lolmsm

First, now-ceremonial photo of some dude very far away rocking colors he probably knows not wot of:

I was in… France. We had a free apartment to stay at and my mom turned in a bunch of airline miles, so it seemed like a one-time opportunity. It rained most of the time and the food was pretty disappointing but it sounds like everyone in the United States melted while we were gone so that's cool. Also if you ever get a chance go to a calanque, you should probably do it:

That is a real place, not the scene from Contact where the alien is all like "yo I'm your dad what up Jodie Foster."

The guy above was checking out a very serious bocce tournament we stumbled across in Marseille whilst trying to figure out how to get back to the bus. I'll probably throw up a trip report in the diaries if there is further interest, or even if there isn't.

Now presenting Things That Happened When I Was Going "Meh" At Escargot:

Football

A large chunk of next year's attrition got resolved. Kellen Jones, Teric Jones, and Christian Pace are not on the fall roster and therefore not on the team. Kellen Jones reportedly got in some legal trouble that must be serious given the repercussions on his team status. Pace and Teric Jones got sent to St. Saban Memorial. Meanwhile, Terry Talbott is also expected to miss the season but it's unclear whether or not he has made the same journey. Rivals says Hoke confirmed he was medicaled($) in the hallway scrum following his media day time, so that's probably that for one Talbott. UPDATE: Misopogon reports that Ablauf also confirmed Talbott is done.

Three of the four are obviously not sketchy. Michigan needs linebackers and DTs like Mark Dantonio needs the collected Sophocles and Pace was the only(!) offensive lineman in his class. Teric Jones's departure is one you can question given his place on the depth chart, but since there's an entire football season between now and crunch time it's probably legit. In the Big Ten, sketchy medical scholarships are something to look for in January.

As for on-field impact, Teric found it impossible to contribute even in an offense suited to his scatback skills; his absence won't impact Michigan going forward. Pace removes one bullet from the chamber at center, but they'll still have Khoury and Miller once Molk graduates. That should be okay. Talbott's absence is bad. Now instead of a shaky three-star-ish redshirt freshman behind Will Campbell there are walk-ons and air and maybe Kenny Wilkins. Kellen Jones's absence will be felt keenly as well. My excellently-timed recruiting profile of him hyped him up as an immediate contributor and possible four-year starter due to his talent and the glaring hole at WLB. Now he's gone and WLB next year is the untested Mike Jones and two really small guys.

With those four off the roster the path to 26 is considerably less eyebrow-cocking. Michigan will have to shed another two or three players before signing day. A natural level of attrition should get Michigan to their projections without fuss.

Michigan got a fullback. Tim profiled Sione Houma, who is it. I hate giving scholarships to fullbacks because the difference between a walk-on fullback and a scholarship fullback is usually indistinguishable. Michigan's best in the last 15 years was walk-on Kevin Dudley. If they really take one DT it's going to be weird, doubly so with the uncertain status of Talbott.

Michigan got Chris Wormley. A foregone conclusion, that, but it's another head to head win for Hoke against the Bobcats. SDE is set in a major way and someone—possibly two someones—are moving to three-tech as soon as they hit campus.

San Diego State got a little less scary. Two of their receivers are out for the year with knee injuries, including presumed #1 Dominique Sandifer. Their new leading guy is the equivalent of Kovacs—walk-on made good. Ryan Lindley's good but he might not have anyone to throw to.

Something vaguely ominous happened with Devin Gardner's redshirt. Brady Hoke has been unusually wishy-washy about what Devin Gardner's eligibility status is after he saw a few snaps here and there as the designated Guy Who Replaces Denard For Three Plays Guy during the nonconference schedule. This is unusual. In the past the NCAA has just issued a ruling and been done with it.

The eligibility status of Alabama receiver Darius Hanks—still on the team and everything after five years!—may provide some insight into why:

… Hanks appeared in one game as a true freshman in 2007, hauling in one pass for six yards in a 52-6 win over Western Carolina. Accordingly, his fifth season required a waiver from the NCAA, which apparently attached the two-game breather to offset Hanks' contribution to that hard-earned victory four years ago.

Gardner appeared in three of Michigan's first four games. Against UConn and ND his box score totaled one rush for –4 yards but against BGSU he had 6 rushes for 25 yards and went 7 of 10 for 85 yards and a TD in the air. If I'm Dave Brandon I'm making the first couple of games of 2015 walkovers. Which Dave Brandon is going to do anyway because…

Dave Brandon does not Get It. This is awful:

"I don't believe we can or should go on the road for nonconference games when we can put 113,000 people in our stadium.  It's, financially, the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for our fans, in terms of their ticket packages. And we're going to alternate with Notre Dame, so we're going to have one game on the road every other year. So the rest of those games, I would like to have at Michigan Stadium."

Kiss ever seeing an interesting non-ND nonconference opponent goodbye. This is another symptom of the AD's descent into full-blown corporate ninnydom: we get to play Alabama in Dallas because it makes incrementally more money than having an exciting home game. Brandon fails to understand that the point of an athletic department is not to accumulate the biggest Scrooge McDuck vault. (See also: renting the Big House for your special event, though that's far less offensive since I don't have to buy a 70 dollar ticket to the Jones-Wilson wedding. Unless I do. Do I?) Even if it was, the marginal difference between one home game against a real opponent and two body-bag games from schools charging a million each is not that much. People will suck up the difference on the ticket cost: a Clemson ticket that costs $80 will make people happier than an EMU one that costs $70.

At least we won't have to endure three pointless games against non-BCS opponents yearly for too long. Schools have been told to clear the decks in 2017. Presumably that's when the Big Ten will go to nine conference games. That's is not as cool as actually seeing teams from other conferences but better than our yearly battle for county pride.

Ohio State didn't get anything extra handed them by the NCAA. Time for a homer check. Matt Hinton:

Is it really possible for the people in charge to have that little interest in enforcing their own rules, as long as the paperwork is in order? …

The Ohio State and USC cases are similar in the sense that they both involve a star accepting a lot of money from shady characters on the fringes of the program, but the the case against OSU is on a different level. Where USC's violations (as chronicled by the NCAA's final verdict) involved a single player, Ohio State's involve at least six. Where USC consistently disputed that anyone affiliated with the program knew what was going on with Bush — as well as the sketchy evidence the NCAA used to reach that conclusion — the paper trail leading from Jim Tressel's hard drive is an indisputable smoking gun. Which he intentionally concealed as the offending players led the Buckeyes to another conference championship. Ohio State's star player(s) and its head coach did the crime, and no one denies it. Tressel's silence after being tipped to the investigation is the definition of a program failing to cooperate. He's the head coach: He is the program.

Get The Picture:

At this point, any athletic director with half a brain is going to set up a firewall between himself and the head coach.  Oh, sure, there will be any number of compliance people who will be sent around wagging fingers at coaches about following regulations.  But there will also be plenty of blind eyes turned to what those coaches are doing when the compliance folks aren’t in the room with them.  So when the shit inevitably hits the fan, those ADs and the presidents they work for can blink their eyes vapidly at the NCAA investigators, claim they had no idea what was going on and swear they’ll get rid of the rogue bad apple.  And it’ll work.

Nice system you got there, NCAA.

Bryan Fisher:

Mark Emmert, you have lost our confidence in your ability to do the job.

The next time you speak, we won't be able to take you seriously thanks to news that Ohio State would not face additional charges of failure to monitor or lack of institutional control in the school's infraction case.

'It's all about what the NCAA can prove, not what we've read' is the company line. Well, you had a chance to prove things but you said you weren't going to try.

Matt Hayes:

It’s pathetic, really. The rats see a ship sailing to probation, and it’s every dirty, cheating program for itself.

Ohio State got out first, and now North Carolina sees the opening. Soon enough, Oregon will too.

Here’s the best part of this growing, sordid tale: The NCAA is standing with open arms on the other side.

Want to blame someone for North Carolina’s utterly bizarre firing of coach Butch Davis, who was never mentioned once in the program’s lengthy NCAA Notice of Allegations? Blame Ohio State.

Better yet, blame the NCAA – and more specifically, president Mark Emmert.

Meanwhile Mandel, the guy who was predicting this would happen, hasn't taken up a position on whether it's good or bad. I haven't found anyone who doesn't have a framed Andy Katzenmoyer jersey who thinks this is anything other than total horseshit. Homer check tenuously passed.

Meanwhile, OSU confirms that Terrelle Pryor was ineligible for the entirety of last year and bans him from contact with the program without explaining why. Where is the extra violation that gets Pryor that treatment while the other five players remain on the team, associated with the program. Is the NCAA interested in this? Apparently not.

There is a recent precedent for a team not getting failure to monitor or LOIC (which come on) and still getting hammered: Alabama got 21 scholarships docked and a two-year bowl ban for various boosters paying dudes to go to Alabama. If Ohio State gets something similar, fine. The NCAA's two-eyes-for-an-eye policy could see at least 12 scholarships obliterated and two years of bowl ban even without LOIC if the committee is like "hey, your head coach lying to keep a half-dozen players eligible and hoodwinking us to let them play in a bowl game… that's bad."

loldantonio. Mark Dantonio called Jim Tressel a "tragic hero."

aaaaand eyyyyyeeeeeeeyyyeeeeeiiiiiii will always loveeeee yoooouuu

Then Jim Brandstatter was all like "loldantonio" and Dantonio was all like "paraphrase of insanely misused Teddy Roosevelt quote about being in the arena," because that's what people who say stupid things do when they are criticized for saying stupid things.

The Big Ten Network made itself into a feed. Press release:

BTN2Go features a live feed of all BTN linear network programming, including more than 40 football games, over 100 men’s basketball games and hundreds of other live events, as well as Extra Football Game Channels, on-demand programming and archived content.

BTN2Go will be offered exclusively through BTN’s participating cable, satellite and telco distribution partners as an authenticated digital service to subscribers who already receive BTN as part of their video subscription.

If the authenticated bit lets you watch the BTN if you're in Alabama despite the locals not giving a damn, that's great as long as it works better than the streaming service did a year ago when I tried it for an hockey game. If it's ESPN3 quality, lovely. 

Desmond Howard had a good idea. Via Get The Picture:

“But if you want to play the education game, then check this out. If they get my likeness for life, then they should be committed to my education for life. So if Mark Ingram 20 years from now, when they’re still selling his jerseys in Tuscaloosa, says ‘You know what? I want to get my Ph.D.’ Guess who should pay for that? They should be committed to his education for life. They’re still selling his jerseys.”

If a school is still profiting off a guy who had a few years in the NFL and now has some messed up knees and maybe wants a more saleable degree, he should be able to get it.

Wolverine Historian posted a bunch of games. Bo becomes the winningest coach in school history with a victory in The Game:

Also available are 2000 Indiana (58-0), 2003 Illinois (56-14), and 1993 Minnesota (58-7). Bring your nostalgic bloodlust.

Hockey

John Gibson defects to the OHL, Michigan picks up Michael Downing. Let's not mince words: dropping a college commitment less than a month before classes start is a dick move. I get that he'll get more games next year because he probably won't be splitting time, but exactly no information has changed since he committed and signed a LOI. Blah blah blah about "doing what's best for me" is what they say on Jerry Springer, too.

Michigan now has zero backup to Hunwick and is in a desperate search for his replacement next year. At least whoever they pick up—they likely need two goalies—won't have a midget dynamo blocking their path.

In happier news, Michigan's somewhat glaring hole on D going forward is smaller thanks to Downing's commitment for 2013. Downing was the third pick and first defenseman in the USHL Futures Draft. He's coming off a strong showing at the U16 Festival. OHL defection risk currently seems low: he's from CC, has an older brother already in the USHL, and was drafted in the flyer area of the OHL draft (8th round) by Sarnia, a team not known for picking up off college-bound folk.

People discussed ways to prevent "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry" events. Gibson's very very late decision spurred a round of "what can we do" from Yost Built and The United States of Hockey. Yost Built wonders about making a hockey LOI binding in the same way an NTDP commitment is. Someone will have to ping The Bylaw Blog for confirmation but that would redefine the LOI in such a comprehensive fashion it wouldn't be a LOI anymore. It's currently a non-legal agreement enforced by a non-NCAA organization of schools interested in reducing chaos.

The United States of Hockey discusses whether or not it's a good idea to allow CHL players to play NCAA. He says no, and he's right. CHL teams have no incentive to keep athletes NCAA eligible even now; removing that restriction would provide an incentive to actually discourage players from keeping up with their books. The number of players headed the other way would be few. Meanwhile, the USHL has established itself a high quality league designed to get kids to college. This would hurt it as some players choose the CHL over it.

It's a moot point anyway: the NCAA just relaxed regulations on foreign players playing with pros. Hockey specifically requested and acquired an exemption.

So there's not much the NCAA can do. The one thing I'd suggest is prohibiting American 16 and 17 year olds from playing CHL hockey in Canada. As we learned during the Max Domi song and dance, Hockey Canada currently prohibits Canadians from leaving the country to play junior. Domi's dad would have had to "move to" Indiana to get his kid eligible for the USHL, a major hurdle for anyone who didn't have a long NHL career.

USA hockey should adopt the same policy, limiting American high-schoolers who want to play in the CHL to the small number of American teams in the WHL and OHL*.

*[The Q just shut down their only American team, the ridiculously-named Lewiston MAINEacs.]

Other Items

Austin Hatch is still in a coma a month after the plane crash. At least that's what his local paper says. Depressing.

Zak Irvin picked Michigan. Covered yesterday, but dang if Beilein's recruiting hasn't been on a steady upward trajectory since his first class. It's got to plateau soon, but that plateau looks like a Sweet 16 team.

Also, UMHoops has uncovered the first grainy videos of the camera-shy Irvin.

People covered ADs golfing like it was news. I don't care if it's July. A story about an athletic director playing golf against another athletic director is time that could have been spent on something more socially productive like spitting off a balcony. I'm not linking to any of this stuff. Sports editors across the state: you have suffered the mother of all eye-rollings.

Baseball made its RPI more Northern friendly. By acknowledging that—surprise!—having to spent the first month or two of the season on the road is a significant handicap, Big Ten teams that are actually kind of good will stand a better shot of making the tournament. They also eliminated some bonuses/penalties for teams at the extreme ends of the the range.

Getting those kind of good B10 teams remains a chore. As long as this is true…

Some schools are able to play 35-40 of their 56 allowable games at home, while other teams, due to factors such as weather, may play only 20 home games.

…the playing field will never be anywhere close to level, but good luck trying to change that.

In related news, Jonathan Bornstein moves to Honduras. Bob Bradley was fired and replaced by Jurgen Klinsmann as the head of the USMNT. I get people's reservations about Klinsmann's reputation, which is largely based on one World Cup with Germany and a flameout with Bayern Munich, but if there's one thing the US needs now it's a holistic look at how they develop talent and how it can be improved. The talent gap with Mexico won't be huge for the rest of this WC cycle, but it's hard to see the US not taking a back seat once the Dempsey/Donovan/Dolo/Boca generation ages out after Brazil. There are 100x fewer Uruguayans than Americans, man: there's no reason the US shouldn't be able to produce a few world class players.

Also! PSU QB Paul Jones is academically ineligible, leaving the QB competition there just Bolden and McGloin. The Big Ten further proved that putting their athletic directors in charge of naming anything just leads to a successories poster. BTN revenues increase 21(!) percent over last year. A Michigan undergrad built the largest solar array in the state. Basketball agreed to a home and home with Arkansas. Doctor Saturday predicts 7-5 again, but adding up the "likely win/tossup/likely loss" bits seems to point to 8-4. Gameday likely for the ND game.

you should probably get snarky about how sports isn't really important.

Prepare the little girl screams. Tom broke OH OL Kyle Kalis's upcoming Michigan visit, then Kalis decommitted from Ohio State, and now guys who work for OSU's 247 affiliate (specifically Dave Biddle) are writing off not only Kalis but still-committed OH RB Bri'onte Dunn:

Source: OSU has "no chance" at Dunn or Kalis

Wow. This coming from the family member of an OSU player. These guys aren't just decommitting, they have written off going to OSU. Remember, there are current and former OSU players who went to the same high school as Kalis and Dunn respectively. Word going around at both St. Eds and GlenOak are that the Buckeyes have "no chance" at landing either of them.

What a complete 180 for Kalis. I'm not surprised in the least about Dunn. When I interviewed him two months ago and he said he was "opening things back up" that told me he was basically decommitting. But Kalis was Mr. Buckeye talking about how much he loved OSU and that he was going to recruit like crazy to get other top prospects to join him in Columbus. He reminded me of Brewster and Justin Zwick in that respect.

"Wow" doesn't quite cover it unless it's the sort of wow that goes along with a fondness for hot dogs. Flipping Dunn and Kalis would see Michigan graduate from drinking MSU's milkshake to drinking OSU's. It's gotten so bad for the Buckeyes that the Spartans are drinking OSU's milkshake, nabbing Se'Von Pittman. If Aldophus Washington commits to Purdue next week put the entire state of Ohio on suicide watch.

What are Michigan's chances of flipping the decommit(-ish) duo? Well, Kalis's visit in particular seems to coincide with last weekend's OL visit madness—if he is going to jump ship he's got to do it quickly and it appears Michigan is pretty much his list outside of OSU, about whom see above. Dunn is wobblier since he hasn't actually committed yet and Penn State is a factor, but if the above is reliable Michigan would have to be the favorites.

Later Biddle says Brady Hoke is "negatively recruiting the hell out of OSU," which causes the requisite amount of swooning from the daintier folks in the thread. Specifically:

He's telling these guys that OSU will get hit harder than USC and they "shouldn't fall for the same (stuff) Lane Kiffen sold all those SC recruits."

Heavens to Betsy.

NFL not so much. The National Football Post has a really interesting, extensive piece in which Michigan's seniors are evaluated for NFL potential. No one other than Mike Martin rates highly, but some of that is because of Michigan's zone system. David Molk:

A shorter, compact lineman who looks nearly maxed out physically, despite weighing 288-pounds. Looks a little tight hipped trying to sit into his stance, but has a quick first step and snaps and steps very quickly. Creates leverage for himself consistently, extends his arms and can easily reach and seal on the plays off his frame. Displays a compact, sturdy punch and can stun defenders at the point. Looks really natural when asked to quickly reach block on runs to the perimeter, as he’s coordinated getting his feet around and can seal the edge routinely. Displays natural range/balance getting into blocks at the second level as well. Breakdowns well showcases the ability to routinely seal on contact.

This is three years of UFR on Molk in one paragraph. Molk is praised as a "perfect fit" for Michigan's run-first spread offense but only a potential starter in a zone scheme. If he's big enough he could end up one of those guys who gets drafted in the seventh round and plays for a long time for a good team whilst remaining totally anonymous.

Whole piece is worth a read; it's really interesting to see a professional break down Michigan players after you've formed your own opinions of them. Nothing seems particularly off base.

Hybrid until you die. I've tried to make the case that the 4-3 under is halfway between a conventional 4-3 and 3-4. My basis for the assertion usually revolves around the idea the strongside defensive end and three-tech defensive tackle are more alike than the three-tech and the nose tackle or the SDE and the weakside end. Here's a bit more ammo for that POV from an interview on Touch The Banner with Matt Godin:

"We have the main position which I'm going to play, which is the 5-technique. I guess you'd consider it more D-tackle, but I'll also play outside...I'm only going to have one guy blocking me. It's more of an outside position, actually, but I'm going to be run stopping a lot, too."

The confusion in that statement is considerable, but when he says "outside" he probably means he's going to get a look at WDE. I'm guessing that look will be brief since he's already 270 and with Roh/Beyer/Black/Ojemudia/Brown hanging out at that spot he's probably not going to bring as much pass rush as the winner of that derby.

So when you're looking at the recruiting class you can roughly bin the three-tech DTs with the SDEs; many of those guys will flip from one to the other like Ryan Van Bergen and Brandon Graham before them. If Michigan's two committed SDEs, Godin and Tom Strobel, are really 6'6" each they're a bit taller than you'd like at the three tech, which should leave a spot open for a Danny O'Brien who's more of a fit there, but rumor has it that's not the case. Like everyone else on the internet I'd much rather have a DT than a fullback or a sixth OL, but the internet does not call the shots.

This institution is mad under control, yo. The 65-page Notice of Allegations lodged against UNC yesterday contains many, many allegations headlined by one of their assistant coaches acting as a runner for an NFL agent. It does not allege the dreaded lack of institutional control, which should have Trojan fans running to Los Angeles Torch & Pitchfork.

Stewart Mandel notes this and suggests Butch Davis could keep his job as a result:

Blake's nefarious role in all this (which includes his own unethical conduct charge for withholding information from investigators) is the biggest source of mystery as to how his boss, Davis, managed to avoid the NCAA's wrath. In a document outlining its Principles of Institutional Control, one of the acts the Committee cites as "likely to demonstrate lack of institutional control" is if "A head coach ... fails to monitor the activities of assistant coaches regarding compliance." But it then follows that up with: " ... the head coach cannot be charged with the secretive activities of an assistant bent on violating NCAA rules." Apparently the school did a bang-up job portraying Blake as just such a character, absolving Davis and the school for failing to uncover his secret employer.

Because of that, North Carolina may have staved off the most severe imaginable penalties, but you have to imagine they're still going to be pretty rough. Maybe it's a one-year postseason ban instead of two. Maybe it's 10 docked scholarships instead of 20. Either way, three years' worth of wins are about to be vacated.

The biggest question: Will Davis keep his job? That one will be entirely up to the school.

I'm baffled. I'm not sure how you can possibly suggest anything was under control at UNC. I'm also in favor of removing that bit on not charging the head coach for secretive activities of his assistants. Here the canard about how you can't follow 100 college-age kids around is even more ridiculous: Butch Davis has nine assistant coaches. He should be expected to know whether one of them is working for Gary Wichard.

Mandel's just speculating when he says the UNC case will cause a smaller ripple than those of OSU and USC. I think he's likely to be wrong about OSU if only because we've already got a meaty notice of allegations in the UNC case and until that document hits for OSU we've got no idea what the NCAA will decide is impermissible in Columbus. But if he's right it's going to be a blow to this whole We're Serious Now, You Guys, Seriously campaign Mark Emmert is running. The document the NCAA produced on UNC should be enough for a firebombing.

Meanwhile, Oregon has managed to dig up some more stuff they got from Will Lyles: four spreadsheets with erratically reliable information about 2012 and 2013 recruits sent in February and March of this year, more than ten months after Oregon wrote him a check. The NCAA can't possibly buy what Oregon's selling, can they?

The next year is when the NCAA decides whether implausible deniability is a proper defense. Here's hoping the answer is

Reverse Righthaven. Rivals' Tom Dienhart sat down with Rich Rodriguez for an interview. It's the same boilerplate you'd find in any interview with a guy who'd like a head coaching job in the near future save for this small bit on Pryor:

Are you surprised by what is going on at Ohio State?

"I know some of it because we were close to the situation when I was at Michigan and part of the rivalry, the recruitment of Terrelle Pryor and all of that."

Ok, then.

It's about 1500 words. The Detroit News took 750 of them as an "excerpt" for an article in the paper without so much as linking the original piece or writing anything around it. The News just up and took half of a published article and republished it. The only explanation is there's some sort of content sharing agreement, but since Scout's Sam Webb writes for the news and Rivals' Josh Helmholdt for the Free Press, that doesn't seem likely. The News is so internet hood, yo.

The best part is that when I C&Ped the News article into Live Writer to get a word count it automatically inserted a "read more" link to the News. False.

Request. MVictors has a request, and a reward:

I summarized my take on the mascot situation in one tweet: The Michigan mascot in my head wears fierce armor made from pieces of the stadium halo, and the ’93 Final Four banner as a cape.  

Make that happen and I’ll sign on.  Someone sketch that out for me and I owe you a beer.

Etc.: Via Michigan Hockey Net, OSU hockey's schedule release says Michigan will visit Columbus for a series. Presumably this means the outdoor game is off.

Lonnie White got paid at USC back in the 80s. Also, The Daily (not that Daily) figured out this ASCII thing.

Grantland commissions Brian Phillips to write on Roger Federer, a great example of the site picking the cream of blogging-type people and not just the Klostermans of the world. Only problem is the obvious one when writing a footnote-laced article about Federer: you have giant posthumous looming competition.

Um. This happened. Why does Eastern have a football team again?

suggested subtle: Adam Jacobi and the Easiest Fisk Ever

Better actor: a dead dog or Robert DeNiro?

[Ed: light day. Going to Gold Cup game(s). Also is June.]

If reporters looked like this the world would be a different, stranger place. College Football Live called up a local Morgantown reporter to discuss what Doctor Saturday has dubbed "As The Couch Burns." They immediately improved said reporters self-image:

If Mike Casazza woke up today with wolves and a fridge full of chocolate milk this is why.

While we're on ATCB, yes, it has been broached: bring back Rich Rodriguez.

"Mentor." The Dispatch FOIAs Tressel's communications with one Ted Sarniak and comes up with a heavily redacted set of information that invites questions as to who is mentoring who, exactly:

After Tressel received an April 2, 2010, email from a former player warning him of potential NCAA violations, the coach exchanged 77 calls and text messages with and spent a total of 4 1/2 hours talking on the phone with Ted Sarniak, the hometown mentor of quarterback Terrelle Pryor in Jeannette, Pa.

Their longest phone conversation - 18 minutes - happened on Dec. 21, two days before OSU announced Pryor and five others would be suspended for part of the 2011 season for violations.

The two also spoke for three minutes immediately after the Dec. 23 news conference benching Pryor, Daniel Herron, DeVier Posey, Solomon Thomas and Mike Adams for five games and Jordan Whiting for one game.

Tressel and Sarniak exchanged text messages on March 8, the day OSU announced that Tressel had known about the violations for months.

Sarniak will now offer tearful testimony about how Jim Tressel made him into a man. There's still a bunch of stuff that's redacted with OSU claiming it's "personal," but OSU also tried to withhold Chris Cicero's name and a bunch of other things besides that they had no legal ground to do so. That doesn't much matter since the NCAA can ask to see them on pain of pain. (I think, anyway. Lawyer me in the comments if I'm wrong).

"Mistake." Again with the "mistake" language, this time from bow-tie wearing university president and fool Gordon Gee:

"Any time that there is a mistake, or any time that there is an issue that flares up, and we go back through and scrub everything very, very carefully," he said. "We want to make certain that we're asking all the right questions."

It is not a mistake to engage in a months-long cover-up, just like it's not a mistake to give Jim Tressel a gentle massage when you find out he's violated a very serious NCAA bylaw. Nor is it a "mistake" to ignore two separate warnings that you are barely checking on your athlete's cars, or a "mistake" to talk with Terrelle Pryor's shady handler for four and a half hours.

Meanwhile, that article has another insight into OSU's compliance department:

The university's compliance department, however, did warn another university about a former Buckeyes player who has been linked to the NCAA scandal.

In January, former Ohio State running back Jermil Martin enrolled at Ashland University, an NCAA Division II school midway between Columbus and Cleveland.

As required by NCAA rules, Ohio State notified Ashland of problems with Martin's eligibility, Ashland athletic director Bill Goldring said.

Martin was cited in the SI article as a guy with a close relationship with Rife, so the eligibility issues they reported to the DII school should have led to an investigation and so forth and so on. Instead it was all like "whoops, third string fullback, you did bad and have to go and It Is Fortunate you are the only one."

On the other hand, OSU has just updated (in April) its compliance procedures to the satisfaction of the auditing committee. Close that barn door, baby.

Steelebits. Via Get The Picture, Michigan returns a higher percentage of its yards on offense than almost anyone—they're tenth at 93%. And they only graduate one starter on the line. The offense was going to take a step back in terms of FEI and other advanced metrics just by regressing to the mean, but trying to parse out how much of that is going on versus how much the offensive transition is hurting things is going to be difficult.

Actually, it might not be if they just can't run (or throw) out of the I. That'll be something tracked in UFRs. Because it's interesting, not because I am full of hate. Hoke Uber Alles.

Offtopic but wow. Haven't bashed a local columnist in a while and while it's probably not nice to make fun of someone obviously suffering from late-state syphillis… wow:

Pistons need tough leader like Isiah Thomas as coach

If only we had known about this before a dollar of penicillin could have prevented this tragedy. Isaiah Thomas will sexually harass the players, yo, and then he will do what he's done to every NBA team he's ever come in contact with: make them so much worse than you ever thought possible.

Etc.: Mike Hamilton resigns. With OSU on the Volunteer path that means Gene Smith has a couple months before he does the same.