*grimace emoji.* Wisconsin is already down Jack Coan. Now uh

Two sources told the Journal Sentinel on Sunday that Mertz, who was brilliant in his starting debut last week, had tested positive for the coronavirus. One source said the positive test came on Saturday.

“I will not and cannot and should not comment on anything dealing with our testing and coronavirus," Chryst said. "We're following the guidelines set in place by the Big Ten."

After Chryst spoke to reporters, a source told the Journal Sentinel that redshirt sophomore Chase Wolf, who is expected to start if Mertz is not available, was not at practice Monday. According to a second source, Wolf has also tested positive for the coronavirus.

If your eyes have rolled back in your head so hard they came out the other side you are not alone. There is no reason to conceal testing results in your own program other than the usual bush league psych-out stuff college coaches engage in incessantly.

Mertz's test has been confirmed. He is out 21 days. Wolf's is likely to be confirmed shortly. That should put both out for the Michigan game. Also: Mertz presumably tested positive after the game, so he played while contagious. Both Wisconsin and Illinois may be on the verge of an outbreak.

Wisconsin has one quarterback left: redshirt junior Danny Vanden Boom. Let's find out more about him.

are you really asking because i don't know

Hmm. Not promising. Vanden Boom was barely ranked inside the top 2000 as a recruit. Also on the docket:

If UW is down to Vanden Boom as the only healthy quarterback for the Nebraska game, it is possible tailback Garrett Groshek could become a bigger factor in the offense.

Groshek, a fifth-year senior, was a dual-threat quarterback at Amherst High School but hasn't played quarterback at UW.

Pandemic football is not good but it is fascinating.

Also in injury news, Penn State RB Noah Cain is out for the season. They're already down Journey Brown and will now turn to sophomore Devyn Ford, who was a top 100 guy in 2019.

[After THE JUMP: things more unexpected than pandemic havoc]

Send Mr. Spots. Meanwhile in Ann Arbor:

Mike Sainristil says every player who didn’t travel to Minnesota was in Michigan’s facilities Saturday. “No one wants to be the guy” who causes a COVID-19 outbreak within the team.

— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) October 27, 2020

Being cautious isn't a guarantee.

What happens when everything is closed. Tik Tok thrives!

Those Michigan boys got the movesss @NunezAdrien @Ayeyoomike__ @iamzebjackson1 pic.twitter.com/dP9mI7sGAl

— Blue By Ninety (@bluebyninety) October 16, 2020

Remember when Twitter bought Vine and shut it down just so someone else could make Vine happen again? No? Stop calling me gramps.

The smallest. Michigan is set to have the smallest attendance in Michigan Stadium's history this Saturday. MVictors goes looking for the previous record:

#1 vs. Wisconsin November 28, 1931 [Attendance: 9,190]

I’m sure you will hear people, including the athletic department, cite this game as the lowest on record. Just looking at the data, yes, this is the lowest official attendance at the Big House. But there’s a big BUT here. This was not a game on the original season schedule. This was a game benefiting charity (check out the QB tossing money to the needy on the ticket above) added later. Several of these games were held around the conference during this late-November week.

Michigan fans (including then-athletic director Yost) were pissed that U-M was assigned the Badgers in this special plus-one game, instead wanting/expecting a showdown against powerful Northwestern(!). So people avoided the event despite the charitable backdrop.

Chaundee Brown waiver tea leaves. His former teammate just got one:

Could seemingly set a precedent for Michigan’s Chaundee Brown, who transferred from Wake Forest.

The NCAA granting >90% of waiver requests would also appear to be setting a precedent ‍♂️ https://t.co/BuyqkfYwk6

— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) October 21, 2020

Sarr left after Danny Manning got fired, which may have helped his case. But also: if 90% of transfers are getting waivers why bother dumping on a couple dozen kids?

Developing from down there. Tom VanHaaren looks at which teams are producing draft picks and All-X players from guys ranked outside the ESPN top 300. At the top of the list are more or less who you'd expect: programs from outside recruiting hotbeds who generally outperform their talent level. Draft picks:

Iowa: 13
Utah: 12
Wisconsin: 11

And then:

Washington: 11
Ohio State: 10
Michigan: 10
North Carolina: 9

Clemson, Notre Dame, Penn State, and Oklahoma also show up on the list. Michigan does a good job of picking out guys from the lower ranks—should be mentioned that three of Michigan's 10 draftees are Glasgows. Ohio State, on top of everything else, is getting an incredible strike rate on their lower-rated guys.

Wisconsin dominates both the AA (5, next highest 3) and All-Conference who-dat rankings (14(!), next highest Big Ten team 5). The machine is the machine.

The horror. So you're just reading the Atlantic and someone drops a bomb:

[Sloan] is also versed in statistics, which comes in handy when she’s analyzing her eldest daughter’s junior-squash rating—and whiteboarding the consequences if she doesn’t step up her game. “She needs at least a 5.0 rating, or she’s going to Ohio State,” Sloane told me.

You may be chasing a pale ghost of a meritocracy that never existed and leveraging personal wealth into the propagation of our inequitable society, lady, but you're all right by me.

This seems not good. LSU self imposed some penalties because their players are—wait for it—getting money. We're all pretty blasé about this these days but holy shit someone funded LSU football by stealing from a hospital?

The father of former offensive lineman Vadal Alexander received $180,000 in stolen money from LSU booster John Paul Funes, who admitted in 2019 that he embezzled more than half a million dollars from Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. The money was payment from 2012 to 2017 for what the NCAA characterized as a “no-show job.”

Alexander is an interior OL ranked #167 on the composite. I can't imagine what a five star is getting.

Anyway, name and image rights for players would be good.

Also unexpected. We just had a TWO about things that we weren't exactly expecting but I failed to mention Kwity Paye looking like an entirely different rusher. PFF:

Paye topped my preseason list of draft prospects who needed a 2020 season the most. Blessed with elite physical tools, Paye had shown zero refinement as a pass-rusher in his first three seasons for the Wolverines. On Saturday, he looked like a different player entirely.

His 89.8 pass-rushing grade on the day was far and away a career-high, and he’d only ever had one other game over 80.0. He returned to school because he was likely a fringe first-rounder based on 2019 tape. But if we see the guy we saw against Indiana on Saturday for the rest of the season, don’t be surprised if he’s the first edge off the board in April.

Early UFR returns are in the same boat because Paye's "quiet" start to the game was a procession of OL being put in a trashcan while Minnesota gameplanned around the fact that their OL were going to get put in a trashcan. When Michigan was able to tee off on dropback passes in the second half Paye immediately started sacking Morgan.

CSB prelims out. The Michigan view:

There are 9 A-rated players with college commitments. 5 of them are committed to Michigan. #futureBlue

— Yost Built (@YostBuilt) October 27, 2020

This is in line with expectations for the guys in the A and B tiers. Duke has occasionally drawn mention as a potential first rounder but has not landed in many over the past few months. Early 2021 takes don't get down farther than maybe 50 prospects so C ratings for Luca Fantilli and Finlay Williams do qualify as new information. Not everyone in C gets drafted, but if you were thinking that Fantilli was an end-of-the-bench guy recruited mostly in an effort to entice his brother that appears to be incorrect.

Etc.: USM's interim coach left for another job so now they have an interim for the interim. Mississippi State RB Kylin Hill opts out midseason. Doc Emrick, the king of verbs, skitters off into retirement. Mike Vrabel's intentional penalty was pretty smart. The Maryland quarterback as Spinal Tap drummer. Spencer Hall writes only truth. Arizona gets hit with a hefty notice of allegations.