football

Sam Webb talked a little bit about Demar Dorsey this morning (nothing has changed).  During that conversation he talked about past U of M players going to prep schools to improve their academic standing.  If you go to prep school, of course, you don't lose any NCAA eligibility and your chances of getting into Michigan are much better than they would be if you went to a junior college.  Does anyone know why a player would go a junior college (and lose eligiblity and greatly decrease their chance of making it into a number of schools) instead of going to prep school?  I'm imagining that players sometimes don't have a choice, but I'm not sure why. 

Rivals is showing a front page post of Shawn Conway. In the article it goes on to say there is a possibility that Shawn will not be eligible to play his senior year of high school football.

Family difficulties resulted in Seaholm head coach Chris Fahr gaining legal custody of Conway in May ? and since Fahr lives in the Clarkston school district, Conway might be forced to enroll at Clarkston High, be subject to transfer rules and miss the fall sports season.

It does say in the next paragraph that the school board and district superintendent can waiver the rule.

The same report suggests the Birmingham School Board and the district superintendent can sign a waiver that bypasses the rule and that would allow Conway to remain in coach Fahr's legal custody, live in Clarkston with the Fahr family and still attend Seaholm.

Links

http://michigan.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1091657

http://burneysbytes.blogspot.com/ (article is called "Blind Sided?")

The UM vs ND game from last season is being replayed right now on BTN for those who are able to watch. It was on this past Saturday too, great game to watch to get excited for the upcoming season, GO BLUE!

I went to an out of town basketball tournament that my son played in this past weekend.  At the first game a stranger comes up to me and comments on my Michigan visor I was wearing and asked what I thought of coach RR.

I told him that I thought he was a good coach coming into a situation with not much to work with and I hope he has the opportunity to get it done, but I had talked to some alums and people associated with the school at the PSU v Michigan baseball games and got the feeling that RR may be in his last year unless he produces now since the pressure is really on.

He said that would be a shame because they guy is a great coach.  He then told me that he's a WVU alum, but he thought RR made the right move since Michigan is a step up from there and that anyone who thinks it was a lateral is just fooling themselves.  Told me that he knows RR personally, but not as close as some of his friends and that RR has had them to AA for some games.

We talked a bit more and he made some very clear points...

If RR had a Pat White in his first year at AA none of the firing conversation would be happening now.  The WVU guy liked Tate a lot, but thinks he's too small/frail to play an entire season in that system.  Said there is no way Tate is the size he's listed at and pointed out a kid playing in the basketball game to show how big he really is.  Wasn't sure about DRob, but thinks if RR makes it to the Gardner era things will turn out just fine.

I thought I'd share this because even the rational WVU alums think RR can get it done with the right tools.

The White House released a set of behind-the-scenes photos on Monday from President Barack Obama's appearances over the past month.

One photo, by official WH photographer Pete Souza, shows Obama getting ready to take the field for U-M's commencement at the Big House on May 1st. The president is shown, by himself, touching the "Go Blue, Hold the Rope" sign above the entrance to the field.

Check out the photo below:

Thought I would share this in case anyone was interested. obviously way early, but gives you a good indication who has started out hot on the recruiting trail (Texas @ #1 with 20 commits 8 of which are in the ESPN 150 - holy crap!)
Nothing real surprising at the top, but here's a couple of things that jumped out at me:
Stanford and Washington look to be starting off very well (13 &15 respectively). They both have a lot of commits, but only two 4 stars each so far.
Kentucky @ #20! 9 Total commits with 1 four star commit. What's up now Calipari!?
Mississippi St right behind Michigan @ 24. By the numbers, they have an identical class as us so far - 2 four stars and 3 three stars.
Anyway, here's the link to check out.
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/recruiting/classrankings?classyear=2011&c...