How Virginia’s canceled bowl game impacts Michigan Football

Unfortunately, we are starting to see the impacts of the COVID and the Omicron variant all across the United States.

So far, it has forced three bowl games to be canceled, with the first affected bowl having to insert Rutgers in Texas A&M’s spot in the Gator Bowl.

The second bowl to get canceled was the Hawaii Bowl, where Hawaii was forced to cancel less than 24 hours before the game was scheduled to start against Memphis.

The Military Bowl has been canceled between Boston College and East Carolina.

Lastly, the Fenway Bowl (famous for Fenway Park in Boston, an inaugural bowl) has been canceled between SMU and Virginia. More bowl cancellations are almost sure to follow in the coming days due to COVID.

All of this is really sad. As I mentioned in a previous article, we all thought that we would be past COVID at this point, but obviously, that hasn’t happened quite yet.

COVID is almost assuredly here to stay for the foreseeable future. There is one possible positive moment that came out of these bowl cancellations though.

How it could impact Michigan football and a transfer portal target

If you haven’t been following the transfer portal news lately, well, just know that Michigan football has been pretty active in there the last few weeks.

Virginia has an All-American center by the name of Victor Oluwatimi that Michigan football has been monitoring for quite some time to possibly replace graduating sixth-year senior Andrew Vastardis for next season.

Anytime you can replace a sixth-year with an All-American is amazing news. And Michigan has a great shot at landing Victor.

Various crystal balls have come in from Michigan insiders over the past few weeks, from Sam Webb, and some others, for Michigan to acquire his services.

Victor was supposed to commit a few weeks ago but delayed his decision. He then changed his mind a few days later and said that he would commit after the bowl game, but unfortunately, his bowl game is now one of the canceled bowls.

All this is to say that hopefully now that Virginia’s season is over, Victor commits to Michigan. It really sucks that Victor’s season ended the way it did, but hopefully, if he commits to Michigan (a much more esteemed program and a program that’s in the playoff right now) it alleviates some of the disappointment of how Virginia’s season ended.

We’ll see what Victor does in the coming days, but be on the lookout for his commitment.