Hail to the Victors 2010

Last year, despite living 2.5 hours away from Ann Arbor, I bought season tickets for Michigan football. It may have been my undying allegiance to the Forcier family--born of living with a former teammate of Jason Forcier and Jason's overwhelming friendliness the few times we hung out--or the fact that, confronted with truly living on my own for the first time, in a city in which I knew no one and was covered in Scarlet and Gray, no less, that Michigan football was one of the few connections I had to the previous four years of my life. So on eight separate occasions last fall (yes, even for the Delaware State game), I threw a few pairs of underwear and shirts in a traveling suitcase, as well as my laptop and a copy of Hail to the Victors 2009 in my backpack, and made the 2.5 hour drive to Ann Arbor to watch the team go 5-3 at home.

That copy of Hail to the Victors was read and re-read countless times. It served as my lockbox for that weekend's ticket and has seen its cover bent and bruised from use and college-like substances. It still sits out in my apartment atop various books and comics that I bought and should read. This year's will almost certainly be as good. I'm excited about this. You should be too. Buy it here.

ED note: Yes, really, two posts in one day. The offseason has obviously been slow around these parts but I've never concerned myself too much with the media mumbo-jumbo and recruiting that take place during this time. Regular posts should begin again near the time of fall practice.

2010 Student Shirts

Student shirts are here. And they're some kind of awesome.

David Brandon: Media sledgehammer

David Brandon is not playing around. After getting around to looking at a bit of the University's response to the NCAA, there's this little bit of media annihilation:

Although media reports in late August 2009 brought much public attention to the issue of potential countable athletically related activities ("CARA") violations, the University was already aware o the absence of CARA forms for the football program... When the media reports painted a picture of serious student-athlete abuse, the University immediately investigated these claims, as its primary concern has always been the welfare of its student-athletes. The NCAA Enforcement Staff joined the investigation a few days later. While the joint investigation revealed rules violations in the football program, including some of the CARA and Bylaw 11.7 violations mentioned in the articles, the University is satisfied that the initial media reports were greatly exaggerated if not flatly incorrect.

Dear Free Press, you're not playing with amateurs anymore and have been openly called out by the University of Michigan on your fabrications. David Brandon found a way to make the worst pizza chain on the planet into a profitable entity largely through marketing. Dude is going to Death Star any bad press that comes Michigan's way.

Self flogging

And the heavens opened and the NCAA looked down upon Michigan and said, "Michigan you have sinned." And Michigan looked back and shrugged.

So after all of the Free Press allegations and chatter and nonsense for the last year, Michigan finally had a chance to put all of it to bed when they sent 168 pages of a response to the NCAA concerning the rules violations. The takeaway: Michigan is going to take their beating for exactly what they did; nothing more, nothing less. The grand total of their self-imposed sanctions include:

• Limiting quality control staff in meetings
• Reducing mandatory practice hours by 130 hours over the next two years
• Public reprimand (BOOM REPRIMANDED)
• Firing Alex Herron who has been fired for months now
• Probation, two years

And.... that's it. Michigan didn't cheat when it comes to recruiting so they're not limiting coaches in recruiting. They didn't play with any ineligible players so they're not losing any scholarships. A TV and postseason ban are obviously out of the question. The point is, Michigan looked at what they did wrong, looked at what the NCAA wanted, and imposed sanctions directly in response to their malfeasances; there will be no symbolic penalties here.

Whether or not the NCAA will respond with something more severe is yet to be seen, but as Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Big Ten blogger points out, the blame has been spread around here:

Michigan definitely spreads the blame around in its response. The compliance office takes a beating, as do Scott Draper, the school's assistant athletic director for football, and Brad Labadie, the school's director of football operations. I think it's significant that several of the people reprimanded don't have firm ties to Rodriguez and were at Michigan during the previous coaching regime.

Because of the way Michigan structured it's response, it's basically saying that this was a comedy of errors rather than anything malicious or intentional. This is the crux of Michigan's leniency on itself. They even go so far as to mention that no player's welfare or health was put into question etc. etc. Michigan is making its case and passive aggressively striking back at the NCAA. I think they're hitting the right notes and shouldn't incur any more or any more substantial penalties when the NCAA passes down its final judgment.

The thing that's most interesting is reading through Rodriguez's response to the NCAA (I didn't read through the University's because I presume it's basically what you'd expect). Rodriguez's statement basically tears apart the NCAA rules and makes a pretty solid case for him not being responsible for the stuff that went on here (he wasn't):

The bylaw does not impose strict liability upon a head coach for all violations that occur in his program. The rationale for the bylaw states: [A] violation of the proposed bylaw will occur only in major infractions cases, similar to institutional control allegations, or in very serious secondary cases. This proposal does not imply that every violation by a staff member or student-athlete involved in the head coach’s program will be considered a lack of control on the party of the head coach.

Who wants to talk about the quarterback competition?

Before Armageddon

So tomorrow is the day when we'll get one of the last pieces of the NCAA infractions puzzle: Michigan's response to the allegations including their self-imposed sanctions. Via AnnArbor.com:

Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said last week the university will make its response public on Tuesday. The response is expected to include a period of probation and loss of practice time, and Michigan already has made internal changes to its compliance practices and Rodriguez’s coaching staff.

That's basically what everyone is expecting and should anything more serious be dished out, either internally or handed down by the NCAA itself after reviewing the documents, expect my head to explode shortly after burning down every USC athletic facility.

But if history tells us anything, Michigan should get hit with the sybolic-est of symbolic penalties along with various other inconveniences. After the letters of inquiry came out, I started digging through just about every NCAA infraction case I could get my hands on. The most relevant case I found was one concerning Florida International that had a whole bunch of similarities to the Michigan case, including a coach/quality control assistant stupid enough to lie to the NCAA and subsequently get sent to a lookout post in Alaska. FIU's self-imposed sanctions are as such:

The good news? The sanctions aren't really all that damning. Florida International self-imposed several sanctions, none of which were all that painful (paraphrased): 1. Fired the coach that lied to the NCAA committee 2. Reduced the amount of coaches allowed for the next season by one. The one that was removed was the coach doing improper training who, in the Michigan case, were quality control folk. This might be a problem for the new linebacker coach we just hired, but no one else really. 3. Lost four fall camp practices 4. For every hour of impremissable practice, the team sacrificed two hours of mandatory practice/conditioning. 5. Reduction of one coach in off-campus recruiting visits 6. A few penalties against the AD that won't apply to the Michigan case because of Brandon coming in and tidying up 7. Loss of money, written reprimand, loss of bonuses, and having to attend meetings and other meaningless things imposed on the coach. 8. #7 only for S&C coaches and assistants.

So tomorrow, we're likely to read a similar list of penalties self-imposed on the program in far more scary, the-sky-is-falling language. Prepare for a wrist slap disguised as a crippling blow; these are "major violations", mind you. You will be informed of any changes or updates as they come down.