Texas A&M officially out of Gator Bowl

Go call Nebraska. Best 3-9 team in America, baby. 

Seminoles, mount up.

Maximum schadenfreude:  Texas in for A&M.

You're burying the lede. This will absolutely start affecting most bowl games soon including ours. They need to let vaxxed players play at will. 

Would be easier to allow a team to play in a second bowl game. The easiest choice would be Florida. They play in the Gasparilla bowl tomorrow. They are in close proximity and will have enough time.

Seems fishy to me too. The math here doesn't seem to be adding up, unless those iso rules are different for bowl season?  (grasping at logic)

I’m going to guess it’s going through the team at a rate that they know they’re just waiting on more positives to come.  Also, while players might technically be able to play on the 31st, they probably can’t travel on Sunday or Monday with the team, and it’s not a given that every player will clear protocols in the minimum amount of time.

Are we 100% sure that they could beat Wake Forest?

It's interesting... but the logistics of it all. The Sun Bowl is in what Arizona? The Gator Bowl is in Florida.  

Who travels?  What bowl is it?  What channel is it broadcast on? Etc etc...  

It'll be interesting to see if all of the salient details other than "we got two teams" and "same day" can be worked through. Big money at stake.

EDIT - interesting idea by mfan below. Play the Gator now, and reschedule the Sun Bowl for a week later. Although now you're pushing up on class schedules, etc. These are, at least in theory, student athletes.

All those Washington State fans heading to El Paso would probably thank you for the trip to Florida.

Yes, you’re off base.  The benignness of this strain is still being determined, as the population of South Africa is different than that of the US.

Only world class since Jared Lorenzen graduated.

It seems like we probably need to start having that conversation. Would you expand that to general life? Is that perspective strain-dependent?

People certainly went about their lives with colds or the flu in the old world, though it may have been rude to do so. I wonder if there's a compromise where positive-tested players can play, but they have to wear a full visor + faskmask covering to lesson the chance of exhaling directly onto other players... the more I type, the messier this gets. 

But if covid mutates forever and spreads this easily amongst people who are vaxxed, I'm not sure it's possible maintain the sort of quarantine protocol that we'd ideally want to (regardless of whether it makes sense to try)

Although I don't believe it's certain that "the strain is much more benign to the general population," this seems like a reasonable idea.  At some point, we have to change course and assume some risk while living our lives.  And as you point out, these players were at very low risk of serious disease even before vaccination.   Are we doing more harm than good with these policies?

People with the flu can still give other people the flu. People with covid can still give other people covid.

If everyone was vaccinated, I'd be all for your suggestion. But unvaccinated people are still around us and run a greater risk of having this wreck them. It's not just athletes involved here. You have referees, football staff and stadium workers, and on and on.

Yes, you are off base.

The players are in their 20s, yes. But the people they infect won't all be. The behavior of each of us affects everyone else. That's one of my major beefs with the shitheads who apparently aren't bright enough to learn how to wear a damn mask properly, even after nearly two years of practice. Same with the morons who crow about compassion and consideration as part of their religious beliefs, then claim the same entitles them to behave in ways that will certainly infect others.

That this strain is more 'benign' is not yet certain, though preliminary data suggest that. Preliminary data also suggested that our favorite football team would be in the 7-9 win range this season; don't treat preliminary data as fact. DON'T.

These are games. No one lives or dies as a result. Many of the best players are skipping them anyway, because they aren't important. So if they need to cancel to limit spread of a deadly disease, then they should cancel and while the fan part of us might be disappointed, the part of us that is concerned with the well-being of others is grateful.

This board is not not uniquely capable of reasonable covid dialoge, so I generally steer clear, but now we're getting into issues that directly affect the football team in the midst of a dream season, so there's no avoiding it. Thus:

The news on omicron is very promising. I have opinions on what will become commonly accepted knowledge of it, and I think that will come to pass relatively quickly. Vaccines and boosters (which, I agree with others, would have been good for Michigan to take right after Iowa, but it is what it is) are widely available, stats are very promising for young men of football age. So I think the CW will change for this sort of thing, and relatively soon.

...But college football won't benefit from that CW change, because college football is governed by a number of large bureaucratic organizations with conflicting interests. That includes universities, which are responsible for the welfare of thousands of students and employees that have nothing to do with sports, have various different leadership structures, and can't just change on a dime. 

This is not a criticism. This is reality. College football does not have a nimble power structure that can quickly develop a changed consensus and adopt it in two weeks; it just doesn't exist. It's hard for any conglomerate with a number of power orbits and interests as it is, and it's even tougher in this particular sport. This should be understood and accepted (and, if you don't like that leadership structure, consider whether you really want to radically centralize power to the NCAA or to a small board of conference commissioners that is a comfortable place for people like Jim Delany to spend 20 years).

So, what "should" happen is one question of which there will surely be much debate. But whether it "should" be a certain way or not, there is simply no way for the college football postseason to change the path in time for the completion of the season. No way at all. 

And so we need to grit our teeth and just hope that Michigan gets through, plays with a relatively full roster, and wins.