Piled up. Kudos to the Daily's Dan Feldman, who ferreted out a ton of interesting factoids and quotes in his latest article. Remember the spread punt formation that cost Michigan the Iowa game and sent Jim Boccher into insurance or accounting or whatever? It's back:
The Wolverines will use a spread punt formation, and they will send six gunners as opposed to the two last year.
Redshirt junior Zoltan Mesko will roll out on some kicks, and said he will stretch the field as far as he needs to. And he will directional kick, which wasn't part of last year's punting plan but won't be a difficult adjustment.
"Point your body that way, and that's the way it's going," Mesko said. "It's not that difficult."
You know those rumors that Terrance Taylor wasn't buying into the system and had some issues with the coaches and conditioning? True, but maybe not a huge deal:
Taylor said his place on the depth chart was due to "clashing" between himself and the new coaches as they got used to each other's personalities.
"Situations happen, problems occur," Taylor said. "But as the (spring) season went on, things worked out. I'm going to go out there and play. No matter if I'm third, fourth, fifth team, I'm going to go out and play like I'm on the first team, so it wasn't a big deal."
You know those rumors that Darryl Stonum might not be happy? (I didn't, but a couple emailers indicate they've been scooting around message boards.) He seems to be settling in:
Sam McGuffie arrived at the airport during the clinic, and running backs coach Fred Jackson playfully scolded Stonum for signing autographs while stranding McGuffie.
Need Barwis porn?
Stonum was the only early enrollee this year. He said he arrived in Ann Arbor in January weighing about 170 pounds. He now weighs about 195 pounds and has gotten faster.
Need evidence that random middle-aged women ask way better questions than actual journalists?
When Rodriguez asked the participants in the Women's Football Academy if they had any questions, one woman asked which assistants would be on the field and which would be in the press box.
Rodriguez explained offensive coordinator Calvin Magee and quarterbacks coach Rod Smith would be upstairs so they could see the entire field.
Then he turned to Shafer to ask what his plans were. Because the staff had been so busy with recruiting and spring practice, they hadn't formalized that. Shafer said he and defensive line coach Bruce Tall would be in the press box. ...
"In my opinion, you can't see a thing on the sideline during the game," Shafer said. "Anybody that's watched a game on the sideline in between the 30-yard lines realizes that you don't know what just happened unless it's run right at your side."
Also, Terrance Robinson will get Henne's #7.
By this point I've excerpted almost half the article and seriously pushed the boundaries of fair use. There's more original information in this one article than the Free Press has published in the past week. Contrast their article on the women's football academy with the Daily's: you get all that relevant info in the Daily; in the Free Press you get to find out that Rod Smith compares passing to Tae Bo.
Dear Daily: a winner is you.
Speakin' of... did I freak you out about Stonum and then drop it? Sorry. I will attempt to repair the hurt. A reader forwarded along this message Stonum sent out to Myspace friends:
I got a comment today about me being unhappy at Michigan and wanting to possibly transfer. I just want to take the time to let everyone know it's all rumors. I'm very content with my situation in Ann Arbor and want to wait and see how things play out before I make that kind of decision. I hope all this gossip can stop so I can just go about my business and play football. I love the tradition and hope to live up to all of your expectations.
All due Myspace caution applies (though the Bryce McNeal stuff turned out to be basically correct, if premature); Stonum will be around in the fall but I think Rodriguez will have to pass a bit more to keep the receiving talent Michigan's collected happy.
I loathe MGoBlue's new picture gallery software, which doesn't allow you to save or even link to specific pictures, but there are some great ones in the academy gallery. #39 is a particular favorite.
Scoutin'. The hockey team recently acquired a recruited walk-on from the same school as 2009 D recruit Mac Bennett. Bob Miller took the opportunity to get a scouting report on one Luke Glendening from Bennett. Bennett's favorite thing about Glendening? He uses the point a ton in the offensive zone, naturally. Also:
He's in the gym day in a day out and you can tell that he wants to get better. He was told that he was going to be a "support" player, but with his work ethic and determination I wouldnt be surprised if he ended up being a fourth line player. He's definitely someone that you want on your team and someone you don't want to play against.
Meet the new JJ Swistak/Charlie Henderson/Danny Fardig?
Schedulin'. Michigan's just released the hockey schedule. Michigan State, Ohio State, and Miami are Michigan's clustermates, which should be fun. (In the CCHA, you play everyone twice and two extra games against three teams in your "cluster"; State is always in Michigan's cluster.)
The nonconference:
two home games against St. Lawrence
A Thursday(!) home game against Niagara, followed immediately by
a Saturday game at BU
Minnesota and Wisconsin on the road, and
the GLI.
Michigan's opening GLI opponent will be Tech; North Dakota is the guest this year. There are no games at the Palace or in Fort Wayne or anything.
Does it seem like the schedule is short a couple games? Michigan trips to Alaska this year. Those games are exempted by the NCAA and should allow Michigan another couple nonconference matchups.
sorry this is late, it had to be rebuilt after Firefox froze. I was asking for it though... something like 80 windows open.
If my feedreader is any indication, you're already stuffed with information about Michigan's spring practice and game. But I would be remiss if I didn't chip in with what I have.
First, something that purports to be the entirety of the spring game-like substance in four minutes and seventeen seconds:
Given other descriptions of the game I believe the above is missing a number of plays -- no dropped balls -- but it's still a quick primer on what went down.
You can get most of the same thing with better video quality and some guy who calls Troy Woolfolk "Woolfork" and Nick Sheridan "Andy Mignery"(!) twice(!!!), plus some interviews in the extended highlights provided on the Big Ten Network:
(What is with this "Woolfork" stuff, man? It's an error rampant on message boards and it even showed up in a Free Press article... three times! Who would make a fork out of wool? It would be floppy and when you got stuff on it, which you would constantly because that is the life purpose of a fork, you couldn't wash it because then you'd have mini-woolfork. And HIS DAD, who is also NOT NAMED "WOOLFORK," is ONE OF THE BEST RUNNING BACKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM. I think I NEED TO CALM DOWN ABOUT THIS.)
Holy crap that's a lot of ugly interceptions. The only other thing that pops out: Avery Horn is as fast as rumored. Oh, and Threet looks a little like Justin Timberlake.
Michigan Sports Center has collected the media available on the game, and MVictors has an extensive photo gallery.
H'okay. In marked contrast to years previous, information about Michigan's spring practices is flying around, giving us a new problem: instead of one secretive and possibly sketchy source, Michigan fans are confronted with a wide array of often conflicting information.
Let's try to sort it out. In addition to the material published in the paper and online I'll intersperse some impressions from emailers; the largest bulk comes from Craig Ross, a dedicated observer of the program and author who's been to a lot of spring practices.
Quarterback. Rodriguez said Sheridan and Threet were both equal on Saturday but Threet had pulled ahead in the practices leading up to the game. In all likelihood, he is your Utah starter. Ross:
Threet was a bit better than Sheridan. But, man, this looks like a sore spot. Teams are just going to sit on the run and underneath stuff and ignore us deep. But, it was wet and cold. The ball was probably hard to throw. Antonio Bass would have been perfect in this offense. What a heartbreak for another truly kind and thoughtful person. [My guess is Carlos Brown will get some reps in the fall, unless Feagin can pick the offense up quickly and is better than most think.]
In the video above you can see the long bomb completed to Mathews was underthrown by about 20 yards. Chad Henne's deep ball will be missed. Oh, and his tendency to not throw six interceptions.
Fellow attendee Stephen Raines:
Threet looked really weak. Although, he showed good decision making at times, his passes were not pretty and often into tight coverage. Sheridan actually looked decent, at times, at others you could really see how his height will get in the way of him ever being a starter, but he had some good throws. Where he was a better runner than Threet, this benefit goes out the window when we tried to run the option and he completely missed the pitch.
The attempted options in the spring game were few, far between, and ugly as sin. As previously theorized, it's going to be confusing and ugly early. I expect at least three players (Threet, Feagin, and one or both of Brown/Minor) to take snaps at QB, though one or two of those players will be operating as an Incredibly Surprising Running Quarterback in the vein of Darren McFadden. Hopefully very much in the vein of Darren McFadden.
If David Cone strides onto any field of play when a game is remotely close, cower. (Ross repeatedly mentions he's a fantastic kid, though.)
Running back. This is one spot that will likely find a strong starter simply because Michigan has too many bullets in the chamber to miss with all of them. Mike Barwis ate Carlos Brown's finger, causing him to miss much of the spring as Barwis grows him a new one; Kevin Grady had a lingering knee injury of some variety that held him out. Grady did come back midway through spring practice, but most of the reps went to Horn and Minor.
Ross:
Avery Horn was not mentioned in AA News today (at least I didn't see anything) but he has big play potential. The rumor is that he has had trouble learning the offense (moving to slot?) but he has remarkable speed. I thought Minor and Grady played hard and pretty well.
You can see Horn's lightning quicks in the video above. There are two sweep handoffs that together tell a story: on the first, Minor pops outside the defensive and and gets decent yardage but can't get the corner. On the second, Horn does the exact same thing, bursts to the outside, and ends up grabbing a big chunk of yards.
Still, it's Minor gathering praise for his work ethic and leadership and Horn who is still reputed to be having difficulties with all the things he has to do in the offense. And then there's Grady, who had one impressive run during the scrimmage and was the subject of Brandon Graham's violent attentions. Ever spring we hear he's driving bowling-ball shaped holes through defenders and rescuing the princess with dashing derring-do, then in fall we either get unimpressive performance or exploded ligaments.
Minor is your tentative front-runner now, but as many as six players (the four on campus now plus Mike Shaw and Sam McGuffie) will vie for carries in the fall.
Wide Receiver and Tight End. This position group was extremely thin due to NFL draft entry and Junior Hemingway's high ankle sprain. Greg Mathews, Toney Clemons, Zion Babb, and James Rogers were the only scholarship players available, and the latter two were DBs for part or all of last year.
Some positive indicators from Raines:
A plus here, Mathews showed that he can catch the ball, even on a bad pass. And because he was covered by Trent, this impressed me. Clemons looked pretty solid too. He had a couple quick slant passes that showed he can catch it in the middle.
Mathews will be reliable but not game breaking. Ross sounds an alarm about the general lack of speed in the unit:
But mostly we went with one tight end. Sometimes two. Rarely 4 wideouts. The fact is we have tight ends but not much in the way of slot receivers. ... Over the coming years, I would expect to see less and less of the tight end. The theoretical key to RR's spread is 4 wide----and my guess is he wants to get there. But not this year. I think we will see a lot of 11 packages [1 TE, 1 RB -ed] in the fall. Recruiting might look to TEs who can also play OT, as opposed to TEs who might be used as WRs---our current batch.
RR seemed pleased about the team understanding of his offense. From an intellectual point of view, the team is well ahead of where he guessed it would be at this time. The problem is (according to RR) "we are too slow." I think this references (primarily) the slot receiver position (and QB, of course). This will change with the 4 guys coming in---I know Odoms and TR and McGuffie ain't slow.
This is how bad it is: Jim Potempa, the little guy you might remember from the end of the Notre Dame and Purdue games, has been pressed into service as the wacky slot guy. The starting wacky slot guy. Terrance Robinson and Martavious Odoms are going to get all the snaps in the slot from day one.
Offensive Line. Justin Boren is a communist. Past that, the threat level here is pink or orange or whatever is equivalent to "the nukes are on their way." Virtually every observer has called the offensive line a Sauer -- zing -- this spring, and when Rodriguez made the quarterbacks live for a brief period Threet was immediately knocked out with a minor injury.
Ross:
It looks like the first group right now is Moosman, Schilling, Ortmann, MacAvoy and Zirbel. My guess is Molk may still sneak in. But, for the moment, the first five seem like the leading candidates.
They weren't awful. At this time of year, that might be OK. I have seen some good lines look awful in the spring. On the other hand, they weren't very good---at least w/o looking at the tape.
I think this group would mean a move inside for Schilling, as Ortmann and Zirbel have always been tackles. Moosman and Schilling won awards are thus good bets to start. Ortmann basically has to be the left tackle unless Dann O'Neill is just awesome. MacAvoy and Zirbel should be considered provisional with David Molk and the true freshman threats to take their jobs. (Dey tik er jebs!)
I dunno. It's gonna be rough.
Defensive Line. Michigan's hopes for a good season rest on this unit being frickin' awesome. So... hope that Terrance Taylor's apparent demotion to second string is successful motivational ploy and not an indication that he's not taking to the Way of Barwis. I kinda think he might be, though:
Jamison and Taylor. Compare that to previous years and you can see that the Taylor beer gut and Jamison bunda are significantly attenuated.
Will Johnson won kind of a weird award for a fifth-year senior and returning starter to pick up:
Fifth-year senior Will Johnson(Oakland, Mich./Lake Orion HS) received the Meyer Morton Award, granted to the senior football player that experienced the greatest development and showed the most promise during spring practice.
Johnson was excellent in spot duty as a sophomore but only okay last year. He was pretty highly touted as a recruit before an ACL tear cost him his senior year, so he could have some upside left. He's always been renowned as one of the hardest workers on the team... hopefully he can make a big leap.
Meanwhile at defensive end, Jamison and Graham are both reputed to have lost 15 or 20 pounds during their period of Barwisization. Rodriguez has apparently gotten a little ticked at defensive coordinator Scott Schafer for unleashing the DEs a little too frequently and violently. There's certainly the potential for these guys to blow up. Jamison has alternated explosive plays with wheezing and Graham was clearly a physical marvel on par with Woodley but lost his conditioning late in the year, most prominently when Michigan State plowed him over again and again in the second half. Both of these players were top-50 recruits.
Behind them there's very little. Ryan Van Bergen did get an award of his own:
Freshman defensive end Ryan Van Bergen(Whitehall, Mich./Whitehall HS) led all newcomers, earning the John F. Maulbetsch Award. This honor is given to a distinguished freshman athlete on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and potential for future success.
Michigan really needs him to work out given the way defensive end recruiting has gone the last couple years.
Linebackers. Obi Ezeh is penciled in as a starter somewhere, which is unsurprising. The surprising thing is the emergence of senior JUCO transfer Austin Panter. Ross on an earlier practice:
The LBs looked good, notably Panter (!!!!) who seemed to be running with Thompson with the top DL group.
Insert default moaning about blown redshirts here. IIRC, Panter was an MLB/SLB type, which would mean he's battling Thompson for one of the two big beefy guy slots.
On the weakside, I guess Brandon Logan is still technically a threat but it's Jonas Mouton and whichever freshman impresses the most. There were a few rumblings that Mouton looked pretty good but after last year, when he could not see a snap playing behind a poor Chris Graham, this blog is spooked about his ability.
Secondary. Except for the nasty rumors flying around that Donovan Warren might transfer, cornerback is set with three returning starters. As for the rumors: they're widespread enough that I give them credence but I think they're unlikely to come to fruition. If he was going to go he probably would have already announced it a la Boren. And if they were serious he probably would have missed some time in the spring a la Carlos Brown last year. Knock on wood.
The questions, then, are at safety, where both starters graduated. Stevie Brown was a special teams standout and practice hero as a freshman. He was given the starting spot for The Horror... and immediately gave up a long touchdown and entered the Hall of Infamous Michigan Athletes. Not bad for a first start. Brandent Englemon replaced him before halftime.
Yeah, now he's basically guaranteed a starting job. Ross says he looked "pretty good," and there is the potential that Michigan Safety Hating God has moved on to other pastures with the departure of Carr and his staff. I, and probably all of you, will be nervous until his play dictates otherwise.
The other spot is probably going to go to Charles Stewart, but sophomore Artis Chambers and redshirt freshman Mike Williams also played well. Ross says Williams was noticeable during the spring game and Chambers had the wherewithal to catch wounded ducks thrown directly to him, which will be a critical skill for the Notre Dame game (zing!).
Rumors kicking. Anyone who's read the comments or any Michigan message board in the past couple days knows there's a rumor about one or two more Michigan OL packing it in floating out there. Do I have any information on this? No, not really. (Would I like some? Yes, please, if you've got it.)
One thing I can offer: a friend of mine was at the open portion of Michigan's first spring practice and talked to Justin Boren, one of the players made available to the media. The friend relayed Boren's impression the line would probably be Ortmann-Boren-Molk-?-Schilling from left to right. And then he said this:
JB said that Mitchell and Ciulla (guys he seemed to really like) had just run out of energy for football. My impression was---though he didn't express this in any specific way--- was that he was unhappy with the coaching changes but felt he really had limited choices. But this was just my sense. Nothing express.
Please don't take this too seriously, but since one of the names being kicked around by random speculators is Boren, I'm officially spooked. Would it make sense to transfer away from two assured years as a starter? Maybe not, but unlike every other Michigan offensive lineman since the dawn of time, Boren's transfer year could be a redshirt season and he would have two to play after.
Meanwhile, everyone's dying. Spring practice hates Carlos Brown. He's out with a broken finger. Potential starting center David Molk was also held out of some practices with a potential case of mono.
Word. Adam Wodon has more on the robotic rut the hockey tournament committee has gotten themselves into. Wodon has more insight into this than any other person person with an inclination to write on the subject and wields his long experience effectively:
It's only in the last five, six years or so that the committee actually sees the "Pairwise Standings," so to speak — i.e. the simple listing of teams, in order, of most "Comparison Wins." This was, by and large, a creation of the online community. Prior to this, the committee only ever saw a large printout of all the different individual comparisons. If you are unfamiliar with these individual comparisons, you can see them by going to the "grid" from our Pairwise page, and click on the links.
From the discussions with committee members over the years, it was clear that the committee looked at this pile of individual comparisons, and quickly determined a line in the sand where certain teams clearly deserved to be in. But then it came down to a "bubble" that involved an arbitrary amount of teams, and the committee then compared the teams within that bubble to each other, using the head-to-head comparisons.
Wodon cites the 2003 tournament as a tipping point when the committee went from the PWR as a useful and frequently adhered-to diagnostic tool to the Holy Freakin' Gospel; before that people got switched around frequently to create a bracket that made sense.
If you had a Wolverine -- like, a real live snarling animal version -- what would you call it? Probably not "Biff," right? "Biff the Wolverine".... no. Just no.
Captain Bob Brown is straining to control the vicious beast that will tear the throat out of any Gopher player that comes within 500 yards of him. He is Noted for his Ferocity and Gameness in Battle. He is known by a dark and fey moniker the children of the prefecture are warned not to say aloud. He strikes fear into the heart of the mightiest axeman. He is Biff. Biff, the Wolverine.
My name is Josh and I was one of the OSU students up in section 47 and the one who actually started the chant. Indeed, we were chanting Tres-sel and had no idea that what we were saying would be misheard as ass-hole. Only later when an employee, not an usher, came running up the steps to our section did we realize what had happened. He asked us what we chanted because they all thought we were chanting ass-hole on the court. Frankly, we were shocked. We quickly apologized and said we chanting Tres-sel and made it clear that we would never chant ass-hole.
We can't speak for other Ohio State fans just as you can't speak for other Michigan fans, but I would like to assure you that we would never dishonor Mr. Rodriguez or any other staff/faculty/student with that type of a chant (though some of the commenters on the article would not be quick to believe).
I hope you can understand that we were only trying to rekindle the spirit of our Rivalry, the best in college sports, not to trash talk your new coach. We hope that Mr. Rodriguez can throw more fire into the Rivalry and make our future games more enjoyable for both sides. Trust me, while a victory over you guys in football is awesome, the dominance that Tressel has had these past couple of years has really taken the edge off the Rivalry. I think my favorite game, as a Senior at OSU, was the game two years ago in the Big House. Our Rivalry needs more games like that. I am sick and tired of hearing how the SEC has better rivalry games than we do, and we are glad at least you were able to take care of an SEC team in your postseason, while of late we have been less than stellar...but we are improving.
On a funny side note, we had ushers up in the section threatening to throw us out. Obviously we weren't and we weren't jeering them. But they did say that you guys don't do anything like that at our stadium, which we were quick to remind him that there are students/fans that do worse to us. But, we never swore at them or did anything to offend them except remind them of our rights to free speech.
To conclude, I hope that this email clears up the confusion of what happened at the game yesterday, and so you at least know that there are indeed classy Buckeye fans that do want our Rivalry to be the best it has ever been. Congratulations for winning yesterday and we look forward to seeing you guys in the Big Ten Tournament and at the Shoe next year. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me back. I've always believed that we can be rivals on the field but work together off the field to better one another.
Go Bucks........and *cringe* Go Blue
Josh Friedman
I've gotten a couple other emails to this effect, though none quite so restrained, and must conclude that they're telling the truth and that they weren't chanting "asshole," for what that's worth. It's still rude to scream throughout someone's speech and the idea that the rivalry needs to be "rekindled" a year after a #1-#2 game is pretty laughable. I wouldn't have attempted to compare Michigan fans' dastardly tendency to invade Columbus and get harassed and physically threatened with their actions, either. But FWIW.
On the topic of Vijay's nonbinding LOI idea:
I see one problem with the NBLOI idea you discussed - Roundtree would still be at Purdue. It sounds like he never would have left unless he had known Michigan was interested. He couldn't have learned that under an NBLOI, because Rod couldn't talk to him.
Response?
Jason
Maybe, maybe not. In our hypothetical world where the NBLOI is an option, it's just an option. Roundtree might have "committed" to Purdue without signing the NBLOI. And even if he had, Michigan could communicate their interest through Roundtree's coach, and at that point Roundtree could ask for the NBLOI to be rescindent. Joe Tiller would then get to offer that Ball State kid.
If that sounds like it kind of defeats the purpose of the NBLOI... well, sort of. There still couldn't be direct contact if the player had signed and the kid couldn't go on a campus visit. Someone like Michael Shaw would either have not signed in the first place or signed, then repealed his NBLOI; either would be a clear signal to Penn State that Shaw's "commitment" was not particularly strong. Despite the tussle with BSD after Signing Day, I do sympathize Penn State and Purdue's positions here, especially Purdue's. (Penn State should have seen the Shaw thing coming, and indeed most PSU fans were fretting about a potential defection for a couple weeks before it actually happened; the Roundtree thing was much more sudden.) The NBLOI and the mechanisms would put some actual teeth behind the idea of a "commitment," would save coaches and players time, annoyance, and effort, and would create even more jobs in the ever-expanding NCAA bureaucracy. Everyone wins.
Hearing rumors about a damaging article that he [Carty and the AANews] is about to publish about athletic department violations...any comments on this?
Dan
I haven't heard anything specific that hasn't been batted around on message boards, but there's enough independent smoke out there that, yes, there's something nasty coming down the pipe from the Ann Arbor News. There appear to be two camps of panickers:
Aieeee! Florida State!
This is going to be embarrassing, but that's all.
I don't know which side to believe but lean towards the latter out of simple disbelief that anyone in the Michigan program would have the sort of underhanded dealings that the FSU people did.
If I had to guess, I would say that the big reveal is going to be something like the recent USC and Auburn quasi-scandals where kids finagled their way into easy classes and/or abused "independent study" with cooperative professors without the cooperation of the athletic department. In the Auburn case they had someone rat out a professor whose independent "study" classes were wholly fictional; here I've heard different versions of the severity involved. One skeptical take from a message board I frequent that jives with other things I've heard:
The gist of it is that Carty’s jihad against the general studies program has led nowhere. It’s a real program with lots of non-athletes (as well as athletes) in it. But lots and lots of FOIA requests led to something that is somewhat troubling (although not out of compliance).
It turns out that a bunch of athletes have enrolled in independent study courses over the summer. These are legitimate courses, but arranged one-on-one with faculty members. Turns out there were a bunch of them in Psychology and the Ed School over the past few years, many supervised by just a few faculty.
It appears that the work was actually done, and non-athletes did similar work. But it’s not too difficult to portray this as a scandal, which it appears that Mr. Disingenuous is trying very hard to do. Not making a lot of progress, but this will be the basis of his bid for immortality and a ticket to a real newspaper.
Remember, there do not appear to be violations here. It’s not an Auburn situation where kids got grades for no work.
If all they've got is "isn't it suspicious, hmmmmmmmm" but the kids have actually done the work required of them this will be a big dud, albeit an irritating one that will work its way into the "scUM" lore of PSU, MSU, OSU, and ND message boards.
There is the separate question "should athletes be taking independent study classes en masse," the answer to which is definitely "no." But that's life when you have players spending something like 40 hours a week year-round on their chosen sport.
The nation's number one recruit, quarterback Terrelle Pryor, has removed Michigan and Oregon from his short list. That leaves only Ohio State and Penn State.
This causes fretting.
I don't buy it. First of all, this guy's named "Fritz." You can never trust guys named Fritz. Second of all, there are a thousand people who are trying to get in contact with Pryor and only a few of them have been around for any length of time. If anyone was going to get a scoop like this it would be one of the guys from the major recruiting sites, probably Bob Lichtenfels. Lichtenfels was the guy who got to break the Rich Rodriguez story because Pryor called him, and over the past week or so he's been the voice in the wilderness claiming that Penn State had a much better shot at this than anyone realized.
This guy is named "Fritz," is from Madison, does not quote Pryor, and makes silly Tiller-esque assertions about how Rodriguez has "offended the whole conference" and is now in deep trouble.
We're coming after you Rodriguez! We didn't really care about the outcome of our sporting contests against you, but then you picked off recruits in the exact same fashion we all do. Now we're going to try to win! See how you like that!
Credence level: low. Yeah, it's in a newspaper. So is Drew Sharp.
Bear with me. I've got a weird feeling. I know there are a ton of data points out there from Pryor's coaches to his friends to his dad pointing places other than Michigan. You've read these in newspaper and on website from sea to shining sea. The expectation is and has been for months that Pryor will pick Ohio State, and I basically believe the conventional wisdom.
A report from College Football talk that M feels it has Pryor in the bag.
That Buckeye fan who sat next to Jerome Bettis and reports that Bettis said Batch told him Pryor was headed to Michigan. (That guy, by the way, posted a picture of himself (or someone, at least) with Bettis in what's clearly Detroit Metro.)
A Western Pennsylvania report that Pryor's actually going to M that was emailed to me.
There is a fourth item, though this one has a lot of internet super-sleuthing to it: in my perusals of various Penn State and Ohio State message boards looking for any semblance of information about the Pryor recruitment I stumbled across a guy who claimed to be the classmate of another dual-threat four star quarterback. He duly informed a group of opposing fans that this quarterback had been told by Pryor himself that he was going to Michigan. Some digging revealed that this guy had 100 or so posts on the message board, most of them generically positive posts about Penn State. The exception: a note sometime in January about Star Jackson, a four star dual threat quarterback who signed with Alabama, visiting Michigan the same weekend Pryor did. Jackson never took that trip, and since this guy's Pryor-to-M post claimed a mutual official visit was how the two knew each other his story doesn't entirely check out.
HOWEVA, both Pryor and Jackson were in San Antonio for the Army All-American game. So maybe this guy, who I believe is really the high school classmate of Jackson and a Penn State fan, just misremembered his details or got it wrong without screwing up the heart of the issue -- OMG PRYOR M. I'm really paranoid about hoaxes, but this seemed on the up-and-up. Why would this guy post Star Jackson news with only tangential relevance to Penn State on a PSU message board, and how many people would remember the exact content of their claimed insider info a month later when they put up their scammy post on a premium Penn State message board? And in-between could they put up a dozen convincingly innocuous posts from the perspective of a Penn State fan? These things all seem unlikely, so I add it to the pile.
We now have a decent-sized pile, do we not? And with that pile and the idea that maybe Ohio State is not Terrelle's first choice does this statement from the Terrelle-father seem different?
Craig Pryor also told his son that playing immediately might not be the best way to make progress. He said it wouldn't hurt if he sat back and watched while he tries to learn to read defenses.
"He's not worried about playing right away," Craig Pryor said. "It will give him time to learn and adjust to the speed of the game."
The quote says something on Terrelle's behalf that makes it seem like we're out, but the paragraph before it implies that when the two Pryors were having their disagreement the elder was specifically combating the idea that he should play immediately. This interpretation of the passage means we're in, so in, and Pryor's dad is arguing against Michigan, not Ohio State.
Much has been made of Pryor's desire to stay relatively near Jeannette because his father is wheelchair-bound (why this would make a couple extra hours in the car more unbearable than it would be for someone with full use of his legs is unclear), and the father's objection appears to be the holdup here, right? Columbus and State College are almost the same distance away from Jeannette -- State College might be 30 minutes to an hour closer. It's Ann Arbor that's the relative outlier.
And then there's Charlie Batch, beloved ex-Lions quarterback, fellow Washtenaw-county-ite, and gentleman of distinction:
Asked if his regular presence causes some discomfort among those vying for Pryor's attention, Batch said, "I'm welcomed in some situations. In some situations, I'm not. And those situations that I'm not, that's why I'm here."
Again, one could read this as Batch repeatedly saying "no funny stuff" and perpetrators of funny stuff being put off. Pryor brought Batch in around November, after his Ohio State official visit, and he has not been to Ohio State. According to the OSU Scout site, a "friend"($) accompanied him. Pryor's coach on friends:
"Terrelle is the person that must make the decision, no one else" Batch said. "He's the person who has to be happy where he'll spend the next three or four years. His friends have to realize that."
Batch is the pointman on the Pryor recruitment and he hasn't been to Columbus. Has he even met Tressel? I find it difficult to believe Pryor has to import Batch to be the bringer of sanity and said bringer would sign off on a place he hadn't been.
I've been trying to let go of this wild hope that maybe we'll get the guy, and am fully cognizant of my inherent bias towards the belief that Michigan's still in play. But I can't. What it comes back to is motivation and bias. The Ohio State insiders who have been proclaiming Pryor an Ohio State lock forever are locked into that belief until it's forcibly shaken from them. These random guys on message boards, if you believe their third-hand stories, are breaking bad news to their respective fanbases, and in some sense are more reliable.
Do I actually think Pryor will pick Michigan? Not really. Lord knows the internet led me astray during the Michigan coaching search. There's also considerable pessimism from what's left of the Michigan insider community.
But... I just have a weird feeling, is all. I've displayed my cards; judge for yourself.
And you only delay your doom. Whiffing on Pryor would be unfortunate, but not devastating. Michigan will lure an OMG shirtless dual-threat quarterback next year.
Russell Shepard is the next next Vince Young, but was presumed a Texas lock. Texas, however, has already taken a commitment from five star quarterback Garrett Gilbert. Shepard in the aftermath of his junior-day visit to Texas:
Shepard said the situation at Texas opens up his recruitment for other suitors.
“I would say Texas is still up there, but Michigan is really at the top of my list, especially if they don’t get (2008 top recruit) Terrelle Pryor,” he said. “I feel like I could go there and play right away. I’m also looking at Florida and LSU. Both of those schools have pretty good depth-chart situations for me.”
The "situation" at Texas: two more years of Colt (albeit only one of relevance to Shepard), then a morass of highly-rated quarterbacks including five-star dual-threat John Chiles and five-star pocket passer Garrett Gilbert, who committed a few days ago. The rest of that article has Shepard quotes about just wanting "a shot" at quarterback and being fine with moving as long as he gets that shot... whether Texas can realistically provide that with four QB candidates on the roster or committed is up in the air. It does sound like Shepard really wants to go to Texas, but...
Well... if you're not into wild-ass internet speculation just skip this one.
Still here? Okay. I present this thing from the CBS Sportsline message boards:
I just flew back from Pittsburg and guess who sat nect to me on the flight. Jerome Bettis. I sat and talked football with him for about 2 hours. Guess what he told me. Terrell Pryor is going to Michigan. Was never a doubt in his mind after the official visit. This was passed onto him from Charlie Batch who he had just been out with the night prior to his flight with me. As a Buckeye fan I'm crushed, and don't want to believe it. It even took away from the fact that I was sitting next to an NFL future HOF player and talking with him. I can furnish a photo upon request of myself and "The Bus" if needed. I hate when Darth Rodruigez and the evil empire wins.
The horrible grammar and spelling immediately raises suspicions until "As a Buckeye fan" explains them away. That's verisimilitude, baby.
A check of this guy's posting record reveals this is not a driveby; "bolosak" has 200-some posts and was a frequent participant in the pissing matches between LSU and OSU fans in the run-up to the Not Sugar Bowl.
This, by itself, might not be worth posting. Bolosak could be going for a hoax. However, the College Football Talk post referenced this morning is another piece of information in Michigan's favor; I also received an email from a reader who seemed connected* during the coaching search indicating that a Western PA source was also claiming Pryor would choose Michigan. These are three hopeful signs, and I want you to think of me when Pryor picks Ohio State tomorrow.
*(odd phrasing, yes. Normally I would go with "previously reliable," but in this case the emailer was one of a number sending information along the lines of "there's a power struggle going on but Les Miles is close to a done deal" in the week before the Herbstreit "newsflash." The information ultimately turned out to be incorrect, but I believe that was more because the situation changed than anything else.)
Update: Another "probably OSU" piece from a reputable source to offset any flickering optimism you might have:
Jeannette quarterback Terrelle Pryor plans to announce his college choice Wednesday and indications are it will be Ohio State.
A few of Pryor's friends and acquaintances told the Post-Gazette Ohio State is Pryor's top choice. One unnamed source said Pryor told him recently he would sign with Ohio State.
I've long since discarded the idea any information can be considered solid in the ever-shifting sands of a coaching search, especially one as schizophrenic as Michigan's, but... yeah: several previously reliable people have told me that Mary Sue Coleman has gotten directly involved with the search and there exists a solid offer out to one Les Miles.
I was debating whether or not to mention this -- the fear of things falling apart and Miles talking about his damn strong team while talking about misinformation on MGoBlog, etc. -- but when I guested on EDSBS live to talk about the coaching search, Orson was not only unsurprised that Miles was still a possibility but named the exact hypothetical salary hypothetically offered on hypothetical Friday, $2.5 million dollars. So it's not exactly top secret anymore. Yesterday morning Sam Webb and Michael Taylor were discussing it on WTKA, too. A secrets go, this one is pretty open.
The set of things that seem most likely to be true at this time:
Miles has an offer for $2.5 million a year.
He's got a few days to consider it.
The main hangups appear to be assistant pay and the role of Carr in his program.
Martin has been at least partially usurped.
Thing which seems completely implausible but given the sailboat thing cannot be ruled out -- nothing can be ruled out anymore:
The anti-Miles faction in the AD is pushing Brady Hoke heavily.
I'm trying to decide which internet rumor is the flat-out most insane:
Miles is still in play. Yeah. Miles contract guarantees him a heap of money if he wins a national title. Now that he's got a shot at said national title, he's holding off on signing the extension he agreed to before the title game. And people say he'd be interested in the job if it was offered.
So maybe there's a chance? Well... we're dealing with three prideful men here and it will take Bill Martin getting his grovel on to do so. I think it's clear Michigan's AD just isn't that enthused about the idea of Miles, and that remains the largest hurdle.
The reason Miles couldn't get ahold of Martin on Saturday: Martin was on a sailboat. !!!
Obviously, if that's true Martin should be shot into the sun but I find that very, very doubtful.
Michigan might name Ron English an interim coach and try again in 2008. Rivals is apparently pushing this line of thought, and while they've obviously got some strong sources -- they were ahead of the pack on the Saturday disaster -- this would be the no-hyperbole worst decision in the history of coaching searches. Giving the job to English is crazy enough; giving it to him on a one-year basis is guaranteed to obliterate recruiting this year and next and will force Michigan into another awkward decision next year when Michigan goes like 8-4 and the NAACP is like "well? well?"
There would be a riot.
Alex Legion is transferring from Kentucky. Ha, just kidding, obviously this is beyond belief. Uh... this isn't a rumor.
Wildcats freshman shooting guard Alex Legion has decided to transfer, said sources close to the situation.
According to one source, the move primarily concerned Gillispie - and wasn't about playing time.
God's plan remains inscrutable for the young Legion. I actually feel bad for the kid even though his recruitment helped screw Michigan out of something like five different players (Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers didn't want to play with him and went to MSU, he decommitted right before Patrick Beverly chose Arkansas, recommitted right before Michigan was going to offer Laval Lucas-Perry, and finally re-decommitted when Beilein came in), since his mother is clearly bats and it's hard to be anything approaching normal when your mother thinks she's a prophet.
A general summary of things that have been sent to me.
A source close to someone on the search committee asserts that Miles is not a done deal and that there will be a real search; Miles will interview shortly after the SEC championship game but there remains an A list of five or so coaches, including Miles, that Michigan is looking at closely.
On the other side of things, someone relays that email traffic between various big-balling donors says Miles is done and will be announced Monday or Tuesday; two other sources, one from the LSU side of things, are in agreement.
IMO, the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of "it's done," especially with the stuff about the players being told from this morning.
This from a student manager around both Miles and Carr when they were on staff:
I found both Lloyd and Les to be decent, down-to-earth people. Les did have a lot of charisma and intensity back then as he does today. He also could be pretty funny at times. Cameron may have thought he could walk on water a bit because he was credited with putting in some semblance of a consistently efficient passing attack at the end of Bo's tenure (with the QB/WR development of Jim Harbaugh, Greg McMurtry, Chris Calloway, Desmond Howard, and Elvis Grbac), but if he wasn't humbled by his tenure at Indiana, he certainly is now. Never got the impression Miles was more arrogant than the next football coach (there is a certain degree of an asshole/prick factor that comes with the job.)
Cameron left I thought in '92 or '93 to go the Redskins. Also, Miles went to work for a former Colorado colleague, Bob Simmons at Oklahoma State to become offensive coordinator. Moeller never named an offensive coordinator during his tenure, despite being the position he held from '87-'89 as the only OC of the Schembechler era. Maybe Miles and Cameron's departures were to beef up their resume with NFL and OC experience since it was clear Moeller was never going to have an offensive coordinator. If, however, Miles left after Moeller's resignation in May 1995 and Fred Jackson was promoted to OC over him, that may be a different story concerning the origins of this "Les-Lloyd rift."
It seems that Bo was always fond of Les, recalling Miles visiting him after his open heart surgery in his book. If Moeller had coached another 5-10 years, Miles would have been the successor (either directly promoted as a UofM assistant or from Oklahoma State/Dallas Cowboys) with Bo's public blessing. If we're talking anywhere between 2000-2005, Lloyd probably would have been too old at that point to start a head coaching tenure. Lloyd actually interviewed for the Wisconsin job after the '89 season, but the job went to Barry Alvarez.
The generally held opinion on the rift between Miles and Carr -- which I believe to be real -- was that it started three or four years ago when Miles started recruiting against Michigan regularly and apparently told some kids that Carr was retiring. The nastier version of the story goes that Carr's supposed health issues were also relayed. Depending on your POV and which side of the story you tend to believe, this is either a misunderstanding or PURE EVIL.
The upshot: given everything out there at the moment, I would be very surprised if it was anyone other than Miles; the aggressive timeline is a bit shakier given what looks like real resistance to the idea from some camps in the athletic department.
IMO: Miles expects an offer and will take it if he gets one; he told the team as much. Pro-Miles people in the AD expect to offer him Sunday after the SECCG and announce early in the week; Anti-Miles people in the AD are hoping to delay, interview some other guys, and possibly find someone else.
What may be one final blast of unconfirmed internet rumor: Tigerdroppings has multiple posters who say Miles has told the players he's leaving.
He told the team today after practice that he's stepping down and going to Michigan. (or at least so a little birdie told me...)
Another:
I can confirm this as well. Heard directly from a players mouth. Miles is gone. Expect it to break soon. Players can't keep this secret long.
And more:
this was just confirmed to me through a text message from a guy i know on the team...so its pretty true.
An email followup to one of the guys on the board:
I'm pretty good friends w/ RJ Jackson. I was hanging out w/ his girlfriend, Chelsea, tonight. I dropped her off at his apartment so they could hang for a while before they left for ATL. He told us Miles informed them at practice today that "he was leaving". Told whole team he took the UM job. I didn't get to go into details. Its true and a done deal.
Is this 100%? No. There were a few reports of similar quality -- credible seeming, multiply-sourced -- on Kirk Ferentz accepting the job linked here that turned out to be wrong. These are concentrated on one message board, which is bad, but are much more specific, which is good.
Is this 90%? Yeah. Four different people above claim to have heard from players on the team that Miles is leaving. The Ferentz things had no details and no indication anyone at the program had been told; in contrast, this would be a point of no return announcement by Miles. And there's precious little room for misinterpretation here.
The Michigan Rivals site - The Wolverine.com - is reporting that Kirk Ferentz will not be the next head coach at Michigan, citing a source second only to Ferentz himself.
Fanblogs sites a premium message board post, quoting it, which seems ethically dubious, but linking to something ethically dubious is fine(!). Plus, if you read the comments here you know already. Rivals is usually pretty circumspect, so the stridency of that post should be taken as a sign of extreme confidence in the information. (It should be noted that this is the second time The Wolverine has schooled everyone on a major coaching search, as they were way out in front of the Beilein thing. Credit where due.)
There is significant buzz that Miles is a done deal as soon as LSU gets done with the SEC championship game from both the premium boards on the paysites and my inbox, but he was supposed to be a done deal a while ago. We'll see; he has support from a lot of important people but obviously not the most important one who's not Bill Martin: Lloyd Carr. The Ferentz thing is a solid indicator of that. (And, yes, there was most definitely a Ferentz thing getting pushed very hard by Carr and others -- this is "Ferentz is no longer a candidate," not "was never.")
There's little out there on the internet yet that can be taken even a little bit seriously; this post from "Pigskin Football Guys" claims Miles has taken the job, but also claims Pelini is gone to be HC at Nebraska and Tenuta will be LSU's new DC at 600k per year, which is crazy if Miles is leaving. That seems to have no credence. Meanwhile, this from "Football Scoop"...
Michigan- Our sources say that Brian Kelly will be named HC if the interview doesn't turn off the Woman President
...gets negative one billion credibility points. Jimmy Carter will have no say in Michigan's coaching search. (ZING!)
Tigerdroppings is keeping an up-to-date thread with various MSM developments in the search and has an entire board dedicated to potential coaching changes; more as it develops.
*(No, I'm not seriously suggesting this flight had Miles on it: it's a DC-9, which seats like 100 people. The only reasonable explanation: Mark Mangino is going to be the next coach.)
HL has received some additional information on the Kirk Ferentz situation from sources we consider trustworthy. So, we thought we'd pass it on. The information is as follows:
1. Ferentz had meeting with the team yesterday. No mention of the Michigan job. Rather, just talk about practice this weekend as if they're going to a bowl game.
2. Historically, when KF/job rumors come up, KF will call the assistants out on the road and tell them to have no worries, he's coming back, etc. Typically this happens immediately after the rumor gets press. No such calls have been made; nobody seems to know what's going on.
3. Apparently the scheduled Wednesday press conference (tomorrow) will not be held. The stated reason for the postponement is that they're waiting on the bowl situation to solidify before holding another press conference.
Make of this what you will. We're just passing on info that we receive from sources that we consider to be of high quality.
The canceled press conference seems meaningful to me: if Ferentz is not a serious candidate or had turned the job down that would be an excellent opportunity to say "I AM NOT A SERIOUS CANDIDATE" in big flashing neon letters; if he's still in play, then every non-answer would further fan the flames.
Also FWIW: I received an email from Jim Acho, who is apparently Fred Jackson's agent. Contents:
Michigan assistant head football coach Fred Jackson is officially a candidate for the Duke football coaching job. A call was placed to Duke AD Joe Alleva today and we await confirmation of an interview date. Fred Jackson was on a "short list" of candidates for the Duke job when it opened up 3 years ago and has turned down no less than 6 NFL assistant coaching offers in the last 4 years.
Make of that what you will.
Also, a reader emails a potential theory on the plane flight: it could have been a return trip, and the "flight crew swap" a cover story.
1. There's a fellow wandering around the Hawkeye boards claiming that the Ferentz-to-Michigan stuff is all his doing. A copy of an email sent to one of the Iowa TV stations that started picking up on the internet rumors:
it started as a message board ruse, flame if you will.....
This is not true; I had not heard of HawkeyeLounge.com until a commenter left a link to the rumor posted there yesterday. The source in question is connected to one of the Iowa coaches; it's solid.
2. There have been a lot of questions about University posting rules that previously seemed like a major deterrent to a hasty search and were cited as a reason Miles' national championship game coaching wouldn't be a problem. This would mean reports of a potential acceptance would be necessarily wrong. (An offer, on the other hand, is plausible, since everyone knows the open posting rules are farcical.) Apparently the posting thing is a complete nonfactor.
For example: the hiring of Mike Sherman at A&M two days after Franchione was let go.
3. I think I may have erred a bit here. I waited to get some outside confirmation on the Ferentz offer, but when I did it was from Iowa sources. Though those sources are about as good as things like that get, there is the potential for wobble.
It's a game of telephone, basically.
Michigan to Ferentz: you're our #1 candidate. Ferentz to Coach: I think Michigan might offer me the job. Coach to Source: Ferentz is going to get offered the job. Source to Me: Ferrets get proffered by slobs!
I wrote and re-wrote that brief post to communicate what I wanted it to but in the end I think it came off too assured. These things are all uncertain, and real confirmation of how the search went down will never be available. Mea culpa.
4. To wit, someone from the Michigan side of things says talk of an offer is "premature," which is a really interesting word to use.
5. I offer no thumbs up or down on the linked post yesterday; I merely present the info since it seems worthwhile.
6. IMO, the most likely scenario: Michigan has talked quite a bit with Ferentz. The general tone of the conversations has been of the sort when you have a really good job interview and the last guy is just like "well... we really like you. Do you like us? We really like you." Like in the job interview, you assume you have been offered the job but the formal decision has not been made.
7. The high level summary of my beliefs based on everything I've heard and read: Ferentz is the #1 candidate and either has already been or will be offered the job. I have no idea whether he'd take it or not but if you put a gun to my head I would say he turns it down.
Another thing follows from the above belief but this is just deduction, not inside info: Carr insisted he would not be a major factor in the search during his retirement press conference, but his fingerprints are all over the Ferentz thing. Ferentz meets certain Michigan priorities -- be a really awesome dude, don't swear at press conferences -- better than others -- win, wear hats -- that Miles is better at, which indicates the relative weightings of these priorities make it harder for them to come around on Miles. I wouldn't be surprised if he was well down the list.
Update: Iowa is claiming no one has talked to or about Ferentz; not sure why MLive is going around asking athletic directors about official channels when everyone knows these things migrated out of public view long ago.
I have no idea how to judge the truthiness of this post from HawkeyeLounge.com helpfully linked in the comments of the last post, but it looks like we might get resolution on this Ferentz thing soon:
I have a decent source connected to the Michigan athletic department. He stated to me in an in e-mail this evening that Ferentz had been offered the job and this evening he accepted. The final details and announcement will come in 24-48 hours.
Disclaimers follow...
MH check your PM and I'll explain this one to you. I'm not convinced on this, but this source has credibility. I hope he's not playing me. I'll take the heat if this is wrong.
...but after the standard "this means nothing... nothing!" response, a couple posters vouch for this guy; the forthright admission of doubt makes me place a bit more faith in the information, ironically. (Obviously, this is nothing close to solid.)
Another point of confirmation (about the offer, not a potential acceptance) comes from the RCMB. One of the posters there is an editor at an Iowa newspaper; he claims that two separate media sources are telling him Ferentz has an offer.
Update: FWIW, same RCMB poster says two people have called him, saying they "heard" Ferentz had accepted the job; another says he has a family member on the staff who hasn't heard anything as of a few hours ago.
Woo! Rumors, these. Not facts. The first and foremost is really close to a fact type thing, as close as these things can be, but if the most likely outcome... er... comes out, no one will ever know if this was true or not. So take the following FWIW, which is not to say I lack confidence in the voracity of the following... it's just that much of it is, by its very nature, un-confirmable. Thus the "rumormongering" label and not the "actual news" label. End justifications.
I've sat on this a couple days waiting for some third-party corroboration and now I have it: Kirk Ferentz has been offered the Michigan job. The general feeling is he will turn it down out of fidelity to Iowa, in case you were thinking of making a late-night run to Ann Arbor (or Iowa City) Torch & Pitchfork. I do realize that this -- unlike the Lloyd thing -- is unlikely to ever be publicly acknowledged if Ferentz turns it down, but this comes from someone in a position to know, and how. The third-party corroboration comes from a couple Iowa insiders reporting things afoot that, unfortunately, I am not at liberty to disclose.
Suffice it to say that Wednesday's post on Ferentz not making sense and this being a weird rumor is withdrawn: there's a real chance he's the next coach. It's not probable given Ferentz's deep ties to Iowa, but it's not Kevin Stallings as I suggested earlier.
BONUS item that I don't have multiple sources on, so consider this not 100% reliable, but logical: Grand Valley's athletic director has been contacted by a Michigan representative doing due diligence on Brian Kelly. That representative? Lloyd Carr. That might explain the prominence in Ferentz in the search. The Horror, evidently, was not enough to shake Carr's influence despite the claims made in his outgoing press conference.
BONUS BONUS item: Grand Valley's AD has been contacted by another athletic director doing background checks on Kelly. His name? Kevin White. His school? Notre Dame.
America! Fuck Yeah! Whenever there are flybys at football games, it's impossible not to get the above-mentioned song stuck in your head. I mention the above-mentioned because there was possibly the sweetest flyover ever -- fuck yeah! -- at the Illinois game:
Only competition I can think of was an A-10 flyover a couple years ago at Michigan Stadium.
Press conferencing. Attempting to limit youtube embedding these days so Macs (boo) running Firefox (woo) don't implode, so just links to this week's press conferences before the Minnesota game:
Gophers football coach Tim Brewster admits it makes him a little nervous, but he announced Tuesday that he will start three true freshmen in the defensive secondary Saturday at Michigan.
Kyle Theret has moved from safety to cornerback and will replace senior Jamal Harris, who was benched for the second half last week. With Curtis Thomas at free safety and Ryan Collado at right cornerback, the Gophers will start the three freshmen together for the first time this season.
Normally this is where the desperate plea to throw the ball, by golly, goes, but, yeah...
#
Player
No
Gain
Loss
Net
TD
Avg
Long
1
Shamen Washington
1
7
0
7
0
7
7
2
Pat Paschall
12
90
3
87
0
7.3
18
3
Ryan Parsons
1
4
0
4
0
4
4
11
Steve Walker
6
16
8
8
0
1.3
10
28
Pete Blincoe
5
29
0
29
0
5.8
13
40
Tyler Roehl
22
266
3
263
1
12
77
198
Team
2
0
4
-4
0
-2
0
Totals
49
412
18
394
1
...given what NDSU did to them, Mike Debord can call the same play 80 times and it won't matter.
Shouldn't you be grading things or something? Crotchety Michigan faculty have weighed in against the stadium renovation:
The University of Michigan Senate Assembly, the elected body that represents faculty, passed a resolution Monday evening urging the university to reconsider the $226 million renovation to Michigan Stadium in light of serious concerns raised by more than 600 U-M faculty and staff.
The concerns:
They're concerned they weren't adequately consulted about the major plans of the iconic stadium.
"In short, U-M administrators behaved more like oil company executives evading environmentalists than stewards of this university community," said Keith Riles, professor of physics at U-M, who supported the resolution.
Why wasn't Keith Riles, professor of physics, consulted about luxury boxes at Michigan Stadium? Uh... perhaps because he's a professor of physics? These complaints arise from the regents meetings wherein the stadium votes were added to the agenda late -- after the public comment slots had been filled. So, like, whatever. Have another vote and let the Hero of Tiananmen Square and physics professors have their say and vote on it again with the same results.
I've made the case for luxury boxes before; no need to rehash it. Until Pollack and others can provide some hard numbers on how concerned the citizenry is about luxury boxes they have no ground to stand on.
Hey, whoah. Normally sunny Angelique Chengelis gets in some not-so-oblique shots at Ryan Mallett in her latest Detroit News column:
....if you saw the Illinois game on television, the ABC cameras picked up a heated exchange between Carr and Mallett on the sideline after a Michigan offensive series.
Mallett put his head down and tried to move away, but Carr, who clearly was not finished with his "advice," pulled Mallett back and finished the lecture.
What does this indicate? Plenty. Quarterbacks and players rarely jaw at, ignore, or laugh in the faces of their coaches. I have heard from numerous sources who say Mallett simply needs one more ingredient to begin to fulfill his potential of being a great quarterback at Michigan -- he needs to mature. ...
Mallett is engaging and a treat for media to interview, but he needs to grow up fast if he's going to lead this team next season.
Also worth noting in this line of criticism is Carr's terse response to a Mallett question after the Illinois game:
“He’s got a lot of things he needs to improve on,” Carr said.
FWIW, I've also received a couple notes along these lines, one about as well-sourced as these things get. The situation here is precarious; without a major attitude adjustment things could be very sketchy at quarterback next year.
Historian. Again, trying to cut down on the embeds. Wolverine Historian has clips from the 1983 OSU game and the '91 ND game (featuring the Desmond Howard catch).
Etc.:Michigan Monday (yes, I know it's Thursday); TV assignments delayed for the MSU game; would not be surprised if, as long rumored, Michigan-MSU is on the BTN.
All right, I know this internet rumor stuff is extremely distasteful to a certain segment of the audience, and frankly I'm a little uncomfortable with it, too, because the consequences if I say something strident and I'm wrong will be bad. Last year I reported that Morgan Trent had broken his hand and would miss the Minnesota game. Rivals' Inside The Fort column-type substance pooh-poohed this as patently ridiculous. I vacillated back and forth before just laying my cards on the table and stating what I thought: Trent was out and Rivals was wrong. Those 24 hours before Michigan took the field sans Trent were nervewracking, but eventually I was proven correct. I'll do the same here.
The story:
Hart limps off against Purdue, doesn't play the rest of the game, seems fine, teammates guarantee he plays.
Carr circumspect.
Mom says if he's 80% he'll play and will definitely play against Minnesota.
Carr circumspect.
Yesterday a guy with an insider rep posts that Hart is a no-go for Illinois on GBW; this is widely reported in the McGuffie liveblog/chat thing. I can't evaluate this for myself.
Carr circumspect.
Yesterday afternoon the line on the game moves from -3 to a pick-em, maybe because of this "Doctor Bob" guy and maybe not.
Other message boards have conflicting information: Tuesday/Wednesday reports are that he will play. More recent updates are skeptical, with one definite no-go report.
I receive an email from a tipster like 45 minutes ago stating 1) Hart will not play and 2) expect more Hemingway ISQDs. This tipster is a Class C tipster: no track record but has emailed me before (a year ago) and is unlikely to be looking to perpetuate a hoax. Especially what with the ISQD thing. I mean, seriously, you can't make this stuff up.
Fin. You can evaluate all this as you please and come to your own conclusions.
My conclusions: there are at least three recent, separate indications from insiders ranging from purported to (apparently) established and a big line swing. Previous optimism about his play has not been updated since Tuesday/Wednesday. I think Hart is either out or extremely limited. If I see an ISQD early, I will swear quietly and pray for Carlos Brown ball security. Caveat: if Michigan finds itself in trouble I would not be surprised to see Hart pull a Willis Reed, even if it's just to stone J Leman blitzes.
I am now off to Champaign and will not be able to update this further tonight; I'm sure the commenters will keep everyone abreast of developments. Please subtract four points from my projected Michigan score in the preview.
The persistent Ryan Mallett transfer rumors -- which, to my knowledge, have no backing and make no sense -- threaten to burst into mainstream echo-chambering with this blog post from a Texarkana radio host:
Sportsdate 4 - 23 - 2007
This much we know for sure, Ryan Mallet is back home in Texarkana. He completed his first trimester at Michigan and returned home, but which move he makes next on the dance floor has many in Texarkana wondering.
I feel comfortable in stating that Ryan was not enjoying his time in Ann Arbor. ... Many of us are curious where he will end up playing his college football.
The observant will immediately note several things that bring the validity of these assertions into serious question:
I usually ignore rumors I can't comment on or believe to be false because the whole pernicious internet rumor thing people always complain about is a real phenomenon. Like many legendary monsters -- the hydra, vampires, Howard Stern -- sometimes attempting to strike down a rumor only makes it stronger. But since this one involves people from Arkansas, and if we've learned one thing in the past year it's that people in Arkansas think "reality" is a type of TV show, I figure it can't hurt.
I don't have super secret info that says he's going to stay; I do know that much of the to-do is dubiously sourced but relentlessly repeated by a couple of Arkansas message board posters. It seems to be gaining traction much like "Head On" did, but there is little substance behind them. There is much circumstantial evidence against it:
Michigan quarterbacks play in the NFL. So do Arkansas quarterbacks... at wide receiver.
Mallett has a one-year wait and a guaranteed three-year job at Michigan.
Houston Nutt's job status is insecure, to put it mildly.
I'm not exactly sure about this because of Mallett's early-enroll status, but I believe if Michigan wants to hold Mallett to his LOI (not that he actually signed one -- I sent an email to the NLI board to see if he's considered bound by it anyway) they can force him to sit out not one but two years in the event of a transfer.
(Michigan fans may remember Joe Crawford's near-transfer to MSU, which was kiboshed when Kentucky refused to let him out of his obligation to spend a full year at UK and threatened to extract the full two years of penance from him. I would expect Michigan to do the same in the unlikely event these Arkansasians have a nugget of truth in their ball of (probable) crap, since most recruits from his signing year haven't even reached campus yet.)
Is Mallett going to transfer away from a guaranteed starting job to go to a neanderthal offense run by a man under fire from a preposterous fanbase? Is he going to do that if Michigan refuses to release him? Highly doubtful.
Anyone still harboring doubt? These are Arkansas fans:
Junior running back Kevin Grady is U-M's latest casualty after tearing an anterior cruciate ligament during last Saturday's practice.
His father, Kevin Grady Sr., confirmed the knee injury Thursday evening.
"He was having a great spring, but it's one of those things that's out of your control," Grady Sr. said.
Grady has a redshirt available and is expected to take it.
Angelique Chengelis says not so fast (no permalink) on the Carlos Brown thing:
The source also said rampant rumors of Carlos Brown's transfer are not true. Well, not exactly. Brown, who moved this spring from tailback to cornerback, was, apparently, contemplating whether to leave the Wolverines and did take time off from practice, but he has decided to stay put. Michigan's final spring practice is Saturday.
At last check, Rivals was still assuming he was gone and they've proven far more accurate than the News about these sorts of things in the past unless the topic is Morgan Trent's hand, so I remain somewhat skeptical. It does sound like Brown recently decided to stay, perhaps in the aftermath of the Grady injury, so this is less a conflict and more the News getting some updated information. Brown's return would be welcomed at either tailback or cornerback or even both. He's also reportedly having the kick and punt return jobs dangled in front of him.
Rumors of an unfortunate nature. This is always a fine line to walk, but I think both of these nasty football-related items have tripped the threshold of credibility and should thus be reported. Keep in mind that the following are rumors of the message board variety, though they're ones that have multiple credible sources:
Kevin Grady tore his ACL and will miss the 2007 season.
Carlos Brown has been absent from practice for the past week and is likely to transfer to an SEC school so he can play running back.
As always, there is a nonzero chance both of these things are false, especially the latter since there is a chance Brown could change his mind. (It's unlikely a hypothetically torn Grady ACL leaps into self-mending action.)
There is a possibility that Nasty Happening #1 helps convince Brown to forgo Nasty Happening #2 since he'd be third string at worst this year with an eye on moving up, but that's widely regarded as a longshot. Those prone to gnash teeth at every departure of a "speed back" Michigan can't fathom using properly will do so here, but Brown was beaten out by a player in his recruiting class who showed some explosive speed of his own on a couple long runs. If he's really dead-set on being a running back he's probably wise to do it elsewhere.
The wider view: yuck. The losses are piling up this offseason. To date only one projected starter, Carson Butler, is gone, but Michigan is now dangerously thin at many positions. The backup QB is a true freshman. There are two tailbacks on the roster (a third joins this fall). The starting fullback is a true freshman. There's one tight end with a snap's worth of experience. There are only four defensive ends. While we haven't sustained major damage yet, our shields are down and the next concussion missile is destined for our hull.
At least it will be louder maybe at some point in the future and stuff. The Daily has an interesting article on the possibility of luxury box renovations embiggening the volume level in Michigan Stadium. A university professor has been drafted to evaluate the changes and he came to a startling conclusion:
The University is working with Architecture Prof. Mojtaba Navvab - who was also a consultant on the acoustics of Hill Auditorium - to evaluate the acoustics of the renovation plans. During one game last fall, Navvab stood just off the 50 yard line and took readings of the noise level. He found that the volume ranged between 77 and 87 decibels - about the same noise level as a loud office.
Using computer models of the renovation plans, Navvab predicted that the volume in the stadium will increase to a range of 85 to 95 decibels - just under the volume of the inside of a New York City subway. That means the stadium would sound almost twice as loud as it does now.
That alone should swing the opinion of anyone who is still on the fence about the changes. (Decibels are a logarithmic measure of volume for anyone doing some subtraction and scratching their heads.) One suggestion: when you go to the trouble of creating a interesting and informative graphic, maybe you should make it bigger than this?
Bobble. Our new women's coach has been immortalized in the same fashion that Bill Laimbeer has:
(He's on the left.)
One of these things is not like the other. There are five people on an ESPN front page poll asking about the "most promising teenager" in sports. Four of them:
The slam-dunk #1 and #2 picks in the upcoming NBA draft
the NHL's youngest-ever winner of the Art Ross award, a guy who scored 120 points this year
a two-time Grand Slam event winner and former WTA player of the year.
The fifth?
Uh... yeah. At least he's getting killed:
New blogs...? There are other things for you to examine this offseason written by Michigan students. Frequent commenter Colin has embarked on his own blogging enterprise (suggestion: adopt catchier name). Law student and former Detroit News columnist(? really? Suggestion for tons of traffic: dirt on Foster) Scott Warheit tackles mostly sports but occasionally hours of 24 at Quo Vadimus. And improbably-named freshman Ace Anbender covers the entire Detroit scene at the Ace of Sports.
