Coronavirus cancels MichiganOhio State
Citing a rising number of coronavirus cases in its program, Michigan canceled its annual matchup with Ohio State on Tuesday as college football lurches toward the end of the season without one of its cornerstone rivalry games.
The seasonending grudge match won’t be played for the first time in 102 years.
“Our players, they want to play,” Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh said. “They wanted to play this week and they want to play next week.”
Harbaugh said his players were “very disappointed” to not face the thirdranked Buckeyes, who were heavily favored: “The odds were against us, but our players, to a man, wanted to have that opportunity.”
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said the spread of the coronavirus has not slowed since last week’s outbreak began, and the team was not expected to be cleared to practice by the end of the week.
“The number of positive tests has continued to trend in an upward direction over the last seven days,” he said. “Unfortunately, we will not be able to field a team due to COVID19 positives and the associated quarantining required of closecontact individuals.”
Though outbreaks have disrupted more than 100 games across major college football since August — including this weekend’s regularseason finale between No. 7 Cincinnati and No. 18 Tulsa, who will instead look ahead to their matchup in the Dec. 19 American Athletic Conference title game — the problems with theWolverines ( 24) were watched closely in part because the undefeated Buckeyes ( 50) have championship goals again this season.
With two games already canceled, the Buckeyes under current conference rules still need a sixth game to be eligible to play for a Big Ten championship Dec. 19 in Indianapolis against Northwestern.
The league could decide Ohio State still can represent the East Division in part because the conference also doesn’t want to hurt the Buckeyes’ chances of earning a playoff berth. Ohio State is No. 4 in the CFP rankings.
Manuel said he didn’t think the Buckeyes, or any team, should be punished for not playing enough games during the pandemic and added that Ohio State is one of the top four teams in the country. He also said if Ohio State does not play for the conference championship, it would be “great” to play the rivalry game against Michigan on Dec. 19.
Playoff rankings static: For the third straight week, Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson and Ohio State held the top four spots in the College Football Playoff rankings. The selection committee’s secondfromlast rankings had only a little movement in the top 10. Texas A& M is still fifth and Florida held at sixth. Iowa State moved up a couple of spots to seventh after earning a spot in the Big 12 title game. Cincinnati slipped a spot to eighth after an idle week because of virus issues.
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