Unverified Voracity Has Flashbacks

Cartoon by Joel A Morgan

The Woodsoning. Ten years ago Saturday, Charles Woodson became the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman. Ten minutes of why:



I wonder if this was a prime galvanizing moment for the ridiculous SEC provincialism. Peyton didn't win! The media must be against us.

Redshirts. A couple people have emailed asking exactly who did and who did not redshirt this year; let me point you to "Nick the Greek Blog," which is probably not run by that Nick the Greek, for the answers. The only guys to get redshirted this year: LB Brandon Herron, RB Avery Horn, OL Mark Huyge, OL David Molk, DE Ryan Van Bergen, S Michael Williams, and TE Steve Watson... is that right? I swear I didn't see LB Marell Evans out there.

Flight? Oops Pow Surprise from BHGP says this guy on Hawk's Nest is established as in-the-know when it comes to Illinois and Illinois-related items:

You guys [Iowa] have John Wienke visiting this weekend. Lives 20 miles from Champaign. Not recruited heavily by Zook because Wienke is a traditional drop back passer, but he is talented. Michigan commitment right now, but he is looking around.

FWIW. Losing Wienke would be irritating but not devastating with Threet around.

Relive the Horror! Unsurprisingly, Appalachian State is in the I-AA championship game. Their opponent, as a reader points out?


No, not Michigan. Delaware. This is entirely creepy, of course, and the game will no doubt end 34-32 when Delaware's senior captain DE/LB (ND transfer Ronald Talley?) messes up the most basic football strategery and gets a potential winning field goal blocked.

A second reader also points out: if App State and Ohio State win their respective national championship games, Michigan will have lost to two different national champions in the same year. Has that ever happened before? Someone call up the Duke SID and find out.

Desperate! I'll say! (H!IKM.) Felicity Huffman on the picket line:


Someone ask her if she's interested in the Michigan job. 45-year old Topeka housewife recruiting? Dominated.

Etc.: The Realests say "what about Jim Leavitt?" The MZone and Maize 'n' Brew take issue with this blog's anti-sailing stance, or at least the stridency of it; NYT -- not exactly a rock of journalistic integrity -- on Schiano w/ Harbaugh non-candidacy reiteration.

Kurt Wermers Commits

Evidently, Michigan has received a commitment from Indiana offensive lineman Kurt Wermers. (I say "evidently" because Tom Lemming is apparently the source of the information and he has been wrong in the past.) The reader is invited to speculate on how much freely available info there is on moderately to not particularly hyped guards from Indiana. Yep.

We'll try to ballpark his potential anyway. As of now he has twelve offers, Michigan being the most impressive. UCLA, Purdue, and Iowa had also extended offers and Notre Dame was rumored to be looking at him "heavily," whatever that means, but hadn't followed suit. (There was one article that asserted a written offer from Notre Dame, but I think that was erroneous.) He's currently ranked #47 on Scout's Midwest Top 100, just ahead of RoJo brother Corey Johnson, tiny OH RB Darius Ashley (who might have a Michigan offer and does have a Tennessee offer), and PSL OLB Nick Perry (likely underrated)... that's probably on the 3/4 borderline. Rivals hasn't rated him in their initial Hot 250 or whatever it's called, so he's probably a 3 to them. ESPN hasn't gotten around to him. It's highly likely he ends up in the anonymous mass of three star recruits when all is said and done.

Upshot: nothing to scream in the streets about either way. Michigan needs linemen in quantity and picked up a guard. This is good. You'd like his offers and guru ratings to be a little higher -- this appears to be the second guy we've picked up who was waiting on an offer from either ND or OSU that didn't appear forthcoming -- but that's life. Michigan must have liked him quite a bit since they offered him two months ago; hopefully they're right.

The only other thing that's turned up was this article from nwi.com:

Imagine a phone ringing. It's Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr. Or Notre Dame's Charlie Weis. Or UCLA's Karl Dorrell. Or Iowa's Kirk Ferentz. Or Indiana's Terry Hoeppner. Or Purdue's Joe Tiller.

And every one of these big-time gridiron gods would get the same message.

One of these things is not like the others, yesno? Indiana football is at least four to six times bigger than Wayne Bennett in Brisbane!

There's not much else of note in there except a reference to Wermer's participation in an a capella group, which probably had a major influence on his decision if the horrible, locust-like proliferation of chipper instrument-free musical troupes on campus hasn't been violently stomped out in the years since I ceased attending class. And God help us all if it hasn't. Those suckers were nearing critical mass years ago.