February 2008

So I'm flying to NYC today for some R&R. Had planned on getting content up but things are a bit more hectic than I expected. Woo for lack of planning... no content today. Content will be sporadic next week, but not nonexistent.

Brian (or whoever reads this email),

My name is Josh and I was one of the OSU students up in section 47 and the one who actually started the chant. Indeed, we were chanting Tres-sel and had no idea that what we were saying would be misheard as ass-hole. Only later when an employee, not an usher, came running up the steps to our section did we realize what had happened. He asked us what we chanted because they all thought we were chanting ass-hole on the court. Frankly, we were shocked. We quickly apologized and said we chanting Tres-sel and made it clear that we would never chant ass-hole.

We can't speak for other Ohio State fans just as you can't speak for other Michigan fans, but I would like to assure you that we would never dishonor Mr. Rodriguez or any other staff/faculty/student with that type of a chant (though some of the commenters on the article would not be quick to believe).

I hope you can understand that we were only trying to rekindle the spirit of our Rivalry, the best in college sports, not to trash talk your new coach. We hope that Mr. Rodriguez can throw more fire into the Rivalry and make our future games more enjoyable for both sides. Trust me, while a victory over you guys in football is awesome, the dominance that Tressel has had these past couple of years has really taken the edge off the Rivalry. I think my favorite game, as a Senior at OSU, was the game two years ago in the Big House. Our Rivalry needs more games like that. I am sick and tired of hearing how the SEC has better rivalry games than we do, and we are glad at least you were able to take care of an SEC team in your postseason, while of late we have been less than stellar...but we are improving.

On a funny side note, we had ushers up in the section threatening to throw us out. Obviously we weren't and we weren't jeering them. But they did say that you guys don't do anything like that at our stadium, which we were quick to remind him that there are students/fans that do worse to us. But, we never swore at them or did anything to offend them except remind them of our rights to free speech.

To conclude, I hope that this email clears up the confusion of what happened at the game yesterday, and so you at least know that there are indeed classy Buckeye fans that do want our Rivalry to be the best it has ever been. Congratulations for winning yesterday and we look forward to seeing you guys in the Big Ten Tournament and at the Shoe next year. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me back. I've always believed that we can be rivals on the field but work together off the field to better one another.

Go Bucks........and *cringe* Go Blue

Josh Friedman

I've gotten a couple other emails to this effect, though none quite so restrained, and must conclude that they're telling the truth and that they weren't chanting "asshole," for what that's worth. It's still rude to scream throughout someone's speech and the idea that the rivalry needs to be "rekindled" a year after a #1-#2 game is pretty laughable. I wouldn't have attempted to compare Michigan fans' dastardly tendency to invade Columbus and get harassed and physically threatened with their actions, either. But FWIW.

On the topic of Vijay's nonbinding LOI idea:

I see one problem with the NBLOI idea you discussed - Roundtree would still be at Purdue. It sounds like he never would have left unless he had known Michigan was interested. He couldn't have learned that under an NBLOI, because Rod couldn't talk to him.

Response?

Jason

Maybe, maybe not. In our hypothetical world where the NBLOI is an option, it's just an option. Roundtree might have "committed" to Purdue without signing the NBLOI. And even if he had, Michigan could communicate their interest through Roundtree's coach, and at that point Roundtree could ask for the NBLOI to be rescindent. Joe Tiller would then get to offer that Ball State kid.

If that sounds like it kind of defeats the purpose of the NBLOI... well, sort of. There still couldn't be direct contact if the player had signed and the kid couldn't go on a campus visit. Someone like Michael Shaw would either have not signed in the first place or signed, then repealed his NBLOI; either would be a clear signal to Penn State that Shaw's "commitment" was not particularly strong. Despite the tussle with BSD after Signing Day, I do sympathize Penn State and Purdue's positions here, especially Purdue's. (Penn State should have seen the Shaw thing coming, and indeed most PSU fans were fretting about a potential defection for a couple weeks before it actually happened; the Roundtree thing was much more sudden.) The NBLOI and the mechanisms would put some actual teeth behind the idea of a "commitment," would save coaches and players time, annoyance, and effort, and would create even more jobs in the ever-expanding NCAA bureaucracy. Everyone wins.

Hearing rumors about a damaging article that he [Carty and the AANews] is about to publish about athletic department violations...any comments on this?

Dan

I haven't heard anything specific that hasn't been batted around on message boards, but there's enough independent smoke out there that, yes, there's something nasty coming down the pipe from the Ann Arbor News. There appear to be two camps of panickers:

• Aieeee! Florida State!
• This is going to be embarrassing, but that's all.

I don't know which side to believe but lean towards the latter out of simple disbelief that anyone in the Michigan program would have the sort of underhanded dealings that the FSU people did.

If I had to guess, I would say that the big reveal is going to be something like the recent USC and Auburn quasi-scandals where kids finagled their way into easy classes and/or abused "independent study" with cooperative professors without the cooperation of the athletic department. In the Auburn case they had someone rat out a professor whose independent "study" classes were wholly fictional; here I've heard different versions of the severity involved. One skeptical take from a message board I frequent that jives with other things I've heard:

The gist of it is that Carty's jihad against the general studies program has led nowhere. It's a real program with lots of non-athletes (as well as athletes) in it. But lots and lots of FOIA requests led to something that is somewhat troubling (although not out of compliance).

It turns out that a bunch of athletes have enrolled in independent study courses over the summer. These are legitimate courses, but arranged one-on-one with faculty members. Turns out there were a bunch of them in Psychology and the Ed School over the past few years, many supervised by just a few faculty.

It appears that the work was actually done, and non-athletes did similar work. But it's not too difficult to portray this as a scandal, which it appears that Mr. Disingenuous is trying very hard to do. Not making a lot of progress, but this will be the basis of his bid for immortality and a ticket to a real newspaper.

Remember, there do not appear to be violations here. It's not an Auburn situation where kids got grades for no work.

If all they've got is "isn't it suspicious, hmmmmmmmm" but the kids have actually done the work required of them this will be a big dud, albeit an irritating one that will work its way into the "scUM" lore of PSU, MSU, OSU, and ND message boards.

There is the separate question "should athletes be taking independent study classes en masse," the answer to which is definitely "no." But that's life when you have players spending something like 40 hours a week year-round on their chosen sport.

A disclaimer on the "You May Remember Me From Such Players As": YMRMFSPA is supposed to be a rough estimate of what kind of player the recruit could turn into if he pans out. It is not a projection. The players listed tend to be very good because no one knows what kind of player Doug Dutch is; we just know he can't get on the field. I am not saying that I expect Martavious Odoms to be Devin Hester, the best return man in the history of the NFL. I'm saying that Odoms is sort of like Devin Hester and if we roll a *second* critical hit on our initial critical hit roll he might be half as good.

End disclaimer. On with shew.

Actually, more disclaimer: YMRMFSPAs are really stupid for OL and these should be taken even less seriously than the others.

Dann O'Neill

Grand Haven, Michigan - 6'8" 285
		Scout	4*, #14 OT, #147 overall
		Rivals	4*, #10 OT, #49 overall
		ESPN	82, #4 OT, #69 overall
		Others	#66 to TAKKLE, #58 to Lemming.
		Other Suitors	MSU, Notre Dame
		YMRMFSPA	Jake Long. No pressure.
Previously On MGoBlog	Not much.
Notes	Had excellent taste in hairstyles.

Dann O'Neill might be Michigan's most critical recruit. The only tackles in the last two recruiting classes are incumbent RT Steve Schilling, three-star Perry Dorrestein, and two-star sleeper (as in "only had offers from MAC schools" sleeper) Mark Huyge. Finding two starting tackles from that group once the Zirbel-Ortmann class graduates in two years was looking very risky.

Enter O'Neill, a player four of five services rank around #50 or #60 in the country and amongst the top dozen or half-dozen OTs in the country. His highlight reel is your standard elite OL reel, where a guy who looks like two kids pulling the old "let's look like an adult by wearing a trenchcoat and standing on each others' shoulders" trick goes "fe fi fo fum" and humiliates the various irritating rodents he finds in his path. Which is to say it's awesome:

O'Neill committed very early and never seriously considered anywhere other than Michigan. (This will be a new experience for Rich Rodriguez going forward: "wait... you just want to come here? Before you've even met me? Uh... okay!")

He then bounced around both sites' top 100 lists, briefly dropping out because he's a committed OL from an unsexy place before putting in an impressive performance at the Under Armor game*. He was one of the best OL there. Rivals moved him up to #49 from outside the top 100; Scout remains relatively skeptical. At 6'8" and around 300 pounds, O'Neill is a prototypical left tackle who spent his high school career blocking in a spread offense similar to Rodriguez's. He's reputed to be a highly advance pass blocker and might end up on the field this fall. Much rides on how he pans out.

*(The Under Armor game is an ESPN-affiliated high school all star game just established; it competes with the Army game for the top high school talent and is another reason Lemming got to jam the Army Bowl with debatably worthy ND commits.)

Guru Reliability: Maximal. They got a good long look at the all-star game.
General Excitement Level: Maximal with standard OL caveat. O'Neill has all the markers.
Projection: Will start at some point, hopefully later (say, as a redshirt sophomore) rather than sooner (say, this fall). Probably the most important recruit in the class after a year with only one OT and that a guy we stole from the MAC.

Kurt Wermers

Crown Point, Indiana - 6'3" 278
		Scout	4*, #11 OG, #287 overall
		Rivals	3*, #37 G
		ESPN	78, #20 OG
		Lemming	NR
		Other Suitors	Purdue, UCLA, Iowa
		YMRMFSPA	Matt Lentz?
Previously On MGoBlog	Kurt Wermers commits.
Notes	Will pwn you, n00b. Then will break out in a chorus of "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?" Commit article.

When Kurt Wermers committed in May, I snarkily justified the lack of information in the his commitment post:

The reader is invited to speculate on how much freely available info there is on moderately to not particularly hyped guards from Indiana. Yep.

Uh... well, over the past nine months that's changed. There's even video! Wermers is the right guard, #70:

If you're like me, this taught you nothing. But there's video, man. For a guard.

Other salutary notes: Wermers was named Indiana's top offensive lineman. Though that may be a modest accomplishment for a guy who plans at playing for Michigan, there was another notable lineman in Indiana this year: Notre Dame commit Braxton Cave. Wermers was also named to the stupidly named "Offense-Defense Bowl" in Miami. The OD bowl appears to be a sort of second-tier all star game. Big whoop, except for the press release announcing the selection:

Wermers, a veritable renaissance man whose hobbies include weightlifting, playing guitar, singing, and reading, also enjoys spending time on the virtual field of battle in the wildly popular massively multiplayer role-playing game World of Warcraft when not battling in the trenches on the football field.

This dovetails with information from May about Wermer's participation in... an a capella group:

"I love it," Wermers said of singing. "It gives me a chance to get away from big jocky athletic guys and hang out with a different group of people."

I don't think we'll be having any discipline issues with young Mr. Wermers. It's just a feeling.

Guru Reliability: Low? I mean, you've got one that says meh, one that's pretty enthusiastic, and one in between.
General Excitement Level: I will ignore the WoW-a capella red flags and say "moderate." But if I hear anything about Wermers joining MUSKET, I'm writing him off.
Projection: 50-50 to be a decent interior line starter after the requisite couple years of bench time.

Elliot Mealer

Toledo, Ohio - 6'6" 280
		Scout	4*, #28 OT, #267 overall
		Rivals	4*, #24 OT, #213 overall
		ESPN	77, #42 OT
		Others	NR
		Other Suitors	MSU, Purdue
		YMRMFSPA	Matt Stenavich(?)
Previously On MGoBlog	Brief commit mention.
Notes	Scouting video.

A lifelong Ohio State fan, Elliot Mealer had the misfortune to enter his senior year of high school at the same time Mike Adams and highly-touted company did. By summer a number of highly rated recruits had committed and Mealer was informed Ohio State would not offer him. Michigan did, and soon after Mealer undertook an ambitious redecoration project in his bedroom:

With Brutus Buckeye staring down at him from one wall, and "The Ohio State University" emblazoned on another, Mealer was able to sort things out and make a decision he said he feels comfortable with.

"Michigan was my number one school for a long time, and after I talked it over with my family and then slept on it, the decision to go there felt great," Mealer said. "All signs pointed north for me. And as far as my room and all the Ohio State stuff - I'll just have to figure that out."

After Mealer's early decision, things went silent in his recruitment until the coaching changeover, when he re-affirmed his commitment to Michigan, and the horrific Christmas Eve accident that killed his father and girlfriend and temporarily paralyzed his brother. Which is obviously about the worst thing that could happen to anyone.

If this blog was not a monument to the lack of perspective often brought about by intense sports fandom, the evaluation would stop here. But it is what it is, and on we go.

Though he's universally projected at tackle by both schools and recruiting services, Mealer actually played tight end and defensive end for Wauseon. This didn't work out that well for Tim McAvoy, a high school tight end who came in as part of the 2005 class and is now struggling for playing time along the line's interior, but McAvoy was about 30 pounds lighter than Mealer in high school and was an unregarded three-star. Mealer's in the same star range as Jake Long -- how's that for an unfair comparison?

ESPN's scouting report($) has a lot of technique criticisms but similar praise for his potential, and they're the service most down on him. He'll take some time for a variety of reasons both serious and mundane, but has a high ceiling.

Guru Reliability: Medium. Take OL ratings lightly except for the very top guys.
General Excitement Level: Moderate.
Projection: Definite redshirt and it might take a couple years before he comes around. He'll be starting slowly since he tore his rotator cuff in the accident. He's got to learn a new position and deal with all the trauma on top of that. I would expect the first time he's seriously mentioned for playing time is three years from now, after Schilling graduates.

Rocko Khoury

Traverse City, Michigan - 6'6" 280
		Scout	3*, #65 OT
		Rivals	3*, #47 OT
		ESPN	70, #94 OG
		Lemming	NR.
		Other Suitors	MSU
		YMRMFSPA	Uh, that other un-touted guard person.
Previously On MGoBlog	Hopefully We Can Lock Up Bullwinkle, Too
Notes	Also a crappy rapper.

Khoury was a camp offer who committed about a week later; his only other BCS offer was from Michigan State. Michigan initially planned to redshirt him and move him to guard or center (he was a tackle in high school, as almost all D-I prospects are), but Rodriguez called him a tackle at the signing day press conference, for what that's worth. Probably.

As an early-commit interior lineman from a lightly populated area of the state, that's about all we know about Rocko. Thanks to the intrepid inve
stigatory skills of West Virginia newspapermen we know that Rodriguez called him from the wrong cell phone; the one potentially useful piece of information we have is a 4.16 shuttle time at the Chicago Nike camp. For comparison, electron-sized Martavious Odoms ran a 4.12 at his combine. Like most of the linemen in this class, Khoury is on the (relatively) nimble end of the spectrum; no Alex Mitchell he.

Guru Reliability: Low-ish. Obscure location, early commit, lineman.
General Excitement Level: Meh. Camp offer of a sleeper-ish lineman is a Michigan tradition, and he's this year's version. GBW sums it up:

He has the look of a player who can contribute down the road.

Projection: A couple years in the weight room, then he's another bullet in the chamber.

Ricky Barnum

Lake Gibson, Florida- 6'2" 280
		Scout	3*, #17 OG
		Rivals	4*, #5 C
		ESPN	80, #4 OG
		Others	NR
		Other Suitors	Florida, USF, Georgia, GaTech
		YMRMFSPA	Rod Payne?
Previously On MGoBlog	Nothin'
Notes	Don't piss his mom off. Enjoys Barwis, snow.

Various people are probably irritated with Ricky Barnum: Urban Meyer, for one. Also OH OL Zebrie Sanders, who tried to commit to Florida but was told to talk to the hand because Barnum and another player had filled Florida's OL quotient for the year. Sanders, also rejected by Georgia for the same reason, ended up at Florida State and Urban ended up short one highly recruited interior lineman. Not that anyone will ever shed a tear for Urban Meyer.

Anyway, in Barnum Michigan has a highly rated, highly recruited interior lineman. Though Scout is relatively down on him, Rivals gives him four stars and rates him one of the country's best centers. ESPN is even more enthusiastic, giving him a very strong 80 ranking and placing him just outside their top 150. He had offers commensurate with his ranking: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Georgia Tech, South Florida, and 25 others.

Barnum's strength is his quickness. "He's got great feet and can get to the next level," says his coach. More:

"He finishes blocks better than Jason Watkins ever did. He can really get to the next level. He keeps his feet, engages the linebackers, has great balance and he plays through the whistle. Sometimes his style of playing through the whistle cost us some penalties, but he's got that attitude that you want to see from your offensive linemen. The Gators [sic!] are getting a good one and he's just a good coachable kid."

The Rodriguez system prizes mobility, and Barnum has that.

A caveat: at 6'2" he's an inch or two shorter than your ideal interior lineman. This is usually fine at center but not preferred at guard (and unacceptable at tackle). He's a center, right? Big deal. Well, one of the two offensive linemen Michigan picked up last year is David Molk, who is also an undersized OL most feel is destined for center. Maybe height isn't that big a deal in the Rodriguez offense. If it is, it would be hard for both to win starting jobs simultaneously.

Barnum on his decision process:

Rodriguez, who visited Lake Gibson after Barnum committed to Florida, was a major factor in his decision. Barnum noted that he likely would have gone to West Virginia had Rodriguez stayed there. His visit to Michigan also played a part.

"When I went up to Michigan, everything was nice," he said. "They run the same offense we ran, the spread offense. They graduated three starting offensive lineman and four backups. Where could you go possibly wrong with that one?"

Well, Ricky, ask the quarterback next year.

Guru Reliability: High. Seems about the right spread for a guy recruited by many of the top teams in the SEC who doesn't have ideal size.
General Excitement Level: High. Florida, Georgia, and Alabama all wanted this kid.
Projection: Likely to start after a couple years.

(HT on some of the links above: Conquering Heroes.)

Patrick Omameh

Columbus(!), Ohio - 6'6" 260
		Scout	3*, #87 OT
		Rivals	2*, NR
		ESPN	69, #113 OT
		Lemming	NR
		Other Suitors	MSU, OSU, Cincinnati
		YMRMFSPA	????
Previously On MGoBlog	Pronunciation Check In Aisle OL
Notes	Smarter than you.

Omameh was one of the late decommitments Michigan picked up, choosing Michigan over Cincinnati (his original destination) and Michigan State after a senior-year growth spurt added two inches and 30 pounds to his frame.

He's the lowest ranked player in the class but there are positive indicators for his future, the most prominent being the Ohio State offer he picked up a couple hours after his Michigan commitment. While it was a plan B offer sent after highly touted West Virginian Josh Jenkins decided to stay home, an OSU offer is an OSU offer, especially when the Buckeyes are bringing in three five-star offensive linemen. It indicates talent not reflected in his guru ratings, and maybe just a little bit of a desire to screw Michigan at the last second. Omameh did not bite.

Omameh is smallish and nimble, a good fit for the spread 'n' shred. A BuckeyePlanet scouting report:

Perfect frame for adding weight. Solid center prospect but could eventually project on either side of the ball or at offensive guard. In the DeSales offense he is usually asked to crab block and then get to the second level, which is not necessarily easy to do. Because of that technique he shows good quickness and great flexibility. Not strong enough right now but can work on that during his first few years to help generate better push up front and better drive off the snap. Initial contact is decent but needs to get stronger to push people aorund. Great motor and great hustle. Along with his strength needs to work on his punch in passing situations and needs to work more from the knees rather than the waist.

Also, was a first team all-state pick this past season in DII.

As noted above, quickness and flexibility are at a premium in the Rodriguez offense (and the zone stretch game Michigan ran the last two years with lumberers like Alex Mitchell and Rueben Riley).

A bonus: Omameh has a 4.0 GPA, so should pick up the offense quickly and maybe tutor his teammates in biology. There are conflicting reports as to whether Omameh was recruited as a center (where his intelligence would help with the line calls) or tackle; that will get sorted out somewhere down the line.

Guru Reliability: Very low. Omameh is a true sleeper.
General Excitement Level: Moderate. Though he's got the proverbial upside, he remains a project.
Projection: Will need a year or more likely two before he's even in the conversation for a starting job, but has as much of a chance to contribute as anyone in the class other than O'Neill.

Grading The Class

Forgot to do this for receiver and TE; will make it up in a general roundup post later.

B+. Picking up a premiere left tackle prospect was a necessity after a couple years of questionable depth and sleeper recruits, and Michigan did that by locking down O'Neill. Numbers were also at a premium with only two kids in the last class, and Michigan got numbers; the late pickup of a top-five-ish interior lineman committed to Florida was a major boon and the guy at the tail end of the class had an Ohio State offer.

In two years this class of linemen will be redshirt sophomores and there will be four upperclass OL on the roster, three of whom are tackles. At least two members of this class will be starting by then and, since O'Neill is a tackle, probably three. That's a recipe for disaster if we're talking about four recruits; with six it's just uncomfortable.

A possible downer: a number of the offensive linemen in this class were wrested from the likes of Michigan State and Purdue, not Ohio State and Notre Dame. I'm too concerned about O'Neill (obviously) or Mealer, who would have ended up with an Ohio State offer 8 of 10 times but had the misfortune to be in the same class as Adams and Brewster and Shugarts. Wermers, though, had interest from ND but no offer and Khoury was one of those camp guys that doesn't generate much interest outside of the state. That's not to say either of those guys is destined for failure -- as always, we remind you that OL is the biggest crapshoot in recruiting.

I doubt most of this blog's readership gives a crap, and so this will be the last word. And that word is... basically, Alabama fans don't care.

Roll Bama Roll:

If you get a scholarship offer to play football, you damn well better produce or someone else is going to take your place. Is that mean? Maybe, but I don't see you bitching about kids on academic scholarships that lose theirs because they don't keep their grades up. Produce and contribute, you'll be fine. Screw around and don't live up to your end of the bargain, tough, deal with it.

Capstone Report:

The fucking point is the NCAA allows non-renewal of grants-in-aid. There are specific rules for that. And you don't really know how many student athletes will be back next year. Additionally, your point the NCAA doesn't want you kicking kids off the team is a very large assumption. If that were so, the scholarships would be for longer than one academic year.

Pete Holiday on the Fanhouse, listing options when Alabama has 86 kids in August:

A non-contributing scholarship player who is not putting in the effort to become a contributing player turns into a walk-on. Scholarships are year-to-year. Nobody is guaranteed four or five years of scholarship. Cook draws an arbitrary line at fourth year juniors to try to advance his argument, but even he concedes that revoking scholarships is within the rules of the game.

They know. They don't care. This is the fundamental disagreement. These Alabama bloggers universally declare that "THERE IS NO PROBLEM!" but if there is a problem, then well that's just life isn't it? They've given up on arguing against the idea that the Alabama roster is going to be a precarious place because of Alabama's massive oversigning and are now arguing that cutting a kid halfway through his collegiate career is okay. The rest of it... ad hominem of truly impressive length that doesn't address the fundamental point. It's telling that so many of 'Bama fans words on this topic have been about me and a couple of throwaway lines, and not about the actual matter at hand.

The best argument Alabama fans have is that there's a chance the roster crunch resolves itself without anything untoward happening to anyone on the current roster and that we should wait to see what happens before declaring Saban in the wrong. If you think having a chance at not doing something untoward is sufficient... well. Suffice it to say I don't.

Some points:

A line at fourth year juniors is not "arbitrary." College degrees are designed to be acquired in four years. There is a major difference between cutting a kid who is about to get his degree and forcing a kid who is in the middle of his college career off of scholarship and possibly to another school.

'Bama either has a scam going or Michigan should institute the "Everyone Scholarship." The 'Bama bloggers are making much of this hypothetical "Bear Bryant scholarship" and how it will allow one of the incoming players in the class to not count against the 85 limit. If that's true it's a scam the NCAA should shut down. Think about it: it's a scholarship for walk-ons. Uh... remind me of the definition of a walk-on again?

I don't think this Bryant thing counts here, anyway. Since the kid signed a LOI, he must be on athletic scholarship:

In order for a National Letter of Intent it be considered valid, it must be accompanied by an athletics financial aid award letter, which lists the terms and conditions of the award, including the amount and duration of the financial aid. The athletics financial aid offer must be signed by both the student and his or her parent or legal guardian. Simply put, there must be an athletics scholarship for a National Letter of Intent to be valid.

This Wesley Neighbors guy signed a letter of intent with Alabama over offers from Georgia Tech and Vandy, so he should count against the 85 limit from the day he steps on campus.

This so peripheral to the argument at hand, though: even if the NCAA lets an actual football prospect with other SEC and ACC offers spend two years at Alabama without counting against the 85 limit, Alabama's still 5 scholarships over without a reasonable way to remove any more than one or two more players from the team legitimately.

Nick Saban isn't alone in this. You might be able to make a case that Saban has even less time for NCAA regulations, ethics, and the like than most coaches if you were really trying hard or an Auburn fan. Personally, I don't care and believe that even if Saban is the winner it's by a nose over everyone except Jim Grobe. I only wrote the thing on Saban because of the Gayle article that drew a picture of severe oversigning even when you take most of the reasonable departures into account. This is a general hobby-horse of mine.

Any anger you've seen about this thing is a reaction to the ludicrous excess and, frankly, overwhelming stupidity of most of the responses. I apologize that my temper has obscured my point if you really get worked up about the rhetorical deployment of profanity.

There should probably be some sort of Baby Godwin Award. IE: the instant you put up a picture of a crying baby, you lose the argument.

Put your face where your mouth is. Lord knows this blog isn't above calling someone "horseface." A well-executed ad hominem is funny. But it's poor form to taunt someone's appearance without providing the target an opportunity to respond in kind.

One down! At this rate they'll be done by April:

Alabama freshman defensive lineman Jeremy Elder has been arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree robbery.

Elder was arrested Sunday and remained jailed Monday morning on $120,000 bond.

RBR says that "this is one of the reasons you oversign in the first place"; not even I think Nick Saban plans for six kids to commit armed robbery by fall.

The final point in a pithy a form as I can muster: Schools should never put themselves in a position where they are actively hoping to remove someone from the roster.

There is also an interview of me over at Alabama Gameday for those wishing for even more kerfuffle; I don't remember some of those commas and believe they were erroneously inserted in the editing process but the gist of the thing is correct. Also, MATW has my back.

Fin. No more.