Aidan Hutchinson on Big Ten’s decision on football: ‘It does bother me a lot’

Aidan Hutchinson was preparing for a junior season that his future had a lot riding on before the Big Ten abruptly announced its decision to postpone fall sports. The Michigan Wolverines defensive end has made his stance public multiple times since and his meeting with the Michigan beat on Thursday via Zoom was no different.

Hutchinson’s frustrations come in the form of commissioner Kevin Warren’s son being allowed to play at Mississippi State, but that he and his family were unable to have a similar conversation over the decision to play or not play.

“It does bother me a lot,” Hutchinson said in his media availability on Thursday. “I think it’s very unfair. I heard his rebuttal in terms of that statement, and I heard that he got to sit down with his son and have a really hard conversation with him about it.

“I wish I could have had that same conversation with my parents. But he made that decision for me. I think it’s a little unfair that his family got to talk about it and my family – I couldn’t even ask them because he made that decision for me.”

Hutchinson’s comments echoed what he had said a few weeks back on a podcast where he expressed his frustration with Warren and Michigan president Mark Schlissel.

“My emotions are just frustration, I’m just infuriated they made this decision without talking to us,” Hutchinson told ESPN’s Marty Smith earlier this month. “The commissioner, our president, there were no words exchanged asking our thoughts about if we want to play ‘cause you know at the end of the day we’re the ones playing the game and they didn’t ask our opinion. It was super frustrating to find out one day that our president voted for us not to have the season, when I’ve never seen that guy in my three years here at Michigan.”

As far as what all of this means for his future, he says that no decisions have been made to this point but that getting on the football field as soon as possible is paramount in his decision.

“That decision will be made in the future,” Hutchinson said on Thursday. “There are a lot of factors that go into it. I’ve got to play football soon. If you count the years, it would be two years (since I last played) if our spring season gets canceled. I can’t leave for the NFL without having played football for such a long time. There’s obviously some other (factors) that I’m not going to name, but those were a couple of them. But right now, I’m with team, I’m practicing, I’m just doing everything I can to get better.”