tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30300136.post4749123262789227850..comments2024-03-15T15:36:03.203-04:00Comments on Wait 'til Next Year, Again: Self-Flagellation, Michigan StyleGary Benzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578834252235902676noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30300136.post-55348061683611442072010-06-06T09:59:02.539-04:002010-06-06T09:59:02.539-04:00Everybody does it is a defense in this instance. ...Everybody does it is a defense in this instance. The NCAA by its own survey recognizes that the 20 hour a week football rule is complete crap as it found players spent on AVERAGE 44.5 hours a week on the sport. (http://chronicle.com/article/College-Football-Players-Spend/395.) The NCAA gets around this farcical 20 week by allowing for "countable" and "non-countable" hours. <br /><br />The compliance department was incompetent. Michigan was severely hampered in its defense because it could not produce the CARA forms differentiating the player's time between "countable" and "non-countable." Their job (not the coaching staff) included completing these CARA forms yet it was not done even during the Carr years as an e-mail from January 2008 proved.<br /><br />Everybody, including OSU, does it especially with these "quality assistance" guys. You failed to mention job descriptions from other programs provided by Michigan in its response where those university's listed "coaching" as a duty. The Columbus Dispatch recently quoted Brian Rolle saying, "It's time for us to get better. Have guys like Marcus Freeman, who's not our position coach, help us do small things and go over things with him." Wait for it - Marcus Freeman is a "quality control" guy. Tressel's staff is today 22 people larger then when he started. Don't tell me those guys are not doing similar things to what was happening at Michigan especially considering the quote above.<br /><br />DR retained the majority of the office staff (including compliance) when he took the job. If the guy planned to cheat from the beginning, he certainly would have fired folks in compliance replacing them with people beholden solely to him for their jobs. He did not do that. <br /><br />Remember that the violations occurred because Michigan wrongly viewed stretching as a "countable hour" putting it over the limit. And it exceeded it by a scant two hours a week. <br /><br />As far as Michigan as a "repeat offender,” the time period of overlap is days. The NCAA needs to exercise common sense and take the nature of this "wrongdoing" in proper perspective. It was not the FAB Five nor even close to Reggie Bush.<br /><br />The sanctions proposed by Michigan followed past precedent. Not sure why Michigan should punish itself more than others found guilty of even worse practice time violations. <br /><br />Please remember what brought the NCAA. A sensational article filled with salacious accusations that Michigan violated practice time by eight hours on Sundays, and went TWICE the legal limit. It quoted unnamed sources for the majority of it. For the only two players by name that were quoted, the "journalists" approached on media day (ignoring a crowded field of other players) two, true freshman who had been on campus less than two months and asking them not about NCAA violations but the transition to college. The NCAA investigation further exposed the article as nothing more than a hatchet job by biased reporters who just don't like DR from the start for whatever reasons perhaps simply because he grew up on a holler and did not know Bo. <br /><br />I will agree with you in one area. Major violations on the football program does not sit well with anyone no matter the cause. It will always remain a black eye to DR's tenure at Michigan no matter when it ends. A big one. I am not sure what you wanted Michigan to do in this instance. The nature of these violations does not justify firing him. His fate should be decided on the field. <br /><br />On that note, DR will take a team into the 2010 season that does not have a proven starting qb or running back and has two new starters on the marginal offensive line. His team must also replace the kicker and punter. His defense is minus its best corner, leading tackler and best player. The leading tackler returning on that defense is a walk on, red-shirt, sophomore safety who has seen two knee surgeries. I do not see this ending well anyway.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com