his
own football coach.
Players at the protest on
Saturday said Schlissel hasn’t
shown up at Schembechler
Hall and hasn’t seen Michi-
gan’s protocols at work. It’s
unlikely that Schlissel, an
immunologist, would be con-
vinced to change his mind by
seeing some football players
in masks, but it says some-
thing that he hasn’t shown up
to explain what’s going on,
why the decision was made, or
even just to tell the team the
decision was made.
Schlissel has bigger things
on his mind than football
right now, namely getting the
University’s COVID response
in order before it derails the
fall semester. But it’s not ask-
ing much for him to explain
why he voted to postpone the
season, to the people whose
season he voted to postpone.
Whether you agree with the
decision or not, that’s a cour-
tesy they’re owed.
“We were getting our infor-
mation from Twitter,” senior
quarterback Dylan McCaffrey
said. “And we’re the ones it’s
directly affecting, unfortu-
nately.”
Speculating on the relation-
ship between Schlissel and
the football program would
be unfair, but at this point, it’s
not speculation to say it’s not
good. And it’s not unfair to
start asking what that means
for the relationship between
Schlissel and Harbaugh.
For all the criticism Har-
baugh gets as a football coach,
he’s gotten Michigan to a
level it hasn’t seen since Lloyd
Carr was coaching. He’s got a
five-star quarterback coming
next year and, quietly, built a
team this year that was poised
to surprise some people. It’s
hard to see the Wolverines
getting an upgrade if he were
to leave. More than that, it’s
hard to see him wanting to
leave.
He grew up here. His family
is here and his kids are in the
schools. His parents are here,
and his dad even showed up
to protest on Saturday. He’s
built Michigan up, but leaving
without a win over Ohio State,
a Big Ten title or a New Year’s
Six bowl — if not a Rose Bowl
— would leave a bad taste. In
July, he said a contract exten-
sion was “right there,” prior
to the pandemic.
As for Schlissel, he signed
a five-year contract exten-
sion in September 2018. Bar-
ring some kind of disastrous
fallout of this school year, it’s
hard to see him going any-
where.
That puts Manuel between
the two of them, in an impos-
sible position of trying to
appease Harbaugh, Schlissel,
donors and everyone else on
down.
I don’t know where that
leaves everything, but my
mind is landing on this quote
from a 2016 profile on HBO’s
Real Sports, when Andrea
Kremer asked Harbaugh
about his propensity to alien-
ate people.
“That must be true,” Har-
baugh said. “Cause I’d wear
out my welcome. … People just
don’t want to be around you
after a while.”
On Saturday, asked about
the details of the season he
wants to play — number of
games, College Football Play-
off consideration — Harbaugh
would only say this: “We want
to play.”
His mouth moved under-
neath the mask, in either
a smile or a grimace. It
would’ve been nice to know
which.
Sears can be reached at
searseth@umich.edu or on
Twitter @ethan_sears.
Jim Harbaugh protested Mark Schlissel,
so where does that leave Michigan?
ETHAN
SEARS
ALLISON ENGKVIST & RYAN LITTLE/Daily
University president Mark Schlissel and football coach Jim Harbaugh are publicly at odds over the Big Ten’s postponement of the season.
Whenever the Big Ten
decides to resume its season,
Michigan will be ready.
That was the overwhelm-
ing consensus among players
who attended Saturday’s “We
want to play” protest at Michi-
gan Stadium. The Wolverines
haven’t stopped practicing —
although practices have been
non-contact, without pads —
and according to junior offen-
sive tackle Ryan Hayes, Jim
Harbaugh has used rumors of a
mid-October start to motivate
players to stay ready. While the
exact amount of time the play-
ers would need varies depend-
ing on who you ask, all of them
felt it wouldn’t take long.
“If they told us we had a Sun-
day game, we’d be ready tomor-
row,” senior quarterback Dylan
McCaffrey said at the protest.
“We’ve been going at it for
as long as we can. Mentally I
think our team is sharper than
ever, physically we’re prob-
ably more in shape than ever
because we’ve been training
for so long. I was really proud
of the whole team the way they
came back from quarantine in
shape and ready to go, so I’m
confident we would be ready
tomorrow.”
Fifth-year senior defensive
lineman Carlo Kemp agreed,
saying that the team would’ve
been ready to play Saturday if
they’d had a game — despite
the fact that Kemp, who missed
the Citrus Bowl with an injury,
hasn’t been in pads since
November.
Harbaugh and junior defen-
sive lineman Aidan Hutchinson
didn’t have quite as accelerated
of a timeline, but both said that
all it would take was two weeks
in pads for the team to be ready.
“We’re gonna be ready to
play a game in two weeks,”
Harbaugh said. “Get the pads
on and our guys have trained
without a pause since June 15.
So that’s our position. We’re
ready to play as soon as we pos-
sibly can play.”
Michigan’s spring season
ended before it could start and
the Big Ten has not yet allowed
for padded practice. For some
players, it’s been nearly a year
since they were last in pads.
That could seem like a disad-
vantage in getting back to the
field, but there are some silver
linings for the players. It’s
given them more time to learn
the playbook and focus on tech-
nique, which could prove useful
in the future.
“It’s been really nice because
we can start working on our
footwork and hands really well,
so once we do put the pads
on we’ll definitely have more
technique down,” Hayes said
Thursday on Zoom. “So that’s
been one positive about it.”
Chris Evans returns
Chris Evans is in a unique
situation. The fifth-year senior
running back was suspended
for academic reasons before
spring practice in 2019 and was
only cleared to return for the
Wolverines’ bowl practices in
December.
Since then, Michigan got a
new offensive coordinator in
Josh Gattis and two younger
running backs have emerged
in Zach Charbonnet and Has-
san Haskins. It was already a
long road back for Evans, and
the pandemic has only made it
longer.
“Just trusting in the process,
just getting ready to play, day in
and day out,” Evans said at the
protest. “It’s gonna be tough,
me being out, not being able to
play football since ‘18, but I’ll
be ready to go when the time
comes.”
Evans said he attended the
protest because, “I love football
and I want to play. It’s best for
our team right now.”
He described Gattis’ offense
as faster and more hands-on
but also easier to learn because
of the hand signals and boards.
Evans also said the offensive
line and running backs room
were both “looking good.”
Some upperclassmen have
decided to opt out of whatever
potential season there is to
focus on the NFL Draft. Evans
hasn’t made a choice yet on that
front.
“I haven’t decided,” Evans
said. “I don’t know what’s going
on yet. All I’m focused on is
whenever they say we play, be
ready.”
Practicing in a pandemic
In fighting for a season,
Harbaugh has locked onto a
particular refrain: Since June
15, the football program has
conducted over 800 tests, and
all have been negative.
Michigan’s lack of positive
tests doesn’t necessarily mean
that playing another Big Ten
team would be as safe — Mary-
land and Iowa have both shut
down practice after widespread
outbreaks on athletic teams
in the past week. But clearly,
the Wolverines’ protocols are
working.
Players must wear a mask
and undergo a temperature
check to enter the building for
practice or a meeting. They’re
also discouraged from leaving
their homes for anything other
than class or practice.
“Don’t go out, keep wearing
a mask, practice social distanc-
ing,” Hutchinson said. “All the
same rules apply. Obviously it
gets a little more difficult when
most students get there because
you have that aspect of it but I
think our guys have been doing
a good job staying away from
other people and social distanc-
ing on their own.”
There’s an obvious source of
motivation for Michigan: The
fewer cases it has, the more
likely the players are to be able
to play. According to Kemp,
the motivation to avoid testing
positive has led players to avoid
activities they would normally
do, such as going boating on the
weekends.
Beginning in June, the team
built a culture of distancing
based on the mindset that they
wanted to play, and that if they
didn’t help create an environ-
ment where it was safe to do so,
the season would be called off.
Clearly, based on the Wolver-
ines’ test numbers, it’s worked.
“We go from the facility to
our houses and back to football,
and that was a true testament
to everything we believed in
and what we were trying to
accomplish,” Kemp said. “And
we knew that for us to play
football, this is what we’ve
gotta do, and guys bought into
that and they’re still buying
into it because at any point
we’re hopeful that the season
could come up, a game could
come up, something. And being
able to just keep that discipline
is a testament to that charac-
ter.”
Notebook:
Michigan reiterates readiness to play, Evans returns
MILES MACKLIN/Daily
Michigan football players said they’ve been prioritizing social distancing in hopes that few positive cases could lead to a reinstatement of the fall season.
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer