“And we will travel… (safely of course)”

There is no “(safely of course),” of course, because, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, and judging by Instagram, a lot of people haven’t, we’re in the middle of a pandemic here.

There have been 13 million Americans infected by COVID-19, or a little more than the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles, and South Bend.

A week ago, it was 10 million, but we’ve been adding more than a South Bend (population 102,026) a day since November 7. Given all those people who have been traveling, perhaps not as safely as Brey would plan to with his basketball team, well, the next couple of weeks are going to be even worse.

For those who might brush off the case number because people mostly get better, well, first of all, what’s wrong with you? But even if it’s “not so bad,” we do have death numbers, and there are now 10 states — South Dakota and Illinois the most recent grim additions — where one in every 1,000 people has been killed by this disease. Since November 11, the seven-day rolling average has been four-digit daily deaths. So, yes, there’s a 99 percent chance that if you get COVID, you’ll live, but the more people who get it, the more people die.

Of all the schools in America, everyone at Notre Dame should be particularly aware of this, what with their superspreader president (as opposed to the superspreader President of the United States), and their football stadium having been its own example in how not to social distance, just three weeks ago.

Brey’s job as a basketball coach involves scheduling basketball games for his basketball team to play. His job as a human being is to say maybe it’s not a great idea to load 20-plus people onto a bus or a plane, and get a bunch of people working indoors to make a game happen that if anyone winds up remembering it, it’ll probably be as “that’s probably when I got coronavirus.”

There’s no need for this. Which is maybe, hopefully, why Brey couldn’t find anyone he knows who was reckless enough to play a game next weekend, and had to post the thirstiest Saturday night tweet of the year.

The Brazilian women’s national team has finally succeeded in getting the men’s championship stars removed from their jerseys.

While Brazil has had plenty of great players on its women’s team, from Sissi to Formiga to Marta, the closest they’ve come to earning a jersey star was in 2007, when they were runners-up to Germany at the World Cup in China. Last year, in France, the Brazilians took the hosts to extra time, but lost, 2-1.

“I saw many comments, many people who spoke about this issue, because it was as if we were carrying something that we did not achieve,” Brazilian midfielder Andressinha said in Portuguese, quoted by Esporte Interativo. “Of course, we are very happy for all the men’s achievements. I think Brazil is recognized as a football country, very much for all the things they have achieved, for the great players, but now I think it’s a different moment, right? … We will win our own star and wear the star that we win.”

Officially, the play that ended Nebraska’s bid for a comeback at Iowa was a fumble, not an interception. Unofficially, it was a hilarious way for the Cornhuskers to drop to 1-4, their lone victory having come against still-winless Penn State.

Penn State visits “surging” Michigan at noon on Saturday, on ABC, in front of everybody. Has college football ever had a Loser Leaves Town match? James Franklin and Jim Harbaugh are about to find out.

Speaking of winless teams, UMass’ football season is, mercifully, over. The Minutemen lost at Liberty, 45-0, in a game where the Flames had 378 rushing yards and 251 rushing yards, and UMass had 227 total yards. And that was with Liberty pumping the brakes in a scoreless fourth quarter.

For the season, UMass was outscored by a combined margin of 161-12. Incredibly, 10 of the Minutemen’s points came against undefeated Marshall, now the No. 21 team in the country.

Iowa’s kicker, Keith Duncan, scored 14 points by himself on Saturday, matching UMass’ entire season scoring total just with his field goals.