Michigan Football: Thoughts on Wolverines playing just conference games

A source from the Dan Patrick show suggested that the Big Ten and Pac 12 will only allow schools to play conference games this year.

There is still no certainty that it will happen, but the discussion about only a conference schedule for Michigan football and others is currently ongoing at least according to the Dan Patrick Show.

This doesn’t bode well for a road opener in Seattle on September 5th for Michigan football. It would also put home games for the Wolverines with Ball State and Arkansas State in doubt. What occurs over the next month or two will give us a glimpse of where conference commissioners and college administrators go from here.

It could also mean that the season starts on time or possibly later in September. The Wolverines haven’t began a campaign with a Big Ten opponent since Illinois in 1996.

A Wisconsin home opener with or without fans would then take center stage. It’s scheduled for a maize out, but who knows if that will ever come about. The chances of that actually going down feel as though they are changing on a minute by minute basis.

The SEC plans on moving forward with their fall events without any interruptions. Dan Patrick discussed that with Pat Forde on his program. Forde said the NCAA should know more about this by July 1. It’s also worth noting that the NCAA just approved a six week practice initiative that kicks off in mid July and allows camps to resume in August as hoped. That sounds good on paper, but is different in today’s reality.

Doctor Anthony Fauci mentioned that football ought to be played in a bubble like the NBA and MLS will be doing. That is absolutely impossible for college programs to do because there are so many teams involved with the sport. Travel and a boatload of other things are factored into that equation as well. Adding it to the growing list of options has to be taken into account though.

Having a nine-game regular season schedule would be a loss of money for the sport as a whole, but it will survive because of its widespread popularity.

Postseason games may suffer with just the new year’s six ones being played and the rest deemed non essential. That takes away from the blood, sweat and tears that everyone in the program put in during the course of the year. But again it is a complete unknown at this point in June.

However this one of a kind season plays out for Michigan football and others will be a spectacle for the world to watch. I, along with anyone who is as deeply passionate as I am about this sport wants nothing but it to return in full force without any restrictions. A dose of what things used to be like, after what 2020 has put the planet through, can’t come soon enough.