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On Wednesday morning, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh appeared on ESPN noting that he would comfortable coaching in games without fans in the stands this season due to coronavirus concerns.
Later in the day, he made yet another appearance, joining Mike Tirico on Lunch Talk Live on NBCSN to discuss the abnormal offseason, what he’s been up to — which includes RVing across the midwestern United States — as well as his conversation on ESPN earlier in the day.
As Tirico is certainly capable of doing, the storied announcer got Harbaugh to open up a little bit more about what it will take to have a season in 2020 and why he believes having business as usual this fall in terms of fan attendance is something of an uphill battle.
He notes, it took a minute for the players to likewise buy in, but once they saw the alternative, they were all in on a fan-limited experience this fall.
“As it relates to football, if we can get the gyms back open, the states with the governors who will open up the gyms, we can get the guys back in the weight room and working out,” Harbaugh said. “In small groups, social distancing, washing the hands, taking temperatures.
“Eventually, you look at playing games. Is that possible? That’s the No. 1 question that our players have and we have. But you can see the path that you could play with players being tested, coaches being tested. Referees, that if you test negative, you can participate in the game.
“Your point of the stadiums being full, I don’t think that’ll happen. It’s pretty tough to test 100,000 people or 70,000 people. There could be some social distancing and a percentage of the fans who can be in there at the game. But I think this: when I talk to our players, they’re like, ‘What, football without fans?’ Ok, which would you rather have? Would you rather play the games with no fans or would you rather not play? And to a man, they wanna play even if there’s not fans in the stadium.
“So let the kids play. Hopefully, we’ll get some more good news as the summer progresses.”
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One of the other challenges has been university athletic directors and presidents pontificating that it would be difficult for teams to return without the general presence of the student body on campus.
Yes, it would be a different scenario where the students stay home while the players return to their respective places of higher education. But Harbaugh thinks that model is reductionist.
He referenced Colorado governor Jared Polis, who on a FOX News Sunday appearance this week advocated for some unique possibilities this fall.
Harbaugh refuses to look at it as an ‘all or nothing’ situation, where either everyone returns or no one does, taking more of a micro-over-macro approach.
He explained his reasoning to Tirico why it doesn’t have to be a situation where college campuses get back to the full normal for football to return.
“There’s creative ways, I believe,” Harbaugh said. “The governor of Colorado, I was listening to some of his comments, they made a lot of sense. ‘Those who want to be on campus or come to school can come to school. And those who still want to do online can be online.’ That’d probably help for social distancing on campuses, in the classrooms. Some of his creativity of not having kids not all get out of class at the same time or eat in the cafeteria — I like the creativity of it. And there’s ways, if you let people think, you can come up with the right answers.
“Like he said, ‘No excuses.’ We’re gonna educate these kids, we’re gonna educated them online or some in the school. That kind of plan made a lot of sense to me.
“To relate that to college, it doesn’t have to be all or none to me. You could have a percentage – what’s the best percentage to have on campus? Those doing extracurricular activities or theater or sports, I think that percentage could be on campus. 25%. But those zero or one-hundred, I don’t think that make a lot of sense.”
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