Jethro's UM Football Thread

[Timone]

Boubacar Cissoko...sounds like a warrior.

Does he have any experience killing elephants and tigers?

[Zip Goshboots]

People are officially freaking out. This little post by the Scout mods got EIGHTY SEVEN REPLIES. I'd say the average "good" or "hot" thread gets thirty replies. Here it is:

just heard something rumor-good re Pryor ... if it turns out to be true I'll tell you ... more something that would make competitor schools squirm than make U-M feel good actually ... but the net effect - if true - would be the same...

K ... some day I'll tell you - either way ...

[Tahoe]

^ Enquiring minds want to know.

Zip this thread has so much info, it almost makes me constipated. I can't digest it all. SLOW DOWN!

[Glenn]

WTFDetroit’s Morning Constitutional
With Zip Goshboots

January 17, 2008

When the Governor of a state gets involved with that state’s college football team, you know that state is ass backward. The job of a Governor should be, in part, to calm the masses, even if they are a bunch of black lunged, toothless, meth-laced whiny bitches who are, on the one hand, glad that they have just lost a football coach and replaced him with the lovechild of Howdy Doody and Opie Taylor, yet pissed off that the guy got the fuck out of the shit hole that is West Virginia. A Governor’s job here would be to say something like, “Hey, it’s just football. We (Insert state here) have more to worry about than the football team, and we are thankful the coach was here while he was here, and we wish him the best”. Now, every Governor in the world knows that that is total bullshit, but he still has to say it. And I’m not stretching things a bit here when I say that no political figure in this country has the right to pull out the “morality” card at any time, especially the Rockefellers, a family of insanely crooked politicians and businessmen.


Read this complete Morning Constitutional here.

Thanks for this, Tahoe.

[Zip Goshboots]

Here's a little update on Nick Perry. I do hope the Wolverines land this fellow. I think the track record of Detroit defensive players is pretty good.

Nick Perry grew up following the Wolverines and says the Michigan coaches will be stopping by his house for an in-home visit on Jan. 17. "I think coach Rich Rodriguez is a good fit for them," he said. "He'll be great for the program. I haven't really talked with him yet, so I'm looking forward to getting to know him better. It's down to Michigan, Michigan State, USC and Miami..."

Nicholas Perry, the 6-foot-4, 235-pound four-star defensive end from King High School in Detroit, Mich., has narrowed his choices to four schools and continues to deny a leader.
"It's down to Michigan, Michigan State, USC and Miami," Perry said. "Nobody stands out though. It's down to these four and that's it."

Cut from Perry's previous favorites list are West Virginia, Purdue and Notre Dame. "I just feel more comfortable with these four instead. I'm not looking at anyone else anymore."

Perry, Scout.com's No. 5 defensive end, has already taken an official visit to Michigan State on Dec. 8 and has trips scheduled to USC on Jan. 18, Michigan on Jan. 26 and Miami on Feb. 2.

He grew up following the Wolverines and says the Michigan coaches will be stopping by his house for an in-home visit on Jan. 17. "I think coach Rich Rodriguez is a good fit for them," he said. "He'll be great for the program. I haven't really talked with him yet, so I'm looking forward to getting to know him better.

"I also want to talk with their new defensive coordinator," he said. I need to talk with him about the schemes he plans to run and make sure that I'll be able to fit into the defense."

Another school Perry says he's always liked is Miami. "They've definitely been a school I've always watched," he said. "I like the system there and they are always sending guys to the NFL. Coach Randy Shannon is a good coach and I think he's doing well there. He'll get them back on track."

On Jan. 16, Perry had an in-home visit from USC tight end coach Brennan Carroll. "We really spent most of the time talking about the defense and their depth chart," he said. "He told me that they really need more defensive ends and that's a priority for them. They see me fitting in well and said that I'd have a good chance to play early.

"I'm really excited about taking my visit this weekend and hopefully I'll fall in love with it," he said. "I'm not worried about the distance, but I just want to make sure that I like the environment and feel that it's a place where I feel at home."

One issue that Perry hasn't had a chance to discuss with the Trojans coaches are the rumors swirling around Reggie Bush and the improprieties that may have occurred during his time at USC. "I've read some of the stuff about Reggie, but I don't really know what to believe. I haven't talked to the coaches about it yet and I want to get the real story. I'm not thinking about it a lot though. Hopefully it's nothing."

Perry expects to take all of his remaining official visits before deciding. "I'll probably decide near signing day," he said. "I'm taking my last visit pretty late, so it'll come down to the very end.

"I'm really looking at a few things," he said. "Comfortability is number one. I also want a place with good academics, a family atmosphere and where the coaches treat me best."

Perry reports a 3.0 core GPA and a 16 ACT, which he is retaking on Jan. 26. "I'm taking the test in the morning, then heading to Michigan for my official visit

From Scout

[Zip Goshboots]

I know people are saying he's going to follow Rojo to LaLa, but I think he's Michigan's to lose.

[Zip Goshboots]

Transcript from an interview done by Foster and Valenti with a writer from the West Virginia paper. That you question ANY objuctivity with regard to Valenti is a given. Foster I like, but they go off the deep end.
This is a CLASSIC case of local hacks trying to generate something of a story, keept themselves IN or PART of the stroy, and at this point making a Big Deal out of nothing. They are striving for all kinds of conclusions, even about RR as a person. That we find a Sparty trying to assume moral high ground is no surprise. That we have Foster not being any more reasonable is a surprise, I kind of like Foster.
I'm hoping this thing galvanizes RR, Michigan, and The Team. The bullshit these guys have had to face could be a lot of nice motivation this season. Just what they'll need to get through a rough season.

From the Free Press:

Monday night, Dave Hickman of the Charlestown Gazette broke the Rich Rodriguez document shredding story (see the Freep’s story here). Tuesday’s afternoon, Terry Foster and Mike Valenti from WXYT had him on their show to get more information on the story, his take on Rodriguez as a person, and much more.

Below is the transcript from Hickman's portion of the show:

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Terry Foster: My first question would be, as far as the sourcing for your newspaper, what the policy is and also, I know you’re not going to say who told you that, but just how comfortable these sources are and how well you know them. I think that’s a question I would love to know, too.

Dave Hickman: The sources are very highly placed and I have complete trust in them. You were talking about gospel, the fact that there were documents destroyed I think is gospel. I think even when Mike Brown responded (Tuesday) on Rich’s behalf, he sort of band-handedly admitted that there had been some documents destroyed because he said anything that was destroyed or taken was of a personal note. So there’s no question that some documents were destroyed, the question is what they were.

TF: And to be honest, when he made his statement, that is when I said you know what, something major did happen here. He said there were inaccuracies in the report, he never said the report was inaccurate and there’s a big difference.

DH: I’m going to boil this down in a nutshell for you because I just finished writing a column for tomorrow that does pretty much the same thing. I think what the documents – you can call them documents, you can call them personal notes, what you want – imagine that you are the CEO of a corporation. You have multiple department heads working under you. And under them, you have 125 employees, which is essentially what your football team is. Anything that happens, whether it be in strength and conditioning or conduct or anything like that, your department heads are going to get that information, your CEO is going to get that information. Now your department heads, they may or may not keep on file all of that information, they know in fact that the CEO is keeping all of that information in detailed form, so they know that it’s always available to them. Then all of a sudden the CEO leaves, he takes most of his department heads with him, then this is the part that doesn’t make much sense to me. He spends - and we have this on pretty reliable information – that he spends hours upon hours shredding that information. Information that has nothing to do with the new job that he has taken. Now you can look at it from the standpoint that ‘Maybe he had something to hide.’ Well that’s the worst case scenario, and I’m not going to take that attitude toward it because I’ve known Rich for a long time and I don’t think that there’s anything in those files that incriminates anyone in any way regarding anything. At the same time, there’s nothing in those finals, I don’t think, regarding those players that could possibly help him in his role at Michigan. There is a ton of information that would be tremendously valuable to the people he left behind. Not only the assistant coaches and the staff, but the players himself that he recruited, that would be tremendously valuable to them as they try to recover and move on from him leaving. Yet he spends all of that time trying to destroy that evidence and all of his records and I just can’t come to any conclusion that it’s just a spiteful and vengeful thing and he’s trying to burn his bridges and he just doesn’t want West Virginia to succeed behind him. Do you see any other explanation there?

Mike Valenti: No, Dave, that’s what we came to (Tuesday). It’s a two-pronged attack. One, he’s being spiteful and really, really low about it. And two, you’ve got to understand from an outsider’s perspective, we’ve seen guys like Pat Lazier end up at West Virginia, we’ve seen guys like Noel Devine end up at West Virginia, guys that no one else would touch, and Rich Rod got them there. I’ve always raised an eyebrow with Rich Rodriguez. I defer to you, you know the man. I don’t. That’s what we came to the conclusion about. This was just a spiteful, vengeful move to set back the new regime. Why he would do that to his alma mater, apparently we’re going to have to wait for the $4 million lawsuit to come out.

DH: You guys know that he filed his response to that (Wednesday?)

MV: Really?

DH: I have not seen it yet.

MV: Neither have we

DH: But the one thing that I do know about it is that he’s attempting to get it moved to federal court.

MV: Let me ask you a question as it pertains to Rich Rodriguez – I don’t want to go down the path of the $4 million buyout – the other issue we wanted to cover with you Dave … is Rich Rodriguez the man? There’s a lot of here say with Rich Rodriguez, there’s a lot of stories about Rich Rodriguez. You know the man, you’ve covered the man. What is he? What are we getting here in Ann Arbor, Michigan?

DH: I’ve actually known the guy since he was in high school. I actually covered him when he was playing in high school and have seen him grow up. He’s a very ambitious guy, he’ll do anything to succeed. That’s not to say that he’s a bad guy and he’s going to skirt the rules or anything like that, I’ve never seen or had any evidence that he’s been anything less than above board in everything that he’s done. He’s going to go as hard as he possibly can. From that standpoint, you’ve got a great guy there. I have seen over the course of the years that I’ve known him, I’ve seen some aspects of him, I don’t want to say, well, the guy has an ego. If you’re making $2 million a year, what division I coaches don’t have a huge ego? That’s part of it that everybody has to deal with I think. And I think some of that is becoming evident now in what has happened over the course of the past three or four weeks in some of the things that he has done and the way that he has reacted to some of the things that have happened back in West Virginia.

TF: I have three real quick questions. Did he break the law in some of these documents? Were they public documents? If he shredded them, did he break the law? And also, and I understand athletics is different, but a lot of times when you’re fired or you leave a job, there’s security there, they walk you in, you get your belongings and you walk out. Why didn’t the school do this or did they just trust Rich Rodriguez so much that he would do the right thing when he was in that football office?

DH: I think they never envisioned that he would have made an exit like this. Despite maybe some warning signs given that he was calling recruits, this all happened bang bang bang. Maybe in hindsight, which is 20-20, you’ve got to look at Rich calling Terrelle Pryor and other recruits before he had announced to his team that he was leaving. And a full work day basically before he handed in his resignation, he called these recruits and told them he was going to Michigan. And that was pretty much known that afternoon even before he had handed in his resignation. Again, in hindsight I think you have to look at that and maybe raise some red flags and say ‘Hey, do we want to let this guy back in his office to lounge around for a day and clean the thing out? Maybe we should look at this closer and have someone in there with him.’

TF: Real quick, I don’t know if the people you talked to know exactly what was erased, but did he break any laws? Were these public?

DH: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Again, it goes back to my contention that, worst case scenario, by shredding this documents, he has destroyed some sort of incrimination evidence. I do not believe that. I think it simply boils down to not wanting West Virignia to have anything left over from his regime that they could use to further their success.

TF: But he’s a West Virginia man. He played there and coached there. To me, if he did that, that’s a bad man. And I know that you like him, but you don’t do that. Lloyd Carr was a Michigan Man. Bo was a Michigan Man. I can’t imagine him doing that. Rich Rodriguez, West Virginia man. How can you do that to your own school?

MV: Dave, you can respond in a minute, but Terry, I’ve told you this before and Dave, please comment, he’s basically held his alma mater hostage two straight years. The ‘Bama situation as the biggest, most egregious point of that.

DH: I think it goes back to the ego thing. A year ago from the Alabama thing, he got virtually everything he wanted. Now some of it was done in a form that probably didn’t guarantee him something, but West Virginia is basically a small-budget school in relation to Alabama and Michigan. … It’s a very small athletic budget and you do what you can to please him and give him what he wanted. A lot of these things that he asked for as far as facilities, improvements and things like that were contingent upon private donations and they worked their tails off to get those private donations. But I think when it comes around to Michigan this year, he’s looking at it and he’s saying, while they’re working on them, they haven’t quite gotten all of the funding for them or something is just not guaranteed there, and by golly, I’m going to go somewhere where it is guaranteed, where they really do appreciate what I’m doing and they’re willing to fork over the money for it. So goodbye. END

Remember: NO ONE KNOWS if, or what may have been shredded. One would have to assume that just about anything RR had in his office, the assistants had copies of or access to. To think that RR wouldn;t want his ALMA MATER to be successful after he leaves is, well, ridiculous at best. It's almost Valentian.

[tommyz]

Rich Rod did finally coment...

http://www.sportsinferno.com/forums/...ad.php?t=30023

[Zip Goshboots]

Awesome! Thanks tommy. Maybe Valenti and Foster will read it.
Naaaah.

[Zip Goshboots]

This stuff keeps coming faster than Tahoe can relay it to me!!

From Scout:

To-Day

Coach Rod goes into the homes-schools of Boubacar Cissoko and Nick Perry -- this time armed not only with Det.-area recruiter Tony Dews, but also with Def. Coord. Chris Shafer as well. The heavy fire-power!

Fred Jackson is hitting the ACC today to get into the schools of two top junior run-pass QB's:
-- Taj Boyd, a 6-1 QB/CB guy who made Gene Hankerson's Top 15 Army Combiners ( michigan.scout.com/2/717498.html )
-- Kevin Newsome, a 6-3 guy who made Gene's "No Fluff" list of 20 ( michigan.scout.com/2/718992.html )


Oh yeah, and *forgot one on "Yesterday*: LB Coach Jay Hopson was trolling the Deep South yesterday - and visited MS RB Desmond Johnson ( michigan.scout.com/a.z?s=162&a...amp;nid=2895276 ), who ran for over 2,000 yards as a junior but broke his leg after gaining over 1,000 yards in just 4 games his senior year. U-M will shoot for a Jan. 25 visit and things are changing fast for him - he's now visiting S-Miss this weekend, and Memphis Feb. 1st.
We'll add D-Johnson to our "new recruits" list, and drop a few others who have recently committed elsewhere