OK, These posts might become more common in the offseason as there isn’t a ton of actual news to report/analysis to undertake.

• As reported by several other outlets over the weekend, Michigan’s pursuit of Greg Paulus has come to an end. I was basically indifferent on the Paulus situation, and I hope the Wolverines can bring in Jason Forcier, who can be a depth player and a mentor to his little brother.
• The Wolverine Blog’s Ace Anbender cut a Tate Forcier Highlight from the spring game:
  
• The Athletic Department reports that student season ticket sales are down, and they expect overall non-renewal rate to increase as well. Something tells me they won’t have a problem filling those seats with fans on the waitlist.
• Odd situation with a “commit or not?” for the Wolverines yesterday, regarding DC LB Javarie Johnson (final answer: not). More on this situation later today or tomorrow in a Recruiting Update.
• Catch up with the Michigan Baseball team’s progress in the weekend recap of the Michigan State series. Formerly’ll have a more long-term analysis for you later this week.

Posted under Baseball, Football, Other Sports, Personnel, Recruiting, Spring Coverage

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

I swear, I’m really trying to avoid doing these posts with any regularity.

• Ricky Barnum has sprained his ankle, and will miss a few spring practices to get wrist surgery. His wrist was (apparently) pretty damaged, and he was working through it before. While it sucks that he’s sustained another injury, at least it gave him the opportunity to get the wrist taken care of.
• Denard Robinson has claimed the 2nd-fastest 100m dash time in the country so far this year for high-schoolers. The incoming QB ran a 10.44 time, and expects to run in the 10.3s when track season gets underway in earnest. (Photo by Tom Ervin for the Miami Herald).
• Devin Gardner plans to publicly commit to Michigan either Thursday or Friday. He apparently did so silently at junior day, but wanted to finish out his basketball season before worrying about dealing with the press.
• Darryl Stonum has debunked the rumors that he’s intending to transfer from Michigan at the end of spring practice.
• SPRING GAME WOO GET AMPED.
• VB (Paul and Tim, at least) plans to be at todays 3:05 PM baseball game at the Fish. Feel free to say hello to us.

And, in site news: If you take a look at the top of the right sidebar, the subscription options have changed slightly. You can still subscribe via RSS, but there are now other possibilities. There is now an official VB Twitter account to which you can subscribe @VarsityBlue. You can subscribe via e-mail, which will inform you whenever there is a new front page post on Varsity Blue. And, perhaps what we’re most excited about, we’re going to start rolling out a VB Newsletter, which we’ll send out once a week (you can help us determine which day when you sign up), and will include a recap of the week’s action on Varsity Blue, along with a bit of information that may not have made it to the front page, and even a preview of what is coming in the next week. It might start out a little spartan in design (no pun intended), but we’ll be beefing it up in short order.

In other site news, we plan to debut a couple new features on VB in the coming weeks, though they’re not quite ready for public consumption yet. I’ll keep you posted when everything is ready to go live.

Posted under Baseball, Blog News, Football, Personnel, Recruiting, Spring Coverage