After a round of alpha testing, the Varsity Blue Forum is ready to go live. There are categories for the main topics we cover here on Varsity Blue, including Football, Basketball, Baseball, and recruiting. You can also hit up the general discussion and off-topic areas to talk about other things.

Check it out, start a thread or two, participate in a couple others, and hopefully this thing can get rockin’ and rollin’.

Also: don’t forget to listen to the WTKA remote at Spring Practice today, from 3-6 on 1050AM in Ann Arbor, or WTKA.com anywhere else.

Posted under Blog News

OK, I don’t feel guilty doing it today, since there is plenty of good content already published and upcoming, and I don’t have an Unverified Voracity-like Substance to throw random interesting things into.

• After running a 10.44 100m dash last week, incoming freshman QB Denard Robinson ran a 10.28 over the weekend. At this pace, he should be teleporting to the finish line in 0 seconds by the time he gets to ann Arbor in the summer. So, as established, Mr. Robinson is fast. I would expect the coaches to have a package of plays designed for him to run this fall.
• After announcing his plans to transfer from the University of Miami, QB Robert Marve had Michigan on his list of five schools to which he would consider transferring. This was confusing to Michigan fans, because the Wolverines have little use for a pocket passer with 2 years of eligibility remaining. Rest easy, as he’s removed Michigan from his list of options, and replaced it with Arizona State. He cited “crowded QB situation” following the commitment of Devin Gardner, rather than the obvious “they probably couldn’t use my skill set.” Being afraid to beat out a true freshman (who is, by his own admission, a bit of a project) is something of a concern, especially for a guy who’s been the starter at his old school. Best of luck to Marve in the future. 
• After Brian’s discussion of GERG’s potential 3-4/4-3 hybrid mega-confusing defense, noted X-and-Os expert GSimmons85 has given it his shot to educate the Michigan fandom on defensive fronts, alignments, and what it all might mean for the Wolverines’ D next year. 
• Michigan Sports Center keeps you update with Alumni Flag Game rosters.
• In the St. Paul Pioneer Press, you can find a truly touching story about former Michigan baseball player Mike Watters, his son’s struggle with cancer, and his meeting of a parentless young cancer patient named Victor (via MVictors).
• Maize N Brew Dave gives his take on what the death of the Ann Arbor News might mean for the Michigan blogosphere, and how the role of the blog is likely to change fairly radically in the very near future. His take seems a little more dire than I might expect, and I think blogs will continue having the same ability to come up with content that we do now, but perhaps with even more access, which is definitely a good thing. Be honest, how often do most Michigan blogs link the AA News as the basis for an entire post? Not very frequently, in my memory. Maybe a Jim Carty column or two from back in the day, but that’s about it.

Posted under Analysis, Baseball, Coaching, Football, Spring Coverage

WTKA has the audio of my appearance on the Ann Arbor Big Show with John U. Bacon from yesterday posted on their podcasts page. If you missed the show yesterday, be sure to go check it out.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to actually talk about Michigan, so I got to discuss things like the Pistons and Synchronized Youth Figure Skating (seriously). It was still a lot of fun though, and hopefully I’ll have an opprtunity to do it again sometime.

Recruiting Update coming later this afternoon.

Posted under Blog News

Rich Rodriguez uses his press conferences much like a politician does. He takes the attention, especially on big days, and uses it to shape the message and control the commentary. There were 3 major themes that he came back to and stressed throughout the press conference. It seems like a lot of his responses were directed to local columnists who, for some reason or another, seem hellbent on proving he’s a current or future failure.  This was put together from my recollection and the tweets I banged out during the conference. Statements in quotation marks are actual quotes. The full press conference can be viewed on MGoBlue.com.

Recruiting the State of Michigan

Coach Rodriguez came back to this point 4 or 5 times during the press conference, which seemed fairly telling. A lot of the local papers have accused the new coaching staff of forsaking the state of Michigan in favor of Florida and other southern states in which the coaches had connections during their tenure at WVU (or, for many of them, South Florida).  On first look, that may  appear to be valid, since there are only 4 players in the class from Michigan, and MSU snagged the better half of the state’s top 10 recruits.

Rodriguez addressed this bluntly a few times. At one point he said “people who say we don’t recruit the state of Michigan are way off-base,” and  “it’s the first place we look.” He mentioned that Michigan is the place where the first targets on the board come from.  He also said that he’s not going to take a Michigan kid just because he’s from Michigan. They’re going after guys who fit their system, and they’ll look in Michigan first, and go national if they can’t find what they need in the home state.

One reason for the lack of commitments from kids in Michigan is that the coaching staff hasn’t had the time to develop the relationships with the high school coaches. Coach Rodriguez’s coaches clinics have a good reputation, so this should turn around quickly. Expect Michigan to push hard after the big name in state prospects (Devin Gardner, William Gholston, et al).

Effects of a 3-9 Season/Negative Recruiting

This was another recurring theme during the press conference.  He said that some of the recruits had some questions about the season and the issues that the team faced. The struggles made some people a little wary, but Rodriguez also said that because of some of the weaknesses on the team, he was able to promise every recruit the opportunity to come in and immediately compete and make an impact.

He also said that negative recruiting often comes back and bites the person spreading the rumors. One example he gave was southern schools trying to scare kids by talking about the weather in Michigan. A lot of kids from Florida were braced for an Arctic expedition only to find it wasn’t as bad as they thought.

Obviously Rodriguez didn’t name any specific coaches, but at the beginning of his statement he made a statement to the effect of “there was a lot of negative recruiting out there we had to fight through.” He kind of pulled back a little bit and said that, in general, most coaches don’t do any negative recruiting. Usually it’s a young, over-ambitious assistant trying to reach.

Rodriguez, predictably, stated in no uncertain terms that neither he, nor anyone on his staff recruit negatively. He said, “if you got a good enough program to sell, why bash someone else’s?” Also, as previously mentioned, there is a real chance of backlash when recruiting goes negative.

Decommitments

This got brought up more than once, a lot of times by the reporters asking questions. Rodriguez said he “wasn’t surprised by anything on Signing Day.” This may be spin, but it was apparent that he had a pretty good idea of what was going down, especially with the two defensive tackles. He basically conceded that a commitment from a kid who is still taking visits doesn’t really mean anything; you still have to recruit him hard, since the commitment basically doesn’t exist.

He also said 2 or 3 time that “sometimes you want people to decommit, sometimes you don’t.”  I’m pretty sure he didn’t want both DTs to decommit, but it makes sense in the case of Jordan Barnes, DeWayne Peace, and their ilk. The offer still stands, but the communication and constant salesmanship flags until eventually the recruit realizes he is no longer wanted, and chooses someone else.  Seems a bit ethically dubious, but better than the alternative of over-signing. Recruiting is, in essence, seamy, so it’s all shades of gray to a certain extent.

If you have any specific questions about Rich Rodriguez’s portion of the press conference, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Posted under Coaching, Football

Any Michigan fan knows that nearly any season can be salvaged with a victory over the hated Buckeyes of Ohio State. So, it must follow that any Michigan fan values the ability to watch some of Michigan’s victories over the Team Down South at any opportunity. Well, Michigan fans, the opportunity is now here.

Rivalry Series: Michigan Beat Ohio State is a 3-disc set of two of Michigan’s most important wins over Ohio State, and a bonus game from 1995. Of course, just say “two of Michigan’s most important wins,” and two contests against the Buckeyes immediately come to mind: Bo’s great upset in 1969 and the National Title-earning (and Heisman-sealing) victory in 1997.

The 1969 upset victory over one of the greatest teams of all time, in Bo’s first season at the helm in Ann Arbor, is part of Michigan lore. However, most Michigan fans have never had the chance to see this game in its entirety, and capture the magic of Schembechler’s boys turning the tide in sports’ greatest rivalry. The old general got the Ten Year War started by upsetting what Woody Hayes would later call “The greatest team I ever coached.”

As a relatively recent comer to Michigan fanhood, the 1995 game was not one I had known as a hallmark victory in Wolverine lore. However, in Lloyd’s first game against Ohio State, he pulled off what nearly every Michigan coach has been able to do in his first year: beat Ohio State. The Buckeyes were a juggernaut, as they were in most years of the Cooper era, but like most years of the Cooper era, the Wolverines prevented them from playing for a national championship.

The 1997 season in its entirety closely resembles Michigan fan nirvana, and the win over Ohio State may be its most satisfying victories. Charles Woodson notched a near-TD reception, a famous punt return for touchdown, and a game-sealing interception to seal the Heisman for himself, and the right to play for the national championship for his team. There are few things more satisfying than watching this game on endless repeat.

These DVDs put you right in the game, as they are the original TV broadcasts, with the added benefit of not having commercials. Unlike catching these games on the Big Ten Network or ESPN Classic, no game action is removed to allow for fitting into a neat 3-hour window. This greatly enhances the experience for the true college football fan. Just because a punt isn’t blocked or returned for a touchdown, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still an important play in the game.

If you’re a Michigan fan (or even a fan of another school, and you happen to hate Ohio State), this DVD collection is a must-have. And, in the spirit of rivalry week, I’ll give you the opportunity to get one! In the comments of this post, leave your prediction for the final score of the game between Michigan and Ohio State this weekend. The closest to the actual score will win a copy of Rivalry Series: Michigan Beat Ohio State.

Posted under Football

Michigan made a huge mistake in hiring Rich Rod. The season only get worse.
Minnesota-28 Michigan-7

Minnesota has a very tough defense and an offense that can really move the ball through the air. They’ll beat Michigan by at least 14. Michigan is steamrolling towards 2-10.

Hail to this year’s fraudulent Wolverines! U of M alums will shun each of you forever! Learn to pour some coffee because that’s the job you’ll get on graduation! 2 and 10!

This Rod hire looks worse every week, he is infamous for his arrogance and failure to make adjustments. Chances are his tenure at Michigan will be a failure. Whether the players fit his system or not, there is no reason for the ineptitude his Michigan team has displayed this season. Good coaches learn to adapt.

I agree. R Rod’s master plan is to sacrifice this year’s team and make it go 2-10, so he can claim what terrible team he inherited from Lloyd Carr. This will set the expectations way low for future years. That way, when he does finally have a winning record, say 7-5, he hopes to be praised for what genius he is. In the end, RR will turn Michigan into another Purdue. Few decent years followed by “rebuilding” year, followed by few decent years, and then so on. Don’t expect another National Championship with him.

(Source)

Various outlets are reporting that Rich Rodriguez has called Steven Threet “very, very questionable” for Saturday’s game against Minnesota. Justin Feagin has been moved back to QB to back up Nick Sheridan. If that sentence doesn’t fill your veins with icy dread, I don’t know what will. Who knows, maybe Sheridan will be lost for the season and Feagin will go nuts on the Gophers, a la Justin Siller against Michigan? (Source)

Posted under Football

I wasn’t going to post about this, but it provides the opportunity to bitch about the mainstream media in general, and ESPN in particular.

If you’re reading a college football blog now, you’ve undoubtedly heard about Braylon Edwards’s wearing of a Penn State t-shirt for an interview on Monday Night Football a couple days ago. There has also been rampant speculation about why he did such a thing, and even joking photoshops (mspaints?) about the “actual shirt” he was wearing.

Whatever, I don’t really care what T-shirt Braylon is wearing, and I doubt it has anything to do with the Rodriguez misunderstanding earlier this summer. Dude’s still donating scholarship money to the school, something tells me he suddenly hates it. Whatever, he wore a t-shirt, who cares, right?

Well, on ESPN yesterday and today, the analysts have discussed what they think Braylon’s motives might have been in the whole thing. College Football Live today discussed the possibility that it is residual bitterness from the aforementioned #1 jersey flap. Speculation, whatever. Most people on the Michigan side of things cite a previously-unheard of (at least to Google) tradition #1 has of wearing the shirt of the school Michigan plays that weekend. You know who has the opportunity to go right to the source and find out?

YOU DO, JESSE PALMER. YOU’RE ES-fucking-PN! Has one reporter from that network even tried to ask Braylon about it? You can bet not, otherwise they’d be citing his “no comment” as further evidence that it is RR-grudge related. Sure, it’s great to have a monopoly on all the national sports coverage power, but for the love of god USE IT!

In conclusion, ESPN kinda sucks.

Posted under Football

Mike Gundy is sick and tired of Big Ten coaches telling lies and misleading not only the public, but also unwitting recruits. He’s here to set the record straight. Enjoy:

Posted under Video

In yesterday’s Unverified Voracity, Brian mentioned that the mass media will com up with a message that they want to write about, and then write their article about that whether or not the circumstances are true. For example, he said that the media would assume that fans would criticize Rodriguez’s playcalling, and wrote their articles regardless of whether that was true or not.

Another annoying instance of this I’ve run across is the assumption that Michigan fans think the sky is falling down. With an upset against a far inferior team, among the worst that Michigan will play this year, fans clearly think that Michigan will struggle to win a single game this year…

…except that’s not at all what Michigan fans are saying. Those who have a clue (which is, thankfully and surprisingly, a majority) realize that Utah might be the best non-Ohio State team (and certainly among them) that the Wolverines will face in 2008, and have set expectations accordingly. Sure, people are disappointed in the play of the offense, but nearly everyone I’ve talked to has been encouraged by the play of the defense in the second half, and thinks that the offense can only improve with Steven Threet the man in charge. The most negative article I’ve seen was Brian’s game column.

So, mass media, don’t make assumptions about fan perception and write your articles from your assumptions: you might want to take into account, you know, the truth.

Posted under Analysis

As suspected, the Morgan Trent 4.13 was an agility drill, not a 40yd dash.

Posted under Photo Album