rumor-mongering

[Opening note - I hate having to defend CC talk, but here goes: if you didn't want to hear CC talk, then why click on a link marked "CC"?]

About a week and a half ago, Stanford offerred to sweeten Harbaugh's contract at Stanford, solely for the purpose of keeping him there.  Nothing has yet been signed.  It seems to me that, if Harbaugh truly wanted to stay there, he would try to sign something pretty quickly or at least make some kind of statement to quash all the "Harbaugh to Michigan" rumors, which are surely hurting his recruiting at Stanford.

To me this is evidence that Harbaugh is coming, mostly because I doubt that he would leave Stanford hanging just to wring a few more bucks out of them or if he didn't have strong feeling that the Michigan job could be his.  Of course, this is just speculation like everything else, but I haven't seen this angle discussed here.  Any thoughts?

At least until 7:00, when everything comes out? Look, everyone's trying to get their 15 seconds of fame by posting/ tweeting supposed certainties. They want to be the first to break the news, and who really knows what their sources are? Can we just chill out for like and hour and a half, and when they announce it and we know some things for sure, we can come back and yell and scream. 

I'm sick of hearing contradictory stories from supposedly credible sources. 

In other news, I'd love it if we didn't post our dream divisions anymore, either. The divisions are decided already, let's just wait and see. Thank you for your cooperation.

http://www.obnug.com/2010/4/12/1416822/what-big-name-team-could-complete...

Summarized: The Boise State AD is looking for a big-name, big-money non-conference game for their remaining open date in 2011 (Sept 3). In a fan poll on this blog, Michigan is current leader, ahead of teams like Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. I realize fan polls mean little (read: nothing), but still.

Totally crazy? Maybe. The AD's willingness to schedule UConn this year may signal that we could take on a second non-creampuff in the future. I'm confidant (...ok, hoping) we'll contend for the Big Ten Title in 2011, so it probably wouldn't be a mismatch.

Should it happen we would open the season with Boise State, following it up with ND at night a week later. Yes, please.

If this sounds awful, who would you like to see instead?

[Ed: couple of first-hand observations posted on the message board that jive with those of a couple sources of mine who were also there. Those will be coming early next week.]

I was at today's scrimmage and noticed a couple of things:

-the final score was 59-53 offense... it was 53-42 when they went to a segment called last play from the 3 yard line with the defense up by 4. defense stuffed the offense twice then Denard ran in for the win.

-everyone played. walk on slot receiver #10 (not gallon) i think his name is Jordan Barpal had a terrific catch in the back of the endzone for a touchdown from Jack Lennedy.

-John McColgan looked good at FB.. even had a td reception.

-Stephen Hopkins is the real deal. He was running with the 1s has the "big back" and had some really tough runs. I love the way he finishes his runs and really punishes defenders.

-the QB competition is WIDE OPEN. All 3 played with all the lineman and WRs. ( it seemed like they were rotating the QBs with no regard as to which offensive teams were going in.)

-Taylor Lewan looked very good. he played LT with the first team and the second

-the defense looked phenomenal. There tackling was like night and day from last season. There was only one missed tackle that I saw, and it was on a great move by Mike Cox who looped back around and ended up being tackled for a loss by Thomas Gordon.

I was very impressed by today. The team seems to really be coming along.

GO BLUE

Another Report Pulled From Lower In the Thread

I was there too and concur with the OP and was pleasantly surprised.

I would add:

Fitzy had a nice run. He was solid. Stephen looked the best on this particular day though.

Thomas Gordon seems to be the best fit for the Stevie Brown Spur/Bandit position for now. I would be curious to see if he will beat out Marvin, or even Cam, or JT Turner.I think they will have to move JT Turner to one of the safety spots when the other frosh get in. That young lad had himself a growth spurt. He is a big kid. It will be interesting to see what they do with him once they get depth this summer at CB

The LB's or secondary didn't suck. I was pleasantly surprised. Troy is pretty good at that CB spot. The defense as a whole was better against the run than I ever would have thought based on last year.

Devin was owning the 2 and 3rd team D. He is the real deal, I don't care what string he was playing against. He seems to have the best shot of us having a vertical game whenever he takes the reins. Denard has a cannon, but doesn't have the touch that Devin has. Devin had a long gainer to Gallon. When Devin played with the 1's he threw a TD to Roundtree.

Denard seemed to have the most success moving the ball against the first team D. He was carving up the D when running the zone read, has a cannon, lacks a little touch on the short and intermediate stuff. If they want to stay true to the West Virginia style O, then Denard has to be the guy this year. He reads it pretty well, and has the explosiveness necessary to get around the corner obviously.

Tate was pretty decent. Didn't get as much time with the 1's as Denard. Tate is Tate. Pretty accurate on the short and intermediate stuff, not as explosive as the others when running the zone read. He did okay though. He can win football games, they just have to tailor the play calling to his strengths.

I would guess that we see more of a rotation this year as opposed to last year when Tate was getting the majority of the snaps. Devin is the real deal, I would hate to be the coaches if they wanted to keep a redshirt on that kid. I wouldn't be able to do it.

Either way. Denard has to be on the field somewhere. You can tell he is putting it together. He is way too explosive to spend as much time on the sidelines as he did last year.

The Oline seems to be a lot better too. Taylor Lewan was getting a lot of time at LT and did really well. It wouldn't surprise me if he just didn't let that spot go.

Cam is a ball hawk. He is very much a see ball, hit ball kind of player, and seems to be just fine at that deep safety if he has to stay there. They tested him a little bit.

It wouldn't surprise me though that when the fall frosh comes in to see them work JT Turner in back there, and move Cam up to a Spur/Bandit position to get the best 11 out there. You can see the talent in JT, the sky is not falling with him, but he has outgrown corner and in my opinion is only there this spring because they don't have depth to move him. JT is big enough now to work into a spur/bandit type roll too.He looks to be in the 210-215ish range.

One fumble, but no turnovers up until the point I left. I had to jet a little early.

All in all I came out actually more impressed with the defense than the offense. Logic tells me that is a good thing, but with this team....who knows?

In Which Your Editor Provides A Short Addendum

I also heard that Hopkins was killing people today in a fashion similar to a squatter Minor, although I'm guessing with less speed since a 230-pound running back who's as fast as Minor is not a generic three star recruit. The quarterback situation seems utterly confused; depending on who you talk to any of the three is the likely starter against UConn. Running back is also a jumble.

One thing that is becoming more and more certain: Taylor Lewan is locking down the left tackle spot, which is great news.

After some probable 7-5 or 8-4 pain this year (others predict
worse), many point to next year as when the Ninja Football really gets
unleashed because of Newsome or Shaved Beaver.

However, true
frosh QBs rarely work out that well (Henne 2004 was an amazing
exception, aided by Braylon catching anything that came near him).

I
don't know about you, but two years of pain sounds rough. 
Especially since home 2009 vs. OSU is an absolute must-win game.

So...
why wouldn't a frustrated second year (or third) dual-threat QB
transfer here after fall camp (a la Demetrius Jones from ND to
Cincy)?  Doesn't the playing time situation looks incredibly,
incredibly ideal?  There were rumors after spring practice that
highly touted Sherrod Harris at Texas was looking around, because he
was 3rd behind McCoy and younger John Chiles.  Chiles continues
now in fall camp to play mostly at QB, BON reports, instead of being
switched to a WR role.

Rumor mongering is what the internets are
for... can I hope that something like this (not necessarily Harris, by
any means) will happen???