All signs continue to point toward a football season at the University of Michigan.
While the university works to formulate a plan for on-campus instruction this fall, its athletic department believes it might be allowed to let fans into Michigan Stadium.
In a letter sent to season ticket holders on Friday, the U-M ticket office announced the indefinite extension of the June 1 renewal deadline. But it also added this nugget: "The Athletic Department has been planning for and is hopeful that some yet to be determined number of Michigan fans will be able to attend games at Michigan Stadium this fall.”
There were no additional details about the potential plan, but the letter followed a university town hall forum on Friday in which interim provost Susan Collins told 6,000 faculty and staff that administrators were “very optimistic” about holding in-person classes this fall.
MLive’s “Wolverine Confidential” text subscribers were first to learn about the letter.
Michigan president Mark Schlissel, who participated in the forum on Friday, and athletic director Warde Manuel have both said that sports would not happen at Michigan this fall without on-campus instruction. Manuel has also suggested the possibility that Michigan’s football team could play in an empty stadium, an effort to help mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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"Yeah, that’s a real possibility,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said Thursday on “The Rich Eisen Show.” "Because you could test the participants, the players, the coaches, the officials, the chain gang, the trainers, etc. But it’d probably be tough to test 100,000 people coming into a stadium.”
Last week, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said the school has considered a scenario in which the football team plays in a reduced-capacity stadium, with approximately 20,000 fans, in order to abide by social distancing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Michigan Stadium has a capacity of 107,601.
But before any of this happens, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer must relax the rules. The state remains in a stay-home order through June 12 that prevents groups larger than 10 to congregate and keeps public places such as gyms closed.
Until gyms reopen, Harbaugh has said, his players won’t be allowed to return to Schembechler Hall. Schlissel recently told The Wall Street Journal that he has “some degree of doubt” as to whether there will be college athletics this fall.
The NCAA recently announced that schools across the country could begin voluntary, in-person workouts June 1.
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