The football game between Michigan and Ohio State has been called off due to an increase in COVID cases over the past week within the Michigan Wolverines football team.
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said, “The number of positive tests has continued to trend in an upward direction over the last seven days.”
“We have not been cleared to participate in practice at this time. Unfortunately, we will not be able to field a team due to COVID-19 positives and the associated quarantining required of close-contact individuals,” he added.
“This decision is disappointing for our team and coaches,” he continued, “but their health and safety is paramount, and it will always come first in our decision-making.”
Darryl Conway, Senior Associate Athletic Director, University of Michigan, said they would not specify how many players have tested positive or how many players were in contact tracing. However, he said the “Wolverines did not fall in the red-red threshold that would require the Big Ten to pause activities for the program.”
Manuel said, “It became really apparent to us all that no matter how much we wanted to play the game, that we started this back in March with the goal to put the health and safety of our student-athletes, our coaches, our staff as the first priority.”
“As numbers continue to grow, we can’t ignore and put first how much we want to play this great game against Ohio State,” he continued. “We have to put their health and safety first. And until we have a good sense and control of that, there is no reason why we should move forward, knowing we don’t have a good handle on the COVID cases on our team right now.”
On December 5, the Wolverines called off their game against Maryland and paused all team activities.
Meanwhile, Michigan will continue daily COVID testing with hopes of getting back on the practice field once medical officials clear them to play.
Kevin Warren, Commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, said, “We’ll continue to remain transparent. We’ll continually communicate internally with our coaches and athletic directors as we continue to make decisions that will impact our conference over the next two weeks.”
“We’ll work through these issues,” he added. “We need to remain fluid, and we remain nimble during these times. This has never happened before.”
Big Ten athletic directors are expected to meet today, according to sources, so they can discuss changing the benchmark.
Ohio Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said Tuesday, “I just think we have to take a hard look periodically at all this stuff, and this is one of those situations. If we don’t quite get the games we need to get in the championship game, I think that needs to be looked at hard, just like anybody else in the conference. There’s no easy solution in times like this.”
“I know those guys are going to come together and take a hard look at it and make sure it was the right decision,” he added. The news was covered by ESPN.
