In which we attempt to answer the looming question.

Is there going to be football this year? And how?

Seth: Clearly the answer to this is "it depends" but we're at the point now where we can set some contours of the possibility right?

Ace: To some extent, sure. The NCAA and individual conferences are laying the groundwork for athletes to return for workouts, so there’s clearly an intent to move forward. We even had Gene Smith suggesting Ohio State could play games in front of limited crowds. I find Smith’s statements to be, uh, perhaps too optimistic.

Brian: They're going to try because they've backed themselves into a corner where all money must be spent immediately so it looks like these athletic departments aren't wildly profitable and no one has a reserve. Except Georgia.

Ace: Plus they lost the NCAA basketball tournament, which is a massive pile o’ money.

Seth: I imagine everybody's having sober budget meetings right now.

Ace: Smaller schools are already cutting sports. Unfortunately, there’s not really a good way to sell off the unnecessary pieces of the lavish facilities everyone’s built to launder their profits. Not a big market for indoor waterfalls at the moment.

Brian: Put your Lockers From Space on craigslist maybe?

Ace: [greg dooley has logged on]

media day or live auction? [Fuller]

Seth: A lot of that pay-immediately money goes to the huge staffs athletic departments carry. They are also the most dischargeable. Which means this conversation is about trying to save peoples' jobs.

Ace: The NCAA literally dispersed the emergency backup fund in the year or two leading up to when they actually needed it. Everyone spent the money.

Brian: It feels like college sports is steaming right at an iceberg, everyone knows it's there, and they're having tea while looking in a different direction. And there are three guys who are planning to shoot up the iceberg, do a flip, and be legends.

Seth: So they're going to play football, because the alternative is the iceberg.

Brian: Football is the iceberg!

Ace: Yeah, football at any point in 2020 feels like a very bad idea.

Seth: I thought it was making zero money in 2020.

Ace: Both are bad but one doesn’t kill people.

[After THE JUMP: icebergs everywhere.]

After a time I struck up a conversation with an older dude who from his Michigan hat I identified with the super Michigan-stickered car outside. He was, of course, a current player's dad, and other than his kid who's the best player in the  entire world, he had a lot to say about the darkness hanging over this program that twinkling lights could only temporarily keep at bay.

He echoed a lot of what another player's brother said in a diary earlier in the week:

The program is in shambles. Bo is not coming back and it's time to move on. The cult like adherence to tradition and "this is Michigan" is the very reason we are plummeting towards rock bottom. We don't need another Bo or another Michigan Man, we need a competent, forward thinking administration who will take advantage of the massive institutional advantages Michigan provides.

The players are acknowledging reality while doing everything they can to make sure there's a team tomorrow. We got a glimpse of this from Gardner's aneurism of leadership

…and another from a letter to the players by their senior punter:

"Play for the guys in your class who you texted the day you committed, and live in the dorms with. Play for the elementary kids back home whom you've never even met, but know who you are and where you play. Play for your high school coaches, the guys you've met at combines, your family, your friends. Finally, play for yourself. Pride in yourself means that, win or lose, you worked and competed as hard as you possibly could until the schedule provided no more games to play."

When the fall is all that is, it matters.

[After the jump, I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.]

Complying with the Norfleet Atomic Dog Act of 2560. What's better than Dennis Norfleet? Dennis Norfleet holding bread!

Regents meeting stuff. Not a whole lot happened other than a couple of students bombing Brandon hard; they did so more professionally than Brandon handled the Shane Morris incident.

Schissel reiterated his disappointment with the way the Shane Morris incident was handled; Andrea Newman publicly supported Brandon (the earliest we can terminate her status as regent is 2018, unfortunately); Mark Bernstein was the guy who sounded like he was talking the most sense:

“The Shane Morris incident, the poor performance of the football team, that’s like a spark in a very, very dry forest. And there’s not a lot of water around right now," Bernstein said. "I think the actions of the athletic department, I believe (some) generally agree, have drained whatever reservoir of goodwill there is with Michigan football in particular. So it makes navigating this issue far more difficult.

“Therefore, it makes this moment much more complex. Is that the fault of the athletic director? Partially. But at the same time, we all care deeply about this university. We care about the student-athletes who are working hard every day at the game they love. We care about our students, our fans, our alums. We want to get this right. And that’s why it’s essential that the board support the president’s deliberative, methodical approach to this to figure out the best course of action.”

He offered a no comment when asked whether he supports Brandon, which is as close as you'll get to a "hell no" in this situation.

Yes, it is incredibly frustrating that the wheels are turning so slowly here—this is a situation in which Michigan is likely to be searching for the most important employee in the department in six weeks, with an ideal candidate probably available. If Michigan can't take its shot at Harbaugh because Brandon's not quite on the cart you'll hear the million-strong facepalm across the state. 

The impression the meeting left was still bad for the AD. Baumgardner:

There's no hiding it any longer. Thursday's meeting was standing-room only. Every major media outlet in the state was represented, most brought more than one person. And most left with one clear thought in their mind.

Brandon's future at Michigan appears to be in real jeopardy.

Thursday's meeting was a public, formal airing of grievances about the environment that's been created around Michigan's athletic department, and it left no stone unturned.

This wasn't just about the handling of the Shane Morris injury, or the athletic department's public relations debacle that soon followed. It wasn't just about the variety of stunts -- from skywriters to fireworks to ticket prices -- pulled by this department. It wasn't just about the lack of communication internally and externally. And it wasn't just about the fact that the sense of community -- and culture -- surrounding Michigan athletics appears to be on life support.

It was about all of it.

Niyo:

For the record, any buyout of Brandon's guaranteed contract likely will cost $3 million or so, not including the refreshments or confetti. But any concerns about backlash from major donors might have been assuaged by last weekend's alumni gatherings surrounding the Penn State game.

Brandon was noticeably absent as Stephen Ross, the real-estate magnate whose $200-million donation to the university last fall included $100 million earmarked for a new athletic campus, took part in a question-and-answer session with university president Mark Schlissel, who reiterated his "disappointment" in the way the Morris situation was handled.

I got a report from this meeting in which it felt like Brandon was not going to make it, FWIW.

After the regent's meeting, Brandon released a statement about how he looked forward to "repairing" his relationship with the students and announced a significant cut in ticket prices.

He also said the was looking forward to going for a walk and felt "happy."

Stitt happened. I did not live tweet the Colorado School of Mines game because I don't get CBS Sports. /shakes fist at UVerse.

But it went well, as Bob Stitt kind of hilariously took on a team coached by John L Smith:

Mines played Fort Lewis, John L. Smith's team. Smith's Skyhawks had just ended Colorado State-Pueblo's 42-game regular season winning streak, but they had no answers whatsoever for the Mines attack. The Orediggers gained 662 yards, scored touchdowns on each of the first four possessions, and cruised to a 56-14 win. Fort Lewis probably should have scheduled Homecoming for last week.

The Orediggers are 7-0, and oh my I have to sit down

"I treat fourth-down conversions as a turnover," Stitt told me in 2012. "We were 58 percent on fourth down [in 2012], went for 36 of them. Our opponents went for 18. We’re a lot higher percentage than 58 when it’s fourth-and-5 or less. I’ll even go for it on fourth-and-8 when it’s a situation where we’re on the 50 or their 40.

"That’s a turnover! If you get it, it’s like the defense just got you the ball on their 50-yard line. We’ve got to be able to have confidence as an offense that -– hey, when we get around the 50, Coach is gonna go for it – and the defense has to have it in their head that, hey, they’re gonna go for it, and if they don’t get it, we have to get excited and make sure the opponent doesn’t get points out of it."

Once you get past the Harbaugh/Mullen tier it gets very thin very quickly this year and a lot of the guys you'd take a poke at afterwards seem like they would be hard to get—lot of dudes with good job security at their alma mater. So… yeah. Bob Stitt.

(Yes, that is Kevin Sumlin.)

Chance of any chance. Hoke's return by the numerical projections:

In other words

NOPE

(Although this is pessimistic now that Indiana is apparently starting a Pokemon named Zander Diamont at QB.)

That's not actually good. One of the good things about Brandon cited in an ESPN article:

The football troubles outweighed the building upgrades that Hamilton oversaw while taking Tennessee's athletic department from a $750,000 deficit to a $9 million surplus in his time at its helm. They outweigh the two top-10 finishes in the Directors' Cup, which measures a school's success in all varsity sports.

Michigan also has been in the Directors' Cup top 10 twice under Brandon and made a trip to the men's Final Four

Michigan finished in the top five every year from 1999 to 2009.

All you need to know about the last couple of years in hockey. I mean:

Everyone finishes the lift, heads to the ice through a locker room, one with a complete makeover from the last season. Gone is the sign that said, “Win the next game.” It’s been replaced with key words such as “Unity” and “Respect.”

I'm not a big chemistry guy when looking for explanations as to why things go wrong, but I make an exception in this case.

That would be nice. Hockey megaprospect Auston Matthews is "50/50" between college and the OHL:

'97 C Auston Matthews of NTDP tells me he's 50/50 on college vs. WHL. Says he's talking to BC, BU, Denver, Michigan.

— Mark Divver (@MarkDivver) October 16, 2014

Don Granato, the U18s' head coach, says he's "leaning" to college, FWIW.

Mathews, like Zach Werenski, Jack Eichel, and Noah Hanifin, would have to accelerate an entire year of school to arrive on campus next fall. Like BU super-recruit Eichel, Matthews is playing with the U18s despite his young age.

Interesting dynamic here: the NCAA's new autonomy push should give the Big Ten schools an edge against smaller conferences and the OHL. A couple weeks ago the league announced a raft of benefits including full cost of attendance scholarships and a "lifetime educational commitment" that stands in stark contrast to the OHL's current policy, in which playing pro hockey on any level for more than a year makes your scholarship package evaporate.

Meanwhile a school like BU is big time in hockey but in conferences that are not going to follow suit; the OHL will also have to step up its game to maintain its level of attractiveness.

HELLO ANN ARBOR. Ennui levels reaching critical.

Etc.: Brian Phillips on Landon Donovan is an auto-link. Bye week means it's Ufer time. Michigan has a very pretty story on Willis Ward. The plight of the long snapper.