Transfers away. College football looks set to implement the one-time transfer idea Jim Harbaugh started pushing last year:

The Division I Council is expected to vote next week to introduce the one-time transfer exception proposal into the legislative cycle, two sources told The Athletic. A formal vote by NCAA membership could take place as early as January at the NCAA’s annual convention. If adopted, the rule would take effect for the 2021-22 academic year. That means if an FBS football player decides to transfer following the 2020 season and has eligibility remaining, he would be eligible to play at his new destination next fall.

This exception already exists for all sports except football, basketball, and men's hockey. The legislation does have a restriction that seems fair enough to me:

…the legislation includes a May 1 notification date for fall and winter sports and a July 1 notification date for spring sports. Athletes who miss those deadlines would need waivers to receive immediate eligibility.

That would prevent guys leaving fall camp for immediate eligibility elsewhere. This would prevent a carousel effect where someone leaves or gets hurt at one school, which poaches a player, creating an opening for another poaching, etc.

[After THE JUMP: the best Patriots sixth-rounder out of Michigan ever]

Nicole Auerbach points out that there is almost a de facto one-time exception:

According to information provided by the NCAA through Oct. 5, 88 percent of the immediate-eligibility waivers submitted for men’s basketball players and football players for the 2020-21 academic year were approved (320 out of 363). In 2019-20, 69 percent of such waivers were approved (374 out of 539).

If 88% of your waivers are approved you don't have a waiver system, you are selectively blocking 43 guys from playing for untenable reasons.

Related: hopefully this means Chaundee Brown will be eligible. Speaking of:

A projected lineup. Via Franz:

If Michigan had a game tonight, Isaiah Livers predicts he'd be starting along with Eli Brooks, Mike Smith, Franz Wagner, and Austin Davis. No major surprises there. Of course, Michigan won't play until Nov. 25 at the earliest.

— Andrew Kahn (@AndrewKahn) October 13, 2020

If Brown is eligible that might bump Wagner down to the 2. A starting lineup fielding Davis and Smith is likely to be rough on defense. It's probably for the best that Michigan decided against the Empire Classic.

A dollar says Michigan ends up hosting its own "MTE", because the NCAA is still requiring them if you're going to get your 27 games in. This is insane. The workaround seems to be putting together an event on your campus. Howard broached the possibility in a presser about a week ago:

…we’re trying to do whatever’s best to make sure we choose whatever — if we play an M.T.E. (multi-team event) or host our own M.T.E. that the health and safety is No. 1.

I'd expect Michigan to start the season with an MTE at Crisler against nearby teams. Hopefully a couple of them will be mid- or high-majors.

Onwenu making it work. One of last year's weirdest internet controversies was "is Mike Onwenu good?" Seems like he's good. He's on The Athletic's all-rookie team:

Michael Onwenu, New England Patriots (6th round, No. 182 overall)

As the Patriots have struggled with injuries on the offensive line, Onwenu has not only filled in, but he has established himself as one of New England’s five-best blockers on the roster. The Michigan product has been one of the pleasant surprises from this rookie class as he has already out-played what almost everyone thought of him from Ann Arbor.

Despite playing almost exclusively at right guard in college, Onwenu has shown his versatility in the Patriots’ complicated system, seeing action at both guard spots as well as tackle. While he needs to improve his timing and technique, he has relied on his strengths, using his natural balance and body power to win the point-of-attack.

I've been team Onwenu but not even I would have suggested Onwenu could survive as an NFL tackle.

Meanwhile, PFF has him as the top rookie in the league. This is a frankly incredible grade:

Highest-graded offensive rookies:
1. Michael Onwenu - 92.2
2. Justin Jefferson - 90.6
3. James Robinson - 80.1
4. Joe Burrow - 79.9
5. Antonio Gibson - 76.8 pic.twitter.com/NumQ3E6GdH

— PFF (@PFF) October 10, 2020

For context, last year's midseason PFF All Pro team had guards grading out in the mid-to-high 80s. They're grading him as the best guard in the NFL.

A time. Michigan has a gametime for their opener:

GAME TIME ALERT

We'll kick off our season at Minnesota in primetime, at 7:30 ET on ABC. pic.twitter.com/1Izpe4WQz0

— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) October 12, 2020

Night games are going to much less relevant this year what with no fans in the stands.

Few takers for the NCAA's version of NIL. Pat Forde has a rundown of the current state of name and image legislation, which isn't perfect but sounds like a significant step forward nonetheless:

As expected, the legislation grants athletes the right to use their name, image and likeness (NIL) to:

• Promote private lessons and business activities and operate their own camps and clinics, as long as they do not use school marks.

• Profit from endorsing products through commercials and other ventures, as long as they do not use any school marks or reveal the school in which they attend. They are only allowed to refer to “their involvement in intercollegiate athletics generally,” according to documents.

• Be compensated for autograph sessions, as long as they do not occur during an institution event or competition and no school marks or apparel is used during the sale of the material.

• Solicit funds through crowdfunding, such as GoFundMe, for non-profit or charities, catastrophic events, family hardships and educational experiences, such as internships.

The proposal does prohibit athletes from endorsing "sports wagering and banned substances" and have a carve out for "activities that conflict with existing institutional sponsorship arrangements or other school "values." This is a little hypocritical and also a massive reduction in the level of hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, the NCAA's attempt to put their thumb on the scale has found few takers other than Marco Rubio. It says something that the country can't agree whether a virus does virus things but can agree that the NCAA can get bent:

Seeking help from Congress, the NCAA’s attempt has somewhat backfired. It has opened itself up to deep inquiries from lawmakers, many of them not fans of the organization. Congressional members are seeking more reform within the association beyond NIL, something raised in the latest and third NIL hearing on Capitol Hill on June 22. In fact, Democratic lawmakers are crafting legislation that they refer to as an “athlete’s bill of rights,” which could potentially fold into an NIL bill.

The only bipartisan thing left is dunking on the NCAA.

The tube. Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt wandered onto the field last weekend looking like this:

Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he thinks COVID goes in your earholes.

Spencer Hall was alerted to the situation:

Jeremy Pruitt looks like a caterpillar about to tuck into a checkerboard cocoon. When he comes out, he’ll be a beautiful pontoon boat. This is the dream of all people who live in Tennessee for more than three weeks, and we should be proud he’s about to make it happen.

Jeremy Pruitt looks like the loneliest dude at Burning Man. Jeremy Pruitt looks like an undercover cop pulling up to a snowboarding halfpipe asking where he can get some “chronic.” Jeremy Pruitt looks like he’s about to rob the Mapco in honor of General Neyland.

Stay tuned to see what the the God Emperor of Moonshine wears next week. Maybe it'll cover one of the relevant orifices.

Put him in charge of finding D-III uptransfers. John Beilein has been hanging out at his Ann Arbor home doing John Beilein things:

His excitement is measurable as he talks about getting to play tennis for the first time in seventeen years, gleefully adding that his golf game has improved like you wouldn’t believe. He talks about getting to spend time with his grandkids, his smile practically audible through the phone.

I'd imagine he's retired as a full-time coach for good if he isn't already Indiana's head coach. He is talking about chipping in where he can:

“I just have a lot of respect for Juwan and the team,” Beilein said. “I don’t want to do anything that would be a distraction.”

But that doesn’t mean Beilein doesn’t care about Michigan basketball anymore. COVID-19 restrictions have prevented him from attending any practices with the team as of yet, but provided he’s not stepping on anybody’s toes, Beilein is more than ready to get back to work in Crisler Center.

“If and when — I’m going to do it whenever I can possibly do it,” Beilein said.

Grad assistant John Beilein. LFG.

Hockey rules changes. Via @RecoveringOps:

• Centers will no longer get booted from the faceoff circle. Two infractions on the same faceoff will be a penalty.
• There are "points of emphasis" focused on embellishment, contact to the head, and "slashing, pinning, and restraining along the boards." Usually these points of emphasis result in an initial surge in related penalties that changes player behavior, and then there's a gradual slide back. Sometimes this takes a few seasons. Sometimes the emphasis is gone by playoff time.
• Overtime is now three-on-three(!). This is probably good for Michigan because they're going to have the world's most terrifying three-on-three units. It is nonetheless pretty dumb to play 60 minutes of real hockey and then have pairwise wins and losses decided by Gus Macker hockey. Ties are fine.
• The Mike Legg goal is explicitly legal. Doing a 360 on a penalty shot is explicitly illegal.
• The attacking team can choose the faceoff dot on an offensive zone faceoff.
• Officials have been instructed to cut down on the marathon explanation sessions after scrums, video replay, and other incidents.

If college hockey is concerned about a blizzard of ties I'd prefer ten minutes of 4-on-4 to the lottery that is 3-on-3. At least this change gets rid of the incredibly elongated Big Ten overtime procedure last year, which was five minutes of 5-v-5 followed by five minutes of 3-v-3 followed by a shootout. The latter two items counted only for one point in the conference standings!  They had literally no impact on your tournament fate! 

Pairwise is going to be broken. The Big Ten announced its hockey schedule, which is the usual 24-game conference home-and-home. They also announced that every Big Ten team gets four home games against Arizona State.

This means that unless Arizona State has other games this season—it appears they do not—there will be absolutely no interconference games via which to compare the Big Ten to other conferences. That will render the Pairwise system used to select and seed the NCAA tournament useless. Going to have to figure something out.

Also: the Big Ten tournament is going to be a single-site single-elimination tournament. Since there won't be fans at home games that's a sensible way to get the tournament in that will give you some more wiggle room in the event of postponements.

Etc.: The wrestler without wrestling moves.