Content note. NV PG Frankie Collins is committing tonight at 10 PM Eastern.

Also content note, a very visual podcast: If I've met you and you're not from Ann Arbor or environs, it's probably been at an Alumni Association club event. We don't get to do the tour this summer, but some are still happening online. The SF one had a cool idea: turn our event into an MGoPodcast on a Zoom call with the U-M Club of Greater San Francisco, with a Q&A afterwards for members. They're opening it up to the public. It's tomorrow night (Thursday, 8/20) at 8pm EST/5pm PST. $10 for general admission, $5 for AAUM members or students. We will publish the edited version minus the Q&A on the regular podcast feed later.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. North Carolina shut down and went to all online classes after a week in which they had three and counting coronavirus outbreaks. Notre Dame shut down in-person classes for two weeks after 80 cases. They have 75 more today and have hit 222. Michigan State has gone fully online for the semester. These universities lasted less than two weeks before the Mike Tyson of reality paid them a visit.

None of this is going to stop athletic activities from happening:

News from MSU athletics:

Michigan State student-athletes who are engaged in practices or workouts can return to (or stay on) campus this fall.

— Colton Pouncy (@colton_pouncy) August 18, 2020

UNC announced that the status of campus has no effect on football, which is still scheduled to go forward in the ACC. I've already advocated for putting athletes who want to play in a bubble, which gets a lot more workable with instate point of contact testing and is barely distinguishable from being on campus when classes are all online anyway and people are supposed to be at home if they can. So fine.

I think this makes it even more clear that athletes aren't regular students.

[After THE JUMP: get the green goddess dressing and follow me to freedom]

Kwity Paye is probably opting out. Can't blame him, he's got an NFL future and the situation doesn't seem plausible for folks in that tier of prospects:

Would playing two seasons in one calendar year — including a full NFL season — place too difficult of a burden on his body?

"It’d be a long, long year if I were to do it like that," he said. "That’s something I’d have to take into account."

Of course, there may not be college football until next fall, as the Big Ten has yet to announce details about a potential spring season. In that scenario, Paye doesn't see himself returning to Michigan, considering it will have been 20 months since his last game (the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, 2020).

"I don’t think I’d even wait another year to come back in the fall of next year," Paye said. "It’d be more than a year without football. Ah, I don’t know about that one. It’s not looking too good for that scenario.”

I wouldn't expect Nico Collins to stick around either, which would cement him in the top tier of What Are You Doing Throw Him The Ball all-stars permanently.

FWIW, Paye was the #2 DE on the Athletic's recent rundown of the position for the upcoming draft:

Paye put together a dominant performance on last season’s Iowa tape, posting 2.5 sacks. Lined up at right defensive end vs. left tackle Alaric Jackson, Paye pounces off the snap and stays square in his approach, not tipping his hand. He uses a simple one-two move, bursting inside off his second step and using his outside arm as leverage to grease the gap.

Must Improve: Counter timing

While the tape shows his athletic gifts, Paye is not as proficient countering once initially blocked. When he doesn’t win with his initial move, he must do a better job with his set-up and move-to-move transition to disengage from blocks. Paye doesn’t have elite length, which makes his counter timing and punch rhythm that much more important.

One of the rare cases where the NFL draft community seems more enthused about a prospect than fans and the analyst types who follow the team in question closely. I would have pegged Paye as a mid-to-late round guy.

At least it's peaceful. The specter of Big Ten football parents going crazy and respectfully looting a Panera veritably looms!

Was told today the parents at Ohio State forwarded on the message that they’ll be peacefully protesting at B1G headquarters in Chicago and there is interest from parents at Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska and Penn State in attending as well.

— Tom VanHaaren (@TomVH) August 19, 2020

My "I Am Not Looting This Panera" shirt is causing people to ask a lot of questions already answered by the shirt.

Fine sounds good let's hope it works. Jeff Potrykus is reporting that the Big Ten is looking at a spring schedule that will "start as early as possible" and that UW parents were told that the Big Ten was looking at using indoor stadiums in Minneapolis, Detroit, and Indianapolis. [Obligatory Lions joke.] They're talking about an eight game schedule. Bare minimum would appear to be six—everyone in your division—and then a championship game.

In which firings become poignant. BYCTOM on the departure of Shrek-but-furious Bulls head coach Jim Boylen:

American sports are currently inextricable from the horror inflicting the country, and it is impossible to follow them now without hearing about Safety Protocols and testing rates and insane culture war raging and the same blueprint of incompetence and disregard for anyone's health in microcosm.  On Friday, the Bulls fired their oaf coach.  It had nothing to do with the pandemic, he just sucked.  It felt fantastic.

I felt this very powerfully during the MLS Is Back tournament, which featured a number of skilled acts in a burgeoning league. Quality was on display, and I shoved it aside to drink in the absolute mayhem of ridiculous eighty-yard recovery runs that turn bungled breakaway attempts into own-goals.

I miss the benign stupidity of sports instead of the malicious variety now literally and metaphorically infecting the nation.

They see you. NCAA lobbyists may have bought off Marco Rubio but it doesn't look like many other folks are buying what Rubio and the NCAA are selling:

Sen. @ChrisMurphyCT on why federal legislation is needed to change the NCAA: "They're going to fight athlete compensation for as long as it takes. They’re just in denial that college football and college basketball is professional. They still think that it’s 1954. It’s not."

— Dan Murphy (@DanMurphyESPN) August 13, 2020

Murphy and some like-minded senators have introduce a bill that would implode the association if enacted as is:

Their proposal would seek ways to:

• Allow athletes to market their NIL rights in individual deals and group licensing arrangements with minimal restrictions;

• Create revenue-sharing agreements with associations, conference and schools that result in "fair and equitable compensation";

• Develop "evidence-based health, safety and wellness standards" that come with penalties if they are not followed;

• Provide athletes with "commensurate lifetime scholarships" and comprehensive health care coverage for sport-related injuries;

• Increase transparency by mandating schools to provide more detailed reports of their athletic revenues and expenses;

• Ban any restrictions or penalties associated with transferring from one school to another;

• Establish a commission made up of current and former college athletes along with other experts to provide a meaningful voice for athletes in the decision-making process for college sports.

Along with Booker and Blumenthal, at least nine other senators, including Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, signed on to support the bill of rights. Murphy has been one of the more vocal critics of the NCAA in the past few years.

There is likely to be legislation of some variety in the near future. It'll land somewhere between this and the NCAA's "give us an antitrust exemption for no reason" bill. Hopefully closer to this.

SAVE HOCKEY. SACRIFICE ALL ELSE. Michigan lands 4 of the top 17 prospects in Dobber Hockey's preview of the 2021 NHL draft. On Matthew Beniers, the only one of the four who hasn't been extensively covered in this space already:

17. Matthew Beniers, C/W | USA | 6-0, 168 lbs

Clare McManus: A 200-foot player who can play physical or produce offensively. He is an explosive skater with strong edgework and mobility. With that he can beat defenders in one-on-one situations, but also use his skating to create space for himself, which makes it easy to see his available options. Beniers doesn’t have the most powerful shot, but it is quick and it will beat goalies. In the corners he battles hard and can lay the body on the opposition, but he does need to add some more muscle.

Also, Over The Boards on recent commit Andon Cerbone:

04 F Andon Cerbone (Brunswick) - Michigan

The Wolverines landed what could be their biggest recruit out of prep hockey since first rounder Boo Nieves chose Ann Arbor coming out of Kent. Cerbone exploded onto the scene this year, making a lot of noise in the process. Observers felt his omission from the NTDP roster was something of a snub, as he’s a stand-out cerebral scorer with a ton of upside who proved what he can do against older players in prep hockey this year. The Chicago Steel picked him in the first round of the USHL draft this spring. He was my sixth-ranked prospect for that draft at the time and one of the few players who wasn’t named to the NTDP that is likely to be rated as a five-star in this age group.

Everyone stay inside so hockey can be please.

Etc.: The inspiring story of how one man made Ross County a team filled entirely with guys named "Ross." The USHL is going to try to start November 6th. Two women say they were raped by LSU RB Derrius Guice in 2016, told the school, and the school did not investigate. COVID long-haulers make the prospect of getting this seem even worse than before.