The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 17

Michigan football coaches need to wear their masks correctly

As of Monday, there have 

been 
well 
over 
13 
million 

COVID-19 cases and more than 

265,000 deaths in the United 

States. In the state of Michigan 

alone, there have been over 

350,000 cases and more than 

9,000 deaths. 

Regardless, a football season 

is being played at Michigan — 

for now. 

The Big Ten joined the rest 

of college football in November, 

stumbling its way through the 

pandemic season. So far, 108 

games have been cancelled or 

postponed. 

All these protocols and facts 

Harbaugh 
praised 
worked 

out for Michigan, until the 

team 
paused 
all 
in-person 

activities 
on 
Monday 
after 

multiple presumptive positive 

tests inside the program. The 

results are now undergoing 

confirmatory PCR testing.

That’s not too surprising, 

though. 

COVID-19 is not something 

to be played around with. 

Yet, it is treated as such every 

Saturday on Michigan’s sideline 

and others around the country. 

Coaches constantly remove 

their masks or face coverings to 

talk to referees, their coaching 

staffs and players. In other 

cases, masks will just lazily 

dangle below their noses. 

Masks are not effective unless 

they cover up the mouth and 

nose, preventing any respiratory 

droplets from spreading. People 

release particles into the air by 

breathing, coughing and even 

talking. 

And yet, coaches remove 

their masks when they talk, 

letting their germs roam free. 

They can put their mask back on 

right after but the damage has 

already been done. 

Infections 
can 
be 

dramatically decreased by just 

covering up your face, even if 

it is for a few minutes. It’s all 

about limiting others’ exposure 

to the virus if someone is 

infected. 

While it may be a charade for 

coaches and benched players 

to wear masks during games, 

the sentiment is still very 

important and it could still save 

people from getting sick. 

There are bound to be dozens 

of times throughout the week 

when masks are improperly 

worn during practices and in 

locker rooms — a problem unto 

itself. But, the least they could 

do is just wear them properly 

for four hours during games. 

Unfortunately, that is just too 

tall of a request for Michigan’s 

coaches. 

Harbaugh 
is 
not 
the 

only 
perpetrator 
but 
his 

shortcomings 
are 
fairly 

noticeable. He wears two face 

coverings during games — one 

normally then another over his 

headset. But, throughout the 

game, both seem to disappear 

off his face at times. 

By 
now, 
millions 
know 

about Harbaugh’s duck-billed 

mask. What does it actually 

accomplish? The short answer 

is nothing. Masks have to 

cover the mouth and nose to 

catch those droplets. It will be 

pretty hard to do that when a 

microphone is keeping it from 

sealing his face. 

Harbaugh’s failure directly 

contradicts his logic of being 

safe.

“Wearing the mask pretty 

much at all times. I use a 

double mask during the game,” 

Harbaugh said.

Maybe the idea gets lost in 

the intensity of the game. But 

how can you spend months 

bragging about your program’s 

protocols when you yourself fail 

to comply with a simple mask 

mandate?

“Everybody’s tested daily. 

We’ve been tested four times 

since Friday and every day 

before that,” Harbaugh said. 

“So you’re saying during the 

game, that’s considered to be 

a clean field. Even if they’re a 

presumptive positive the day 

before the game, night before 

the game, they’re not allowed to 

play, which we’ve had, too.”

There’s a lot of backwards 

logic 
in 
there. 
Testing 
is 

effective in tracking the virus 

but it does just that. All a test 

does is tell a person if they are 

infected or not at that moment. 

They do not cure the disease or 

stop the spread. 

COVID-19 can take days to 

incubate in someone’s body, so 

a person can be negative one 

day and positive a few days 

later. Harbaugh seems to think 

he is living in a utopia where a 

negative means the individual 

is immune for that day and is 

good to go. 

You’d think that five canceled 

or 
postponed 
games 
and 

counting in the Big Ten alone — 

where all teams are tested daily 

— would alert him to the flaws 

in that logic. 

Precautions 
are 
still 

necessary even if the entire 

team is tested multiple times. 

The best way to prevent the 

spread is still by wearing a 

mask. So what does the team 

still need to do on the sideline 

and in the locker room? Wear a 

mask. 

Regardless 
of 
Harbaugh’s 

rationale, it is a problem.

And 
Harbaugh 
does 
not 

deserve 
to 
be 
singled 
out 

because he is not the only 

coach at Michigan or in college 

football to fail to wear a mask 

correctly. But, he is in the 

spotlight as a big-time college 

football 
coach 
at 
a 
major 

university. Millions tune in 

on Saturdays and he should be 

setting a better example for 

those at home. 

Eight months into a pandemic 

that is killing and hospitalizing 

hundreds of thousands, millions 

are still failing to don masks 

appropriately 
and 
listen 
to 

medical professionals; wearing 

a mask is not something that 

can be messed around with. 

College coaches need to be 

setting a better example for 

everybody. They have a huge 

responsibility to wear masks 

properly, whether they asked 

for it or not. 

Harbaugh agreed to a seven-

year $52 million contract with 

the University of Michigan to 

be their head coach. As a former 

player at Michigan, he knew 

what was going to be asked of 

him, whether it was producing 

a good product on the field or 

being the face of the university. 

Harbaugh 
accepted 
the 

responsibility and now must 

confront his shortcomings. 

Michigan 
athletics 
has 

good COVID-19 protocols and 

testing in place. But, as revealed 

Monday, that only does so 

much. Harbaugh had been very 

good about making his team 

wear masks. But at least on 

the sidelines, he and his staff 

obviously failed. 

It’s 
impossible 
to 
know 

whether the lack of mask-

wearing 
on 
the 
sideline 

Saturday contributed to cases 

within the program, but it 

certainly didn’t help. 

Watching Harbaugh march 

up and down the sideline, 

failing to comply with his own 

rules and expectations is an 

embarrassment. 

Harbaugh 
begged 
for 
a 

season amidst a global health 

crisis. Now he needs to face the 

music and listen to what the 

doctors have been saying for 

months.

As the season stands on the 

brink of cancellation, the least 

he could do is try.

Trachtenberg can be reached 

at btrach@umich.edu and on 

Twitter @brandon_trach1.

BRANDON TRACHTENBERG

Daily Sports Writer

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan Football coach Jim Harbaugh’s incorrect mask-wearing brings the shortcomings of pandemic prevention plans into clear focus.

The Wolverines aren’t excited about Michigan football either

A.J. Henning stopped in his 

tracks, spotting the underthrown 

ball from Cade McNamara and 

pulled up. He stuck his hands 

out and leapt, stretching over 

the defender 

and bringing 

the ball in 

as he came 

down. The 

third-quarter 

play gained 28 

yards, got the 

Wolverines 

into Penn 

State territo-

ry and set up a Hassan Haskins 

touchdown to cut the deficit to 

just three points a few minutes 

later.

It was one of the rare high-

lights of the game for Michigan 

on Saturday.

And on Michigan’s bench, a 

Daily reporter spotted Jim Har-

baugh telling his players to get up 

and cheer.

If there’s a single moment that 

captures the Wolverines’ season 

from hell, that’s it. Not the emo-

tion on display when an overtime 

Rutgers field-goal attempt went 

wide. Not a loss to a rebuilding 

Michigan State program that 

gifted seven turnovers and the 

Scarlet Knights’ first Big Ten win 

in three years the week earlier. 

Not getting run off the field by 

Wisconsin and not a three-de-

cade win streak getting trampled 

over against Indiana.

No, this takes the top spot. The 

head football coach at an iconic 

football school needing to prod 

his players to stand up and cheer 

as if it was Little League. How 

utterly damning.

“Something like that, saying 

it’s a bad culture, they’re not 

there every day with us working, 

grinding, watching film, working 

out, getting there early, getting 

treatment,” senior offensive 

lineman Andrew Stueber said. 

“So it’s noise that I don’t worry 

about, that I don’t listen to much. 

I play for the guys around me and 

listen to my coaches.”

Later, pressed on the culture, 

he said this: “If the powers that 

be decide there is a problem, then 

so be it. … I listen to my coaches, 

I believe in them.”

Steuber’s right that it’s unfair 

to speculate on what goes on in 

Schembechler Hall in the middle 

of each week. We’re not there. 

We only see the end product.

But if the end product is hand-

ing a directionless Penn State its 

first win of the season, with Har-

baugh needing to tell his players 

when to cheer, then something is 

irreparably wrong.

If the preparation was there, 

Joe Milton wouldn’t have 

wondered who Michigan State 

linebacker Antjuan Simmons is. 

Taylor Upshaw would have had 

more to say about Penn State 

running back Keyvon Lee after 

he ran for 134 yards than, “I’m 

sure he’s a talented back.” 

If the culture was there, then 

Harbaugh wouldn’t have had to 

do his best Jeb Bush impression 

in the third quarter on Saturday. 

The Michigan football pro-

gram finds itself in a hard sit-

uation. Between injuries and 

opt-outs, the top-end talent on 

the roster is all but gone. They’re 

depending on the remnants of a 

decimated 2017 class and a thin 

2018 class to be the upperclass-

men leading the team. They’re 

subject to intense COVID-19 

protocols and — though they 

haven’t needed to go on pause — 

offensive line coach Ed Warinner 

made reference last Wednesday 

to guys missing time because of 

contact tracing.

That’s all real, and there’s 

every chance the season would 

have gone differently if not for a 

global pandemic out of anyone’s 

control.

But every FBS program in 

the country is dealing with the 

same issues on some level. And 

this season — and all the baggage 

that came with it — is exactly 

what Jim Harbaugh very publicly 

asked for.

“We’re gonna be ready to play 

a game in two weeks,” he said 

on Sept. 5. “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 possibly can.”

He said those words at a 

protest to which he showed up, 

marched on the Diag and public-

ly went against his boss’s boss, 

the University president. And for 

what?

“Getting better every day,” 

Stueber said, when asked what 

there was left to play for. “Obvi-

ously we still have the big team, 

OSU, at the end of the year. We 

just need to click on all cylinders 

and we’re in contention for that 

game.”

Setting aside the almost laugh-

able notion that Michigan can 

compete with Ohio State right 

now, it’s hard to imagine that 

University administrators aren’t 

asking themselves the same 

question right now. 

“That’s much more of a med-

ical decision and it’s much more 

of a University responsibility 

than it is a football coach’s deci-

sion” University president Mark 

Schlissel said in October, when 

asked about Harbaugh’s antics. “I 

didn’t play professional football 

and coach a college team and 

coach a pro team, and Jim didn’t 

go to medical school and do a 

residency and become a licensed 

physician.”

What is he getting out of this 

arrangement right now? There 

are no fans in the stands, and 

it’s hard to imagine there would 

be many if that were allowed. 

Nobody is making donations 

based on a 2-4 trainwreck of a 

football season. This is another 

headache in a semester full of 

them, nothing more.

You could say on that day in 

September that Michigan was 

motivated to play a season if it 

got that chance. What exactly 

happened between then and that 

moment late in the third quarter 

on Saturday is hard to say, but it 

wasn’t anything good.

The program looks broken, 

the players frustrated and tired. 

There are three games left, and it 

would be an act of mercy if they 

could hit fast forward.

You’d say the misery reached 

its bottom on Saturday when 

Harbaugh needed to tell his 

players to get up and cheer, but 

Michigan has shown an uncanny 

ability to sink to lower and lower 

depths each week. 

Lord only knows what the 

next three games have in store.

Sears can be reached at 

searseth@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @ethan_sears.

ETHAN
SEARS

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan’s freefall season reached a new low on Saturday, falling to a Penn State team which entered the day with an 0-5 record on the year.

