February 2010

Training day. AnnArbor.com talks with Brandon Graham about his prep for the NFL combine. Includes interview segments with Graham and a look inside what Barwis's program is like. Graham also makes a huge array of pained faces:

Graham's running 4.58 40s and doing linebacker drills. I feel a RBUAS piece referencing this video in the future.

In other NFL draft news, Zoltan Mesko is interviewed by the Boston Herald and references a name from the past you might be surprised is hanging around the program again:

“I thought he [Pats special teams coach Scott O'Brien] was very knowledgeable in the special teams game,” Mesko continued. “I know we have our own Michigan guy that takes special teams really seriously, Pierre Woods, and basically, I never knew… When Pierre came back this past month, he’s training up at Michigan again to stay in shape, the amount of knowledge he’s picked up from the special teams coach there is unbelievable. You can really make or break yourself as a linebacker… you’re going to play special teams at that level.”

Woods got in some trouble after a breakout sophomore year and barely hung on with the program after that; many people believe that's where Michigan's rift with the Glenville program that pumps out players year after year started.

Hunwick! After last night's hockey game I bet my friend a dollar that Shawn Hunwick would get the first star despite not facing much in the way of scoring chances, or even shots, from Notre Dame. Lo, it was so. That capped what was probably the best game at Yost all year, a 4-0 win over Notre Dame that saw loveable tiny walk-on get (split) a shutout and two of the four seniors score. Carl Hagelin even added the sort of pretty goals that have been sorely lacking all year when he danced around an ND defenseman and set up Matt Rust for a slam-dunk on a two on one.

The downer:

Hogan, who has made 41 straight starts in net, is listed as doubtful for Saturday's regular-season finale at Notre Dame.

I know I've been pretty down on Hogan of late—so has Red—but Hunwick's a 5'7" walk-on. That's a major blow.

Michigan is now sixth in the league. Four and five are done with conference play and Michigan can pass them with a win Saturday. If Northern gets five points or more out of their weekend (ie: win both nights and win one in regulation) against Lake State, they'll pass Michigan. Anything less and M will sneak into the fourth spot and grab the first-round bye that comes with it.

Will it matter? Eh… probably not. Unless MSU or Ferris State is upset, Michigan would reach the Joe as the lowest remaining seed and have to take out #1 Miami, a team that's lost all of two conference games this year. Doing that full strength is difficult enough, and now with Hogan questionable it's even more doubtful.

Side note: excellent work by whoever slid this game to Thursday night. I assume it was to make sure the students were present for senior day, something that's been exceedingly rare for a long time. Usually the students are on break and senior night is a flat affair.

Recruiting cavalcade. This didn't get mentioned in Thursday Recruitin'—which we promise will return to Wednesday when things are less insane—but this weekend Michigan is hosting a massive "Showcase" for high school recruits at Oosterbaan and Newsterbaan. They're not officially involved because they can't be, but having what seems like half of the Midwest's big recruits take an unofficial visit to Michigan's shiny new practice facility can't hurt.

Scout has a couple lists of all the folk coming in. Prepare for the begats. Notable names include MI RB Justice Hayes, MI WR DeAnthony Arnett, commit Shawn Conway, OH WR AJ Jordan, MI LB Lawrence Thomas, OH LB Antonio Poole, 2012 MI LB James Ross, commit Greg Brown, commit Delonte Hollowell, MI WR Valdez Showers, MI OL Anthony Zettel, OH OL Chris Carter, OH OL Aundrey Walker, IL OL Chris Bryant, and many others. It's like a super-massive junior day on Michigan's campus, the equivalent of getting a NIKE camp. The difference: NIKE camps are rare appearances and this is going to happen every year.

I'll be most interested to see how the current Michigan commits do. Zettel's already torn up a lineman camp and seems like he'll be an easy four-star, but Hollowell, Brown, and Conway haven't been to a senior camp yet IIRC and this will be a first read on where they'll end up in the rankings.

Expansion dampening? Yes, another Big Ten expansion article. This one has a couple of interesting quotes about the issue of buying into the Big Ten Network. New members are probably going to have to operate at a lower revenue level to start:

"You just don't jump into the league and get a full share of what everyone else in this league has established over time," Alvarez said. "I think someone has to buy their way into the league."  …

"We've created such an asset in the Big Ten channel," Outgoing Michigan athletic director Bill Martin said, echoing Alvarez. "I cannot see our 11 institutions simply saying we're going to divide our pie up into more pieces from Day 1."

That will dampen enthusiasm from potential additions, but it might not matter. This is the first time I've seen these numbers for the BTN's second year and holy crap:

But according to tax forms the nonprofit conference is required to make public, it generated $217.7 million and paid each school about $18.8 million in 2007, the most recent year for which tax forms are available.

The next year, according to the Sports Business Journal, the new TV network added another $66 million to the pot. That pushed the per-team payout to about $22 million each, a figure officials from several Big Ten schools confirm remains accurate.

The next most prosperous conference, the SEC, paid its member schools about $11 million each in 2007, according to tax documents.

I'm pretty sure that latter distribution is way up since the SEC's blockbuster ESPN contract kicked in, FWIW, but I also think the SEC is going to have a static amount of money for the next 15 years; the Big Ten is half-owner of its network and will see increasing revenue shares over the course of that time.

(HT: Get The Picture.)

Yes that again. The WLA has a piece similar to the one I just posted, but when I said "I cannot emphasize enough" I was not kidding. Money grafs:

They certainly didn’t know their statements were true either. Is strongly asserting something you know could theoretically be true but might also be false a lie? If you don’t offer up any qualifications to your assertions (I didn’t see any), then I say yes, especially in the case of Rosenberg.

I suppose the best we could say about Snyder is he was totally ignorant of the subject on which he was writing and he didn’t know he was uttering falsehoods. So yay for being a dumbass, Mr. Snyder. But with Rosenberg, we know from his opinion column that he disapproves of the job Rodriguez is doing. For him to write falsehoods that also denigrate someone he disapproves of is just a bit too much of a coincidence for me to believe. Rosenberg knew what he was doing, IMO.

They lied. In the days and months to come regarding the story about “Michigan Players Practice A Lot,” let us not forget the fact that Rosenberg and Snyder lied to their readers.

In the diaries, MaizeandBlueWahoo does a 100% fisk of the article that echoes the points already made. Even Ohio State bloggers are sympathetic.

To aid you in your stalking. People tend to like the occasional mentions of my personal life, so they'll love this: my fiancée's food blog. In it you will find out what I have been eating, what food-related conventional wisdom has recently been enraging in my presence, and various other bizarre things that don't have anything to do with me.

Etc.: Delany has our back, I guess.

The 2011 Recruiting Board lives here.

Shawn Conway Goes Blue

Setting off an mgofirestorm of sorts, MI WR Shawn Conway committed to the Wolverines at Junior Day on Saturday. Conway is the third commitment in the 2011 class.

According to Scout, his junior stats were 79 receptions for 800 yards and 10 TDs, 500 yards in kick/punt returns, and two interception returns. His stats are not, as reported incorrectly here earlier, 11 receptions for a couple hundred yards or so (makes sense, as there are 12 receptions for exactly 300 yards in his highlight video):

Since the commitment (and resulting uproar), news has come out that Conway was drawing interest from schools like Florida prior to his commitment, sure to please Michigan fans. Local commit article.

New Offers

FL RB Andrew Buie should be one of the top running backs nationally, and the Wolverines have offered, along with the likes of Ole Miss, and North Carolina, while Florida ha shown some interest. He sounds like a great fit for Michigan's offense:

"Andrew is more shifty. He is better in space and more versatile..."

Scott believes that a versatile player like Buie is of high value, given the versatile nature of offensive schemes in college football.

"With the way the game is going as far as the spread offenses go, it's good for a player not to get locked into only being able to do just one thing," he said. "It's good to not just say he's a single-back guy or a spread-type guy. You need to be able to do it all."

Buie, who attends the same high school as 2010 Michigan target and Rutgers signee Rashad Knight, was named 1st-team All-State in Florida's Class 1A at running back.

Michigan has offered OH WR Devin Smith. He hails from Massillon Washington High School, the alma mater of Shawn Crable and Justin Turner. According to Cincinnati.com (which confirms the offer), the 6-2, 175-pounder runs a 4.4-second 40-yard dash, and also holds offers from the likes of Cincinnati and West Virginia. Michigan and Michigan State are Smith's current top two.

Michigan offered IN OL Tony Springmann a while back, but I forgot to mention it. The Rivals story entitled "Rodriguez offers junior offensive lineman" redirects to Springmann's profile. He took a junior day visit and is a decent possibility.

Though we already knew about the offer to his teammate, WR Dondi Kirby, it looks as though PA LB Armstead Williams from Monroeville Gateway has also received an offer from the Wolverines. Both are participating in the ESPN Rise Nike football combine at Pitt.

Michigan has offered VA LB Curtis Grant, and he plans to visit Ann Arbor during the recruiting process ($, info in header). Tom posted junior highlights of Grant and his teammate Brendan Riddick on mgoboard.

Per the Twitter of TomVH, FL DB Dallas Crawford has received a Michigan offer.

Visit News

OH QB Cardale Jones (pictured at right) plans to head up to Michigan for the next junior day, which I believe is the Night of Champions on March 13th ($, info in header). He hails from Cleveland Glenville, so it will be tough for the Wolverines to land him, but if Ohio State is focused on Braxton Miller there's a chance. Tom also reported on Twitter that Jones has his own website, though it's a little bare right now. It will be interesting to see if some content goes up on it over the course of his recruitment. 

NC QB Marquise Williams "like[s] coach Rich Rodriguez" and intends to visit Michigan at some point in the recruiting process ($, info in header).

OH TE Ray Hamilton was at the junior day last weekend, as ($ info in header). Though I brought this up last week, I should give this article its fair due in this space:

“Michigan is very well known, not in the past couple years but the program itself and how dominant they are. I think Coach Rodriguez is doing a good job on getting them back to where they need to be. It was definitely a special offer."

Rodriguez played at West Virginia with Hamilton's father, and was one of the prospects tat was getting the most attention from the coaches (to my eye at least) at Junior Day, which he enjoyed ($, info in header). Hamilton will take his time making a decision.

In other news out of Michigan's Junior Day last weekend, OH DT Kevin Williams told Tom that Michigan still leads, despite Spartanmag.com reports to the contrary.  Williams's coach thinks he's kind of good:

"Being a former college coach and NFL coach, I knew he was going to blow up when I put his film out there and started making the calls," Marrow said. "My belief is that Kevin Williams is not just the top D-tackle in the Midwest, he is one of the top D-tackles in the country. I'm talking top five."

That's from Sam Webb in the News and contains many more quotes like that.

CA DE Charles Burks plans to visit Ann Arbor this spring.

Burks was among the top pass-rushers in the state last year. He had 52 tackles and 14 sacks during the regular season but broke his leg in the Chargers' first-round game and had to sit out the rest of the playoffs.

He doesn't have any offers yet, but the Night of Champions might be a good opportunity for him to land one from Michigan. Despite growing up a Buckeye fan, Michigan is one of his favorite schools.

OH CB/WR Cheatem Norrils was in attendance for Michigan's Junior Day (Scout freebie). His only scholarship offer to this point is from Toledo, but he is very interested in Michigan. If the Wolverines decide they want him, his relationship with Kevin Koger could help land him.

Other 2011 Recruiting

Sam Webb talks to TX RB Jarrell Oliver (who holds a Michigan offer), about whether the Wolverines are at the top of his list ($, info in header). The question about whether UM is the team to beat is the type that is always answered with some version of "yes."

TomVH reports that MI FB/LB Joey Kerridge enjoyed Michigan's junior day, and may get news of an offer sometime this week. The link has a highlight video embed, as well.

Though GA OL David Andrews received a Michigan offer last week ($, info in header), he has already committed to Georgia.

Landing Demar Dorsey in the class of 2010 has gotten Michigan's foot in the door at Boyd Anderson High School, which boasts a hell of a lot of Division-1 talent each year, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Aside from LB Kent Turene from the class of 2011, there are a few guys in this class that might get onto the radar later, and even more underclassmen.

Removed FL S Karlos Williams, who has committed to Florida State. This was probably a long time coming, as he was always a Florida State lean, and his brother is a 'Nole.

Fluff on FL S Ha'Sean Clinton-Dix and FL CB Nick Waisome.

OH CB Doran Grant should be one of the top prospects in the state of Ohio for the 2011 class, and Sam Webb profiled him in the Detroit News last week. He has a lot of connections to Michigan State, but that won't prevent him from considering the Wolverines:

"(Last week) I talked to (Rich Rodriguez) and he said he was really excited now that he got the 2010 class signed," Grant recalled. Now he was going to start on 2011 and he said I was one of the main targets. I'm going to go up there for junior day, talk to him in the office, sit down and learn more about the school, and just check out the facilities and maybe some players."

I'm not sure if Grant made it in for Junior Day, but it sounds like, at the very least, he'll give the Wolverines a fair shake.

Michigan fans were hoping for commitments from MI OL Anthony Zettel and/or MI DE Brennen Beyer at Junior Day, but that didn't happen. Both probably going to take another couple visits (such as Zettel's upcoming Notre Dame trip) before making decisions, but the Wolverines still seem to lead for both. According to Tom, Beyer wants to return to Ann Arbor later this week, which is certainly a good sign.

2010 Walkon Update

MI OL Kristian Mateus, from Forest Hills Central (alma mater of yours truly) will be a preferred walkon this fall, according to the Grand Rapids Press, which apparently has copy editors who approve ledes like this:

Kristian Mateus, a standout football player at Forest Hills Central, has joined the list of University of Michigan football recruits even if his name isn’t on a list just yet.

FAIL. Anyway, Mateus is huge (6-8, 285), and cites the opportunity presented by Michigan's walkon program in particular, as Rodriguez was a walkon himself and likes to see them emerge as contributors.

[Editor's note: the Press might not have copy editors anymore and by criticizing like so we are doomed to make a similarly dumb mistake in the near future.]

The Distant Future. The Year 2012

2012 MI LB James Ross from Orchard Lake Saint Mary's has received a Michigan offer ($, info in header) to go along with his scholarship from Michigan State. Coach Schuman from the National Underclassmen Combine Blog says Ross took home a numbers of honors from the combine this year:

James was the Top LB of the Class of 2012 and was U100 MVP at LB and Top Prospect Camp LB MVP. Expect 20 plus offers from James when all said and done.

More on the 2012 class as news comes out, but I won't cover it in any depth until the 2011 class is closer to completion.

His blog is long defunct but a hat tip to ny1995, who did the legwork in the NCAA infractions database and unearthed these cases. Burgeoning Wolverine Star also highlighted the FIU case I'm about to and has a take on the similarities between the two cases.

UPDATE: I asked Compliance Guy to sanity-check this and have added his comments in below.

The accusations the NCAA has levied against Michigan are not unprecedented, so a look at a couple similar cases over the past decade might prove illuminating. But first, here's an example of what qualifies as a "major violation" these days. One of the things San Diego State got nailed for:

During the 1998-99 through 2001-02 academic years, the assistant coach provided impermissible apparel to the student-athletes who played the position of offensive line.  Specifically, at the commencement of training camp each year, the assistant  coach distributed  “flexi-fit” hats  embroidered with  the offensive  line’s theme for the particular year.  Themes have included “Big Block Boys,” “O-Line Finish the Block” and “Trench Warriors.”  Further, at the conclusion of the 2002 spring practices, the assistant coach distributed shirts embroidered with the phrase “Tuff 15” to only those members of the offensive line who attended all 15-spring practice sessions.  The fair market value of the shirts was approximately $35 and the hats, approximately $25. 

The following section explains the committee's rationale for deeming TRENCH WARRIOR hats a major violation:

The enforcement staff and the institution agreed that the apparel items were provided with no intent to violate a rule and provided little, if any, competitive advantage.  However, the violations occurred over a period of four years, was not isolated or inadvertent and thus could not be considered a secondary violation.

Takeaways: the chance that Michigan does not get hit with a major violation in August is zero. The QC stuff isn't going to be deemed "isolated or inadvertent." But "major" has clearly ceased to mean much aside from providing big scary headlines.

Compliance Guy: The term "major violation" has this big scary connotation. In fact, the default for a violation is major. It's up to the university to prove that it met the two criteria to be classified secondary:

- Isolated or inadvertant; and

- Did not provide a significant competitive advantage or provide a significant benefit.

Being a major violation means you start with a set of presumed penalties that are then argued up or down (usually down overall, the list is extensive) based on the facts of the individual case. In the past, most secondary violations did not have prescribed penalties so you had much more flexibility if the violation was secondary. Now there are prescribed penalties for most secondary violations as well.

At this point the biggest difference between a major violation and a secondary violation is public reprimand and censure. If you have a secondary violation, the NCAA doesn't announce it, and it's stored in a private database without the school's name attached. A major violation is announced and stored in a public database with the school's name front and center.

IMHO, the NCAA ought to either find a bigger distinction or do away with the distinction all together. In fact, there's actually three types of violations: Level I secondary violations (so small they are only reported to the conference); Level II secondary violations (reported to the NCAA and involve student-athlete eligibility or rules the NCAA is focused on); and major violations. I say expand the Level I list a bit and just have two types of violations: Level I and Level II, where Level II might include an infractions hearings and major penalties.

Florida International

Report

What They Did

1. An assistant coach—we'll call him Captain Dumbass—conducted "skill and technique workouts" with offensive linemen during the summer over the course of three years. 30 impermissible workouts over three years gave them a "competitive advantage."

2. Over the same timespan, Captain Dumbass conducted "impermissible technique activity" in the same fashion as the summer sessions, for another 27 impermissible workouts.

3. Captain Dumbass then lied to the NCAA and attempted to call another student athlete, disclosing the content of his interview and telling the kid to lie to the NCAA as well. He did, then he recanted.

4. Failure to monitor. "The football coaching staff, including the head coach, and members of the S&C staff were aware in varying degrees" of the sessions. The administration was not. "The majority of the coaches" were aware the sessions were not kosher, but not one said anything. Note this failure to monitor was directed at the university only.

5. A secondary violation because the S&C coach took attendance at voluntary S&C activities and periodically reported the information to other coaches.

What They Did To Themselves

They fired Captain Dumbass and eliminated the OL coach position for the entire 2004 season and 2005 spring practice. They reduced preseason practices by four, and gave up 171 hours (twice the number of impermissible hours logged by the offensive line) of mandatory practice or conditioning over the course of three years.

They also took one assistant coach off the road for the spring evaluation period for two years, put notes in folks' permanent record, and hit people with some pay decreases/finger wagging.

What Got Done To Them

Three years of probation for the university and a three year show-cause penalty for Captain Dumbass.

---

Compliance Guy: This is probably a good starting point for the penalties Michigan might face. Unlike the SDSU violation, this violation covered just practice violations (aka only Bylaw 17, the playing and practice limits bylaw). Michigan's alleged violations cover Bylaw 17 plus another (Bylaw 11, personnel limits) but the penalty is accounted for here: eliminating a coaching staff position for at least a year.

The COI didn't do anything of substance to FIU. Three years probation is one over the minimum and makes sense considering the violations lasted three years. And the three-year show cause penalty is pretty fair considering Captain Dumbass not only was involved in the majority of the underlying violations AND lied to the NCAA about it, but also tried to get someone else to lie about it too.

San Diego State

Report

What They Did

1. Over the course of three years, the offensive line coach conducted mandatory offseason "deep sand training" for an hour once a week May through July. (What is it with OL coaches?) Captain Dumbass #2 then sold videos of this training as part of a three-video package featuring current student athletes. He also wrote newsletters praising attendance and listing people who had perfect attendance records.

2. Before spring practice one year, several assistant coaches met with players to discuss "academics," but each meeting had diagrammed plays and chalk-talk and whatnot. An assistant coach conducted drills at least eight times for about fifteen minutes. It's unclear if this was Captain Dumbass or not, but someone videotaped one of the drills. Football coaches also had members of the football undergo impermissible 11-on-11 activities, simulating plays with a "taped towel" instead of a football.

In the committee rationale area, there is the implication that the assistant coaches misrepresented the meetings to the NCAA by claiming the students were just so excited about the new plays that they initiated the "chalk talk"; students did not echo this. The head coach acknowledged the activities were "pushing it" and compliance should have been consulted about the workouts.

3. TRENCH WARRIOR hats.

4. Failure to monitor levied at the institution, citing the sand practices being common knowledge with everyone except the institution. The head coach "observed at least seven or eight of these workouts."

What They Did To Themselves

SDSU self-imposed six total years of scholarship penalties: three the first year, two the second, one the third. They eliminated 21 practice days over the course of three years, took one assistant coach off the road for four days, suspended Captain Dumbass, and put notes in the offenders' permanent records.

What Got Done To Them After

Two years of probation.

------

Compliance Guy: The major difference is that the Trench Warrior hats are an extra benefit in addition to a practice violation. Giving material items as prizes for performance is not allowed, even though giving them to the whole team might be OK. They're a practice violation as well because you cannot punish or reward student-athletes for voluntary workouts.

Also notice the COI did even less than they did to FIU. Two years probation is the minimum imposed in a major violation case. There will always be a penalty of two years probation, so this is basically rubber-stamping the penalties. Why this is two years probation and not three is a big confusing, but probation doesn't mean much competitively. It means more work for the compliance office. It doesn't even mean a longer period of repeat violator status, which is always five years no matter how long the probation is.

The extra benefit piece is a big deal because it explains the scholarship penalties. Penalties have to match the violations. If you violation recruiting rules, you get recruiting restrictions, if you violation practice rules, you get less practice, and if you give student-athletes too much financial aid or extra benefits, you reduce your financial aid.

Based on the difference between these two cases, I would say reduced scholarships are still on the table, but are most likely to be self-imposed. Michigan might give up scholarships if they believe scholarships are worth less than practice and they can reduce the practice penalties somewhat by giving up something else

Michigan Versus Those Guys

Notice of Allegations

Unfortunately, it's tough to tell exactly what bits of the previous cases caused the punishments levied. FIU's two-for-one hours penalty is pretty obvious, but what exactly was so much worse about the SDSU case that saw them dump six years of scholarships when FIU didn't have to ditch any? Both violations took place over three years. And involved an actual assistant coach. The head coaches knew in both cases. Captain Dumbass #1 seriously pissed off the NCAA, as did #2. I don't get the discrepancy.

Anyway, some guesses:

Braithwaite's hire implies that Michigan might lose a coach for some period of time. Michigan turned around the notice of allegations instantly and Brandon said there wasn't anything in there that was a surprise, so Michigan knew full well what the investigation would show. Here's betting one of the self-imposed penalties is removing a coach for spring and possibly fall, and Braithwaite will be that guy.

(Compliance Guy: Oddly enough, Braithwaite might end up doing what the QC guys were supposed to be doing.)

Michigan will probably give two for one on the practice overages. They come to 66 hours, so Michigan will probably try to spread 132 hours over a few years.

(Compliance Guy: That penalty can take many forms: a later fall start date, additional off days, a shorter spring, or fewer hours per week (or a combination of any or all of these).

Could Rodriguez's "failure to monitor" actually be a good thing? My research over the past couple days indicates that failure to monitor is a charge that the NCAA levies against programs when they believe people who should be in a position to know these things didn't know these things. In the cases above both head coaches knew there were shenanigans going on, so they did not get a failure to monitor charge. Only the universities did.

In Michigan's case, both coach and university got charged with failure to monitor. On the surface this is one of the FIVE MAJOR VIOLATIONS. Underneath, it actually seems like a mitigating factor. Having people violate NCAA regulations without your knowledge seems better being aware of it.

This may be a straw I'm grasping at.

(Compliance Guy: Rodriguez is not charged with "failure to monitor." Rodriguez is charged with "failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance." It's basically a catchall that includes something like "failure to monitor" and "lack of institutional control" on a program level. Basically its to make head coaches take responsibility for their program, whether they knew about something and ignored it, failed to control the assistants at all, or ordered assistants to commit violations (how John Calipari has escaped this is beyond me).

It's not a mitigating factor and it's not a "good thing." But it's not necessarily going to be a very bad thing. If it is a very bad thing, it might mean some penalty directed personally at Rodriguez, like prohibiting him from recruiting off-campus for a period of time. Michigan might attempt to head this off by self-imposing internal penalties like establishing meetings between Rodriguez and the compliance office, suspending him, or withholding pay, raises, or bonuses.)

Alex Herron lying probably doesn't matter. If FIU had its coach tell a kid to lie and get caught for it and didn't get scholarship reductions, having one GA get caught being deceitful reflects on the GA, not Michigan.

(Compliance Guy: Agreed. He'll get hit with a show-cause penalty, unlike the two similar noncoaching staff members in the Central Florida recruiting violation who were not hit with show-cause penalties because they were so forthcoming.)

Scholarship reductions don't seem assured. FIU conducted 57 actual practices supervised by an assistant coach that the head coach knew about and didn't get much more than the practice reductions. However, since Michigan is capped at 84 this year due to some foul-ups with walk-ons I'm betting Michigan takes a small hit for 2010 only since taking that hit has zero impact.

(Compliance Guy: Agreed. It's possible that Michigan will just get coaching staff and practice penalties. But the goal of penalties is to erase a competitive advantage, and Michigan might add in a seemingly unrelated penalty to avoid an even bigger practice reduction, or the COI might deem it appropriate to impose the scholarship limitations to erase that competitive advantage (less likely).)

Whatever Michigan self-imposes is probably going to be the end of it. In both cases above, the NCAA looked at the penalties, said "okay," and tacked on some probation.

The above scenario is a worst case. I'm not sure how much credence to put into the rumors flying around that once the full report comes out Michigan will have seriously mitigated many of the charges—that's a classic example of something you want to believe—but they are out there and I've heard from a couple good sources that the details here will be less than damning. We'll have to wait for the Michigan response and self-imposed penalties to find out.

Again, tons of thanks to Compliance Guy for the clarity. His blog is The Bylaw Blog.

Via the Hoover Street Rag 

There's a notable difference between third-party blog reaction and that from newspapers. Blogs first, with a focus on people who don't love or hate Michigan because of their team affiliations. Doctor Saturday:

Stare into the face of bureaucracy, Michigan, and quiver at its awesome power.

Know also that every program in the country -- and I'm pretty confident when I say every program -- would run afoul of at least one of those infractions (or similar ones; it's a big manual) on a somewhat regular basis, as the minimum cost of employing fallible human being while continuing to dead-lift with the Joneses. Other programs, however, weren't the target of an investigation by a major metropolitan newspaper that left no stone unturned in its efforts to make a splash against a high-profile program. Michigan was, which is why it was Michigan's coach, president and new athletic director (not even officially on the job for two more weeks) in front of the cameras today feigning contrition over barely spilt milk.

Team Speed Kills, which from its name you can probably deduct is an SEC blog:

That's it?
If this is all the NCAA could find after having a newspaper article for a road map, it leads to the conclusion that either (a) the Detroit Free-Press blew this way out of proportion or (b) the Association is even more incompetent than I thought. Since I'm not sure (b) is possible, we'll go with (a).

Get The Picture:

…when you look at what the NCAA is accusing Michigan of, there isn’t that much there.  So, yeah, the school is likely the victim of some journalistic hyperventilating by the Detroit Free-Press.

The Big Lead's Ty Duffy has a somewhat more negative take; he is a Michigan fan in the "kill him now" camp and not a neutral third party. I've scoured the RSS for other opinions, but the charges pass without notice most places. More locally, Black Shoe Diaries takes issue with DocSat's assertion that similar violations would be turned up everywhere:

We don't have any idea what's going on anywhere, I think that's the news.

Neither Yahoo blogger nor beat reporter and maybe not even football coach really are certain of anything; the rules are complex, all the source material is totally unattainable for most of us and we don't have an enforcement agency with the power to comfortably investigate.

Of course, like critics of the tax code often say, it's probably the complexity of the rules that make enforcement impossible and hopelessly selective. 

Other prominent Big Ten blogs like Black Heart Gold Pants and The Only Colors haven't even mentioned it. Eleven Warriors is fairly neutral:

…the allegations fall somewhere in between the minor and serious realms. The quality control staff is in position to take the blunt of the heat with Brandon reiterating Rodriquez’s job was not in imminent danger as a result of the findings — which I don’t think any of us ever doubted.

The yawning is everywhere.

Newspaper folk, on the other hand, tend towards the hysterical. The Wizard of Odds, which is a blog but is a blog written by a LAT refugee, demonstrates the overall tone:

Rich Rod Era at Michigan Reaches a New Low

Indeed. This guy in the "Niles Star" is about to get more hits than he's ever gotten in his life:

It’s time that the University of Michigan cuts its ties with coach Rich Rodriguez.
Tuesday was one of the lowest days in Michigan football history as the NCAA delivered its notice of allegations against the program.

I don't think this counts as a disinterested party, but the Orlando Sentinel's Andrea Adelson:

It is hard to figure out how Rich Rodriguez is going to survive this — no matter what incoming athletic director David Brandon says.

AnnArbor.com's Pete Bigelow unearths things like the Jonas Mouton Suspension Fiasco and the completely reasonable decision to negotiate the buyout in yet another This Hick Spit In Michigan's Vase (and that's "vaaahse,: not "vace") column:

At the time, Rodriguez dismissed the allegations as “unnecessary drama.”

Concerns can no longer be brushed aside. Not about the NCAA charges in particular nor the way Rodriguez conducts his program in general.

In too many instances, some large and some small, Rodriguez has written his own reality to the detriment of his program and the university.

Wojo's his usual reasonable self but even his column is a far cry from the "meh" you see above:

The NCAA didn't accuse Rodriguez's program of breaking the biggest rules, and Michigan said the violations weren't done in a malicious way. And Rodriguez won't lose his job over this, not now.

But for Michigan football, previously untainted by the NCAA, any violation is big. For Rodriguez, it doesn't help his cause, but it doesn't really change much either.