The timeout for completion of the remaining Michigan High School Athletic Association fall sports playoffs and the beginning of the winter sports seasons continues.

   Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Health and Human Services department “paused” high school sports in the state on Nov. 18, as part of wide-ranging new restrictions announced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

   At a press conference Monday (Dec. 7), Gov. Whitmer extended those restrictions at least another 12 days -- to at least Dec. 20.

   The MHSAA had hopes of completing the remaining fall sports playoffs in football, volleyball, and girls swimming and diving seasons by the end of 2020.

   Due the upcoming holiday break, the new order effectively pushes the volleyball and girls swimming and diving championships to early 2021 and may force the football playoffs to conclude in early spring.

   The governor didn't specifically mention high school sports in her prepared remarks at Monday's press conference. But when asked about the topic by a reporter, Gov. Whitmer said the return of in-person education was her top priority. Michigan Director of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert Gordon echoed those thoughts.

   "The first priority is reopening high schools for education and sustaining that," Gordon said. "When it comes to sports, there's a range of risk levels. At one end, you have individual activities that are outdoors and where people are spaced out. At another level, you have contact sports outdoors, and at another level, you have indoor contact sports. As you go through those levels, the level of risk increases and we have to think carefully about moving through them."

   MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl voiced his disappointment but expressed a commitment to still completing the fall tournaments in a statement:

   "We realize the crisis our medical caregivers and first responders are navigating and understand the need to continue the pause. However, the MHSAA had provided a detailed plan to both Gov. Whitmer and MDHHS that would have completed fall tournaments with no spectators as safely as possible during the month of December, along with allowing winter sport practices to resume. While we are disappointed in today’s announcement, we will continue to look forward as we remain committed to play three sports seasons to their conclusion. The MHSAA representative council will meet on Wednesday of this week to chart out another plan for finishing fall and restarting winter,” the statement read.

   In November, Uyl said if the three-week pause would be extended, he would sit down with the council and "go ahead with Plan B and Plan C," tweaking and changing plans if need be.

   MHSAA officials had devised a plan to complete the fall sports season for the three remaining sports if the restrictions were to expire Tuesday, but those plans will once again need to be adjusted. The fall state tournaments were to be completed by the end of the December. Winter sports were to begin as early as Jan. 4.

   Three weeks remain in the 11-player football playoffs— and two weeks in the eight-player playoffs — but only one week remains in the volleyball tournament. Girls swimming and diving has only a two-day championship left.

   There was a strong sense of urgency for the completion of the football playoffs before the end of 2020. Never in the 45 years of the football playoffs have there been games played this late into the year. Winter weather, especially in the northern region of the state, may make playing football games outdoors in January and February impossible. Two weeks of outdoor games remain in the playoffs before concluding indoors for the championship games.

   Further, many of the state's top football players will enroll earlier in college in January.

   Currently there are only 72 schools left in football competition — 64 in 11-player and eight in eight-player. And after the regional championships there will be only 36 schools still playing.

   In volleyball, only 32 teams remain and only 16 will be in competition after the quarterfinals are played.

   The holiday break is also traditionally filled with tournaments in boys and girls basketball and boys and girls hockey. Those look very unlikely at this point. If the restrictions are not lifted in Michigan, we may see many state players choosing to play for their travel teams in out-of-state tournaments.

   Over the past few months, MHSAA officials have consistently been in contact with several county health departments across the state, asking what their data shows as it pertains to high school athletics and the spread of COVID-19.

   “What we’ve heard from at least a half-dozen different county health department officials over and over is the virus was not being spread during the school day,” said Uyl. “It was not being spread at practice and it wasn’t being spread at games, whether that be teammate to teammate, much less opponent to opponent. And we’ve heard that from several different states, too.”

  Uyl said it appears the spread of the coronavirus among high school students occurs mainly in social settings such as parties, not at school events. And the MHSAA’s data shows high school athletics have not been super-spreading events for athletes.

   According the MHSAA’s numbers, more than 95 percent of scheduled high school football games have been played each week this season. The lowest week was Week 6, the final week of the regular season, when exactly 95 percent of the games were played.

   “We’ve had a couple of weeks where 98 and 99 percent of the football games were played, “ said Uyl. “We’ve had 95 percent-plus through the six weeks of the regular season and the first three rounds of the playoffs.”