Morgan Trent should shut his mouth.

DetNews:

Morgan Trent, former U-M cornerback, played one year under Rodriguez: "I'm not surprised because I know what happened, and I know what kind of rules were broken. I couldn't see how they were going to get out of that. "Whatever steps need to be taken (to restore Michigan's winning tradition), I'm all for it. What is happening right now obviously is not working. I don't know how long they're going to let this last until changes are made. This year is going to be the tell-all what's going to happen. We can't have three losing years in a row. Not at Michigan. To lose seven of last eight games (in 2009) is an embarrassment."

You know what else is an embarrassment? Going 3-9, which Morgan Trent was a part of. You know what else is an embarrassment? Losing to Appalachian State, which Morgan Trent was a part of. You know what's embarrassing? Somebody mouthing off without realizing how much he's hurting things, instead choosing to run his mouth and be a selfish ass.

You know what else is embarrassing?


While you're talking to the press Morgan, how bout telling us how Dwayne Jarrett's ass tastes?

I keep hoping that these people -- and ESPECIALLY former players -- will eventually get a clue and just shut the hell up if they're going to talk out of their asses like this. I suppose I'm hoping in vain, though.

A re-post on Lawrence Thomas

So. Now that the 2010 class is all wrapped up, most fans are jumping headfirst into the 2011 class, and for many, this is the first time they start to learn about the elite players in the state, in the country, on the radar for Michigan, etc...

With that comes a lot of repetitive inquiries and questions, and one of the most common revolves around the best player in the state for 2011, 5-star Detroit Renaissance linebacker Lawrence Thomas.


I'll put it as bluntly as I can, and hopefully the message gets out so the questions can stop: It is highly, highly, highly unlikely that Lawrence Thomas comes to Michigan.

Why? A few reasons. One being Michigan State has done a great job building a pipeline to Renaissance High School, landing Chris Norman and Dana Dixon from there two years ago, and Mylan Hicks last year. All three are friends with Lawrence Thomas, with Norman being a "big brother" type. Thomas has been to MSU numerous times, and he chose to go to the MSU/Penn State game last year instead of Michigan/Ohio State. It's crystal clear that he feels more comfortable at State.

Another reason may be this: [Ed. note, 5/17: link removed for the time being]

It's understandable if you're a bit...agitated after watching that (if you're a Michigan fan, that is). I have actually linked that video and discussed this situation here before. But it is what it is, I guess. Antonio Watts is completely off base with his feelings toward Rich Rodriguez and Michigan. Carson Butler and Andre Criswell were not mistreated at UofM. Butler was given every opportunity, by both Lloyd Carr and Rich Rodriguez. They kept opening doors for him, and he kept slamming them shut. He wore out his welcome with his antics. Look, it's obvious that Coach Watts cares about the players that come through his school, and he wants them to succeed in life and be all they can be. But sometimes you have to admit when one of them just screws up instead of blaming other people. Is Thomas Wilcher holding a grudge against Rodriguez because of what happened with Boubacar Cissoko? No, and it has nothing to do with Wilcher being a "UM guy." He could just as easily fall into the anti-RR camp of "Michigan guys." Would've been really easy to make up some crap about Cissoko being done wrongly at UofM. But Wilcher chose not to do that, because he realizes that Cissoko's problems were one person's fault: Cissoko's. It's a shame that Coach Watts can't see the same about Carson Butler.

And as for Criswell? He was a 2-star fullback that Lloyd Carr offered late in the recruiting process. He was never in trouble, was a model citizen...he just wasn't good enough to get onto the field much ahead of other players on the roster. He decided to stick it out, and was given a graduate assistant spot on Rich Rodriguez's staff. In what world is this some form of mistreatment? He gets a world-class education (for free) and gets a job on a coaching staff involved in the game he loves? If that's being treated badly, sign me up.

Moral of the story: For whatever reason, whether it be the perception that Rich Rodriguez ignores in-state players, some negative recruiting by Mark Dantonio, or something else, Antonio Watts doesn't like UM (or RR, either way, it doesn't matter). Fact is, Lawrence Thomas ain't comin' to Michigan, folks. Yeah, it blows. Superbeast of a middle linebacker in our own backyard, and we're not going to get a serious look. The world's not a fair place.

Time to move on.

Hey You

	Pink Floyd - Hey You
	Found at skreemr.com

I'm not going to comment about Demar Dorsey. I'm not going to comment on him for a couple reasons: One, there is no coach in the country that deliberately seeks out bad character kids for their program, nor is there any coach in the country that doesn't do due dilligence when it comes to finding out about a kid's background. Two, I trust Brian at MGoBlog almost implicitly. If he says he has a source that told him Vance Bedford (two-time UM assistant under Carr) called Rodriguez and personally vouched for Demar Dorsey's character, that's good enough for me.

I'm also not going to comment (much) on people like Drew Sharp and Dave Birkett. Sharp is what he is - a miserable, trollish sonofabitch who has admitted he doesn't care what fans think. He's a megalomaniacal bomb thrower only interested in poking the hornet's nest and then laughing as the swarm futilely stings at his bee suit. His comments were stupid, ignorant and pompous - three character traits he is intimately familiar with. I will take pleasure in watching his industry continue to wither away into irrelevancy. If there is a God, he will sink with it.

As for Birkett, well...he writes for AnnArbor.com. Why? Because the Ann Arbor News went under. Wanna know a good way to accelerate your demise (aside from being an obsolete medium of news information)? Hire guys that loathe the biggest thing in the town you're based in. Guys like Jim Carty and Michigan State University graduate Dave Birkett. Birkett is insignificant. He was fishing at the Signing Day presser, trying to show the room he had the balls to stand up to the 8-16 Michigan coach. If Rich Rodriguez was 16-8 instead, he tells Birkett to shut up, and it's done. If Lloyd Carr was still the coach and he heard a question from Birkett he didn't like, he would give a glare, and roughly 3.9 seconds later, Dave Birkett hustles out of the room with a dark stain on the front of his pants.

A few things interest me. Like how the Free Press can have an extensive seven-page background check into a teenage kid's past completed and ready to go in a little over a day. I'm interested in that. I'm interested in how much longer it will take for someone - anyone - inside Michigan's athletic department to show some kind - any kind - of support for their coach. I mean, you hired the guy, and he's getting raked over the coals (again). Wouldn't it be smart business to fight back, to stick up for the man you picked to represent your biggest product? Unless...maybe after two years of horror on the football field, some people of importance have secretly decided that an awful mistake was made in mid-December 2007, and they're now subtlely feeding the beast intent on running the man out of here. Beats me. I'm just musing.

But the double standards are still piling up. Michigan State allows Glenn Winston onto the practice field the same day he gets out of jail, and someone at the Freep (it might've been Sharp, actually) says that might've been naughty. Michigan kicks a drug dealer off the team immediately after learning about his habits, and Rosenberg's got his "win at all costs" column ready to go. These "journalists" hide behind the charade of wanting to do what's right and maintaining a standard of decency and integrity at the University of Michigan, when in reality Rosenberg doesn't like Rodriguez because he (Rosenberg) is an elitist snob who can't stand seeing a "hillbilly" coaching his alma mater. When in reality, nobody would be saying anything if Rodriguez was winning. In the end, these "journalists" are just as shallow as the rest of us - they aren't looking out for core values like integrity and personal responsibility. They are interested in the darker sides of humanity. They're interested in advancing their own beliefs and interests at the expense of someone they passed judgment on long ago.

Just wait for it. If they succeed in their jihad, and Rodriguez is gone, wait for the reaction if Jim Harbaugh is hired. Wait for the media stroking about how Michigan righted a wrong and brought a Michigan Man back to Michigan. Watch as they gloss over Harbaugh's own run-ins with the law, as they conveniently forget the words Harbaugh spewed about UofM. They will burn Rodriguez about his recruiting methods, and will cover their ears when confronted with Harbaugh's practice at Stanford of blindly taking commitments from kids only to have to drop them in November and December because Stanford's admissions were too tough and Harbaugh never should've taken them in the first place. Harbaugh is no cleaner than Rodriguez, but because of the Detroit media's bizarre xenophobic attitude toward the latter, the former would be greeted like a king should he return to the place he spat on three years ago. It's selective memory and sleazy, irresponsible, bullshit journalism like that that is driving the newspaper industry into the ground, and I welcome it. I have true, genuine disdain (I won't say "hate", but it's probably closer to that) for people like Mark Snyder and Michael Rosenberg (along with the rest of them, really). Does anybody actually believe either of these "journalists" care about NCAA rules? They're both Michigan grads. Snyder has been to many, many Michigan games, not as a "journalist", but as a fan. Do you think he really would have a problem with Michigan players exceeding the allowed practice time to - gasp - improve as football players? No. Their issue is squarely with Rodriguez, and it's personal to them. Jim Schaefer, who apparently wrote the latest hit piece (I haven't read it, won't click the Freep links, etc)...he is an Ohio State grad. Letting an Ohio State graduate and two virulent anti-Rodriguez shills report on the ins and outs of Michigan football and Michigan recruiting...and Free Press editor Paul Anger lets it go on, even encourages it.

My endgame is this, and I hinted at it a while back, but sadly, I'm starting to firmly believe it: 2010 is starting to look like the end for Rodriguez at Michigan. Not because of one specific incident, but because of everything. The list is long, we all know what's gone on. But the longer we hear silence from the UofM athletic department, the longer we can only assume that it will take an enormous improvement in 2010 to save Rodriguez. Could it happen? Maybe. I could definitely see an 8-win team. Would an 8-5 season calm the storm? In a perfect world, yes.

But as we've all become painfully aware of, since we lost Bo in November 2006, nothing is perfect about this situation, this university, this athletic department, and this football program.