free press jihad

Programming note. I am out of heeeere, en route to Las Vegas to hang out with my friend who runs around like one of those tiny dogs whose blood is 90% cocaine during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Tim is spending today enjoying Irish culture—I think this means he's going to a museum or eating some cabbage—so the recruitin' post will be Thursday. I have a hockey preview in the can. There might be some other sporadic content, but I'm looking at Thursday, Friday, and possibly Monday as vacation days. Our flight gets in at 5 AM. I will be super excited about that.

Q for people more experienced than me: I'm sure sportsbooks will have the BTN, but does anyone know how likely it is I can get a TV tuned to the Miami-Michigan game and hypothetical championship game? Please advise. Also if you have other advice, I am listening.

Surprise! Oh, actually not a surprise in any way at all. Grad assistant Alex Herron is being dumped overboard:

The graduate assistant accused of lying to NCAA investigators is no longer part of Michigan's football program.

Alex Herron, who was named in a Notice of Allegations the NCAA sent to Michigan last month, does not appear on Michigan's spring list of administrative personnel.

This is an obvious consequence of being personally named in a major violation because you lied to the NCAA.

Walk-ons for water. Michigan has its own version of Paki O'Meara, the Iowa walk-on tailback who was occasionally thrust onto the field because the only petty deity more wroth than Angry Michigan BLANK Hating God is Angry Iowa Tailback Hating God, in the form of freshman O'Neil Swanson. His name fascinates. Now he pitches Vitamin Water to you:

I'm not sure if he's really O'Neil Swanson III, which would make his name worthy to bask in the radiance of Barkevious Mingo, or if he's just screwing around for the Youtubes. Obviously, I hope it's the latter.

Oh, right, and here are five minutes of highlights thanks to poster steviebrownforheisman. What a country!

Okay then. After some initial futzing by Birkett on his twitter, AnnArbor.com posts an apology sort of thing for the crowbar comment. Fine, hatchet buried and all that.

Elsewhere, there are two reactions to that apology from people who are bad at having opinions. Site the first is College Football Talk: "for a website to force its writers to pretend that an athlete wasn't arrested multiple times for burglary is plain ridiculous." The Big Lead: "Even if Dorsey deserves a second chance, he in no way deserves a clean slate or media sheltering."

Yes, Demar Dorsey has been a sheltered little bunny in his little bunny cage. Drew Sharp feeds him a carrot cut into the shape of a heart every day. No one has heard ten thousand things about Michigan recruiting this character when kids with Dorsey's background enter schools across the country without so much as a peep.

Michigan fans have a right to expect a lack of unsolicited cheap shots. Birkett doesn't know anything about this kid except his high school record and what's been in the paper. He posted something that wouldn't be out of place on an Ohio State or Michigan State message board, and it's his job to interact with the kids on the team on a daily basis. That's totally unprofessional and Birkett deserves all the crap he gets for it. It's not about sticking your head in the sand, it's about having the tiniest modicum of respect for the program you're supposed to cover.

Meanwhile, a poster around these parts put together a diary in response that's longer and better written than the initial, pointless Big Lead post, and Duffy responds about the declining standards around here… in the user-generated area of the site. As someone who writes for the Big Lead. Quick, what are Kim Kardishan's boobs looking like today? Are they still enormous and airbrushed? Lawya, please.

Buzz after-effects. I went on a little torrent of hockey recruit googlestalking in the aftermath of the Michigan State series, partially because of general enthusiasm and partially because Michigan picked up its second commit of the 2012 class in Chicago defenseman Connor Carrick. The Wolverine's Bob Miller describes him as a bigger, quicker, better version of Langlais—yes please. I didn't find anything else on him other than a teaser from the perpetually sketchy "Scouting News" that suggested he blew up at a recent tourney and is now being mentioned at the very head of the upcoming OHL draft. In my experience those guys are used car salesmen; I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that.

While searching around I ran across some random guy's late January listing of the top 100 guys for the upcoming OHL draft and found some familiar names:

1. F Matia Marcantuoni (if he chooses college it will apparently be M, but that's a big if)
8. D Jacob Trouba (choosing between M and ND, OHL a possibility)
10. F Boo Nieves (commit)
17. D Connor Carrick (commit)
24. G Dalton Izyk (Nieves's teammate)

Who knows if this guy actually knows anything but when it comes to 15-year old hockey players there's not much else to go on. Not that there necessarily should be, or I should be looking for it.

Also from the potentially dubious depths of the Hockey's Future message boards is this report on Nieves:

I've seen Nieves play numerous times in different tournaments, and he's solidified himself as a top 10 talent, but is not likely to come to the OHL. He's a massive body, that has great acceleration, a pass first centre, and rarely if ever loses faceoffs. Would like to see him use the body more often, as he has a massive frame to grow into. He's a guy I'd keep an eye on, as he'll most likely get drafted in the later rounds, but is a real talent for the next level.

That is all sorts of things I like to hear.

The CHL has your education foremost in its mind. Lethbridge is losing its goalie this year after five years. Let's hear about the rigorous education he received:

"I guess real life is around the corner," [Linden] Rowat said with a smile. "I have to get a job and go to school. You kind of take it for granted playing in the Western League for five years, getting up at 11 o'clock, playing video games, going to practice. Now it's going to be a lifestyle change. A complete 180."

Woo!

Etc.: MVictors has its own version of everyone else's twelve minutes of spring practice. There is a second mgotourney bracket. This one will not have prizes, unfortunately. More on Sheridan and Wright moseying off.

Iowa. Asian pop bands. A love that is forever. Via the message board, another inexplicable Asian pop song in which the Hawkeyes feature prominently. This one is less pedobear and more 120 Minutes.

One correction to the MGoBoard poster: Girls' Generation is totally not obscure. "Gee" was the longest-running #1 song on KBS's Music Bank, I will have you know.

Enter the Schnell. Michigan will play Howard Schnellenberger University, also known as Florida Atlantic, in 2012:

It appears the Owls will play at Michigan in 2012 barring any snags in the final negotiations.

"It looks like both sides are amenable to it," said FAU AD Craig Angelos.

I don't really care who Michigan brings in as a random tomato can, but do have a preference for local schools. I guess the FAU game is a vague attempt to increase Michigan's profile in the state, or something. Rod Payne is a coach there and Grant Debenedictis an athletic department employee, FWIW.

"Hey, in my kit back there where I've got all my dope." I hit up NCAA.org today in search of APR information to update last summer's post about what will certainly be a dip in Michigan's numbers this year—more on that later—and the top headline is the fourth item in a series about Division II reform. This would normally rank low on my list of things to bring you, but here's the topic:

Hourly limits to be evaluated in Phase II review

Among the areas of review in Phase II of the Life in the Balance initiative is the nebulous “20/8-hour rule,” which regulates athletically related activities in and out of season.

Given that it’s difficult to understand and even harder to track (the rule trips up Division I institutions, too), it’s probably going to be tough for the Division II Legislation Committee to develop recommendations for modifying it.

The NCAA's official website just called the in- and out-of-season hourly limits "nebulous," "difficult to understand," and "even harder to track." So there you go.

Well… yeah. Add this to the pile of former Michigan players asked about Rich Rodriguez who all basically say the same thing in different ways. It's Brandon Graham's turn:

“After the season, we said that, ‘you can’t be up for so long, eventually you have to pay taxes,’ ” Graham said on Saturday. “That’s how we look at it until we get it back up. That’s what we’re going to do. I hope them boys get right next year. Because coach (Rich Rodriguez has) only got one more year — if they don’t do (anything). Because of the allegations, and then, if you have a bad year, then you’ve got to get someone new.”

Again, this is just a different version of the same opinion heard in all of these quotes. They don't say anything about Rodriguez, really. They say something about the guy offering the quote. Brandon Graham, as per usual, is win.

Another version of same. Doctor Saturday evaluates Michigan in his "road to recovery" series and comes to basically the same conclusion as the rest of the planet:

Target date for reacquisition of mojo. … If you mean "enough for Rich Rodriguez to keep his job," there is no patience for those questions to work themselves out; it's 2010 or never. The Wolverines need seven regular season wins to ward off the inevitable mob clamoring for Rodriguez's head, which probably means breaking even in Big Ten play, which means winning more conference games this season (four) than the 2008-09 teams won in the last two combined (three).

That's a dramatically lowered bar relative to anything Michigan has considered a reasonable standard in 40 years. At this point, though, beggars can't be choosers: Every energy this fall has to go to getting back above .500, finding something to hang a helmet on and setting higher goals from there.

Yeah, basically.

A theory put to the test. My swanky blogging program has an auto-link capacity that I've used to link to my Bleacher Report hating (hey, there it goes) since I published it. In that post is this assertion:

The mere fact that people can't immediately tell the difference between the dreck on the Bleacher Report and your average MSM columnist is perhaps the most damning criticism you can offer of MSM columnists.

Now we'll get an opportunity to test that out in practice. A few newspapers desperate for free content have signed one of them content-sharing agreements. Congratulations to newspaper subscribers in Houston, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Seattle: you are the vanguard. Someone who works for a newspaper said this:

“Bleacher Report’s publishing platform provides a powerful way to serve our readers quality, original content that complements our own coverage,” Stephen Weis, executive vice president of the Houston Chronicle and general manager of Chron.com, said in a statement. “Working with Bleacher Report, we’re able to reach out to local fans and add a variety of viewpoints on each of the day’s sports stories that matters most to our readers in their home markets.”

Sporting News colleague Dan Levy says "there's something missing" in his BR critique on the Sporting Blog. This is because Dan Levy is a very nice man. I have many theories as to what the missing thing is that are not very nice. I do eagerly anticipate the day when either the Free Press or the LA Times hops on board and people can't tell the difference between Plaschke, Sharp, and a 14-year-old whose main interests are Tony Hawk and imagining what it would be like to touch a boob. Dress them up in Official Journalist trappings and give them once-over from a copy editor and it'll be hard to distinguish.

Etc.: Tom Harmon goes to work.

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.

don't call it a comeback, jihad's been here for years

So.

After Tuesday's press conference we have all been apprised of what Michigan stands accused of and can go back to the original article and this site's response to that article and evaluate those claims for accuracy. One thing leaps out at me about my response: having little experience with "major violations" that didn't involve hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash changing hands, I didn't comprehend where the line between "secondary" and "major" lies. It turns out that everything down to a few TRENCH WARRIOR hats is major, so this paragraph that wraps up my deconstruction of the journalism-type substance turns out to be wrong:

The Free Press systematically overstated their case by omitting contextual information and misrepresenting quotes about voluntary workout programs. They have repeatedly raised the specter of major, program-crippling sanctions. They took a side, and if that side turns out to be wrong the people responsible for the story should be held responsible for their errors in judgment.

They won't, of course. If and when Michigan releases the results of its internal probe and announces they've come up with either nothing or a pu-pu platter of secondary violations, people will laugh at NCAA enforcement, cite the Jerry Tarkanian quote, and laud the journalistic effort that went into proving football players play a lot of football.

…but only the word "secondary." Michigan will get hit with a major violation after all. They will take some largely symbolic punishment. This is not victory for the University. But it's closer to a win for them (and it's not very close) than it is for the Free Press.

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A series of quotes. The Free Press:

Players spent at least nine hours on football activities on Sundays after games last fall. NCAA rules mandate a daily 4-hour limit. The Wolverines also exceeded the weekly limit of 20 hours, the athletes said.

Toney Clemons:

"The allegations are true," Clemons said. "Nothing is fabricated or exaggerated in that story. I was there on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. or 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. depending on if guys needed treatment. You were there daylight to nighttime."

Yrs truly:

I am willing to wager many amounts of money that the Sunday lifting was of the variety that fits the NCAA's definition of voluntary, as was the film. The rehab/examinations/dinner and any downtime in between practice and film and other activities definitely don't count. At no point has anyone in the media even broached this possibility. It has not occurred to them. Some of them specifically omit it because it conflicts with their aims; some are just professional parrots.

When Michigan releases its compliance information, Michigan will check in at four hours of countable activity on Sunday. If they're over at all it will be by a small amount. I bet a dollar.

The NCAA:

Between August 31 and October 26, 2008, football student-athletes were required to participate in as many as five hours of countable athletically related activities per day, which exceeded the maximum of four hours a day, on several occasions, including, but not limited to, August 31; September 7, 14 and 28; and October 5, 12, 19 and 26. Additionally, during the week beginning October 19, 2008, the student-athletes were required to participate in approximately 20 hours and 20 minutes of countable athletically related activities, which exceeded the maximum of 20 hours per week. [NCAA Bylaw 17.1.6.1]

Someone owes me a dollar.

There is another allegation accusing the program of even slighter overages (a half-hour at most) during the early parts of the 2009 season, after the article came out. We will see why Michigan went over when the details come out, but it's safe to say given David Brandon's statements that Michigan will argue they were erroneously lumping stretching in with various explicitly non-countable activities. Michigan's violations were borne of incompetence, sloppiness, and misinterpretation.

That's not why the Free Press story was major news last year. No one picks up the story "Michigan could be slightly over their daily allotted maximum in countable hours." The lurid allegations that Michigan was not just exceeding but totally ignoring NCAA limits on football-related activities are the entire crux of the Free Press article. With one brief assertion that the players interpreted the technically voluntary activities as mandatory, the Free Press dismisses the idea that a non-countable hour exists. In this they were not only totally wrong but dishonest. Honesty requires framing the facts in a responsible way. No effort was made at this.

They omitted useful context like this statement from NCAA president Myles Brand:

"Once you get past 40 hours, you're really pushing it, I think."

It took two seconds to Google that. It came from an article in an obscure paper called "USA Today" that featured a survey that found D-I football players spent 45 hours a week on football-related activities.

They kept every player who spoke anonymous, even those who had left the program, except for the freshmen whose words they twisted badly. They ignored a raft of articles with quotes that provide context relative to other Division I programs:

To combat any complacency, Meyer has ordered strength coach Mickey Marotti to design the most difficult offseason that Florida's ever had.

"If there's any resistance," Meyer said, "that guy's not going to play."

And they didn't put the word "countable" in their story once. This was not ignorance: when I asked Mike Rosenberg if he knew what a "countable hour" was, he said yes. Mark Snyder, ironically, refused to answer.

They did all this in service of making Michigan's marginal rules violations—violations that college football coaches attest to SportsCenter anchors would befall 90% of Division I—seem utterly lawless. A newspaper that cared about journalism would fire everyone involved with the story now that the NCAA's worst-case scenario has definitively proven that the truth was a secondary objective in the Free Press story, if it was considered at all.

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As for the program: we don't know the details of what went on yet so I can't say whether or not this has a major impact on my opinion of Rodriguez. The NCAA allegations fall in a gray area where it's not immediately clear how bad the violations actually are or are not.

The in-season overages are laughable, consisting of some days that were slightly too long and exactly twenty minutes of actual extra time beyond the 20-hour weekly limit. If the out-of-season overages are entirely encompassed by extra conditioning for kids who missed class, they're stupid on the part of someone in the department but basically honorable. I think there will be other things, though, as there are overages for both "voluntary" conditioning and summer countable hours. What those things are will matter.

The situation with the quality control staffers—obvious here from day one as the most damaging section of the allegations—is potentially worse. I've heard plenty of potential mitigating factors and some of the charges, like "QC staffer helps players stretch," are self-evidently TRENCH WARRIOR-type violations. Others seem like organized efforts to avoid NCAA rules. If they are that's at the very least stupid.  If Michigan has a reasonable explanation for this that the NCAA accepts, fine. I've heard they will, but that remains the quintessential rumor you want to believe.

I'll withhold judgment on the program until then. My guess is that it will be sloppy on Rodriguez's part and worse for certain members of the compliance staff. After some heads roll and Michigan gives back some practice time, it will be over. Dave Brandon has quite a job to do reorganizing the department into something competent.

This is a softball strike against Rodriguez. Another NCAA investigation that turns up anything major and he's gone. Does it affect how much he needs to win next year? Not for me personally, and I don't think for anyone important.

What would change that? Sanctions, self-imposed or not, that seem to seriously impinge on the program's ability to compete the next two years. Scholarship reductions that last past 2010. (IE: are anything other than symbolic.)

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A final note: I can't emphasize enough how much of a hit job this was. Until such time as Drew Sharp, Michael Rosenberg, and Mark Snyder are no longer at the paper, if you are a Michigan fan with a Free Press subscription you should terminate it immediately. If you link to a Free Press article it should be the print page and it should be nofollowed. If you visit the Free Press website, you should have adblock on. If you write for Michigan's Rivals site you should not write for the Free Press. It's not because they took a swing at Michigan's program. It's because they were blatantly dishonest in doing so.

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.

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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.

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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.

Talkin'. I'd actually scheduled this podcast appearance at The Solid Verbal last week and the kids over there just happened to hit the news cycle jackpot. So, yeah, there's a podcast of me talking to Ty and Dan about the shoe that just dropped, Tate Forcier, the future of the program, and Admiral Ackbar.

One clarification: I was just talking extemporaneously about a question I hadn't thought about before when I mentioned that I thought Rich Rodriguez probably had an idea of what was going on with the quality control assistants. After some more research, I think that's erroneous since one of the charges is a "failure to monitor" on Rodriguez's part. "Failure to monitor" appears to be something that precludes Rodriguez knowing about the violations.

Click for go:

  Michigan's Maze (2/24) [32:41m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

The upshot. This is not changing until we know what happens in 2010:

At least no one will ask this until—aw, who am I kidding.

Obligatory item in which I offer an opinion about virtually everyone acting stupid. First, Brandon Graham:

Former Wolverine Brandon Graham said he didn't experience any of the alleged violations during his time at Michigan and that the NCAA report shouldn't sour anyone's view on Rodriguez.

"Coach Rod’s a good coach, and people are just trying to get him in trouble to me," Graham said.

The obvious contrast is with Morgan Trent, who sold out the program in a statement. One: now we have a pretty good explanation for why Trent is a successful NFL player but basically sucked at Michigan. He did not like the program change and didn't put in full effort. Two: while people going "lol Trent you suck" are not covering themselves in glory, you can dump Trent in with those guys in a barrel of people I don't want to get a beer with.

Trent is symptomatic of the problems resulting from the vast culture change Rodriguez brought with him, and each former Carr guy who just can't get over the change who goes out the door or transfers before their time is one more scholarship not being wasted. Trent doesn't know anything about the exact specifics of what GAs and QC assistants are allowed to do and didn't know that stretching time was CARA. He's just talking out of his ass because he dislikes RR, and I hereby excommunicate him.

Additional random takes. Some other takes I missed yesterday. ESPN's Adam Rittenberg:

Michigan will be hit with some penalties, and "major violations" are possible. But these allegations don't seem to be overly extreme, despite some harsh language in the report. Michigan could be hit with probation or scholarship losses, and it will need to be more careful on these issues going forward. I'll repeat what I've said all along: Rich Rodriguez's fate ultimately comes down to whether or not he wins games, not what the NCAA decides in August.

The Detroit News's John Niyo:

In the end, I'd guess a quality-control staffer probably will lose his job, and changes surely are in store for the compliance department. Beyond that, maybe not much more than institutional embarrassment, which is no small price to pay at Michigan.

But the real change better start with Rodriguez, who has to know the new athletic director, while offering his support privately and publicly, also is reserving final judgment.

The difference between the two papers is kind of amazing, isn't it?

Recent interviewee Compliance Guy also has a post at his home base. It's measured:

Many of Michigan’s violations involve slippery territory. Hire enough noncoaching staff members, give them enough coaching-like responsibilities, and leave them with student-athletes and these violations are bound to happen. It might sound incredulous that the coaches didn’t consider stretching and warm-up to be CARA, but other preventive measures like training room activities are not included. …

Michigan is likely not facing the same level of sanctions as USC. In addition to the absence of a lack of institutional control allegation, Michigan’s excess CARA was not the “two to three times” or “nine hour days” that the players originally alleged.

I would expect a hodgepodge of significant but not devastating penalties including reduced CARA limits (either through a shorter season or reduced hourly limits), reductions in coaching staff members, recruiting restrictions, and reductions in financial aid. That Michigan is a repeat violator might only mean a longer probation of three to four years rather than the minimum of two.

"Reductions in financial aid" means scholarship losses, but more on that in a bit.

Section With Nothing To Do With You-Know-What

So I've got all these tabs that have just… lingered since about Monday night when minor amounts of hell broke loose. Here they are.

Eeee Brandon? Dave Brandon gets a fairly massive profile in USA Today, complete with video. Random quote pulled out:

"This feels to me like just such an appropriate next step. It's leadership, but a different kind of leadership," said Brandon, 57, discussing the impending move during an interview at Domino's headquarters, a few miles from the university's main campus. "This has provided me with an opportunity to connect with a place that has been incredibly important to my life."

We might not win much, but by God we go to Kenpom. The amount of pride I find in this statement from the man formerly known as Big Ten Wonk is completely irrational:

Seems to me that this type of progressive thought would suit a fan base like Duke’s — intelligent fans with a successful program — really well. Are you aware of any fan bases that are particularly attuned to it?

Well, it’s more anecdotal, and it’s drawing a distinction between bloggers and actual fans who I hear from. But obviously, I hear a lot from Duke and North Carolina, both because those are great combinations of A. successful programs and B. smart fan bases. I definitely hear a lot from that region of North Carolina. I think the key might be smart and impassioned fan bases, even more than successful programs, because I would also point to a community like Michigan, which has had next to nothing in the way of recent success. I hear a lot from Michigan fans — however improbably, they definitely are hip to this stuff.

Excellent work, Michigan internets. Say anything you want about us, but by God we know when to divide.

Justin Turner doom mitigation. AnnArbor.com article on Justin Turner got lost in the shuffle. In it are some reasons Turner didn't play last year that mitgate your (read: my) panic that he might not live up to his massive recruiting reputation, which would be a disaster:

“He wasn’t here in the summer lifting and going to class and doing all those things, so it’s really a few months,” Gibson said.

Once Turner got settled, he showed why he was such a well-regarded recruit.

Gibson said Turner split time between the scout team and regular defense by midseason, and coaches salivated at the thought of getting him in the rotation.

“If we’d have got him in earlier last year with the NCAA stuff, I think he’d have played a little bit,” Gibson said. “He’s a good-looking kid. There’s a lot of guys I’m anxious to see back there, but he’s one that sticks out.”

If Turner and Devin Gardner are on the field at the same time during the spring game, I'm watching Turner. That's how important he is for the program. The article mentions a possibility that Turner could end up at safety if that's the thing that seems to make the most sense, FWIW.

There is also praise for JT Floyd, but I tend to file that under the Johnny Sears rule: you talk up whoever you've got in the vague hope confidence can carry them despite your lyin' eyes.

Walkin' on. Good article in the Grand Rapids Press on walk-ons, though it misidentifies what a grayshirt is*. It highlights a physically imposing offensive tackle from Forest Hills Central who joins Baquer Sayed as Michigan preferred walk-ons who picked M over MAC offers. Meet Kristian Mateus:

It’s not the same because of the scholarship, but everybody is treated as the same player at Michigan,” said the 6-foot-8, 285-pound offensive lineman. “I feel good about that.”It’s not the same because of the scholarship, but everybody is treated as the same player at Michigan,” said the 6-foot-8, 285-pound offensive lineman. “I feel good about that.”

“Coach (Rich) Rodriguez was a walk-on himself, so he has made a commitment to make a walk-on feel as comfortable as possible,” Mateus said. “I was recruited by Michigan, took a visit there, went to camp there last summer, and it’s the place I want to be.”

Mateus had a Central Michigan offer and interest from Western Michigan and… Notre Dame? Probably not that latter but in any case sometimes you get weird breakout offensive linemen and having a MAC prospect walk-on is a non-trivial chance at a contributor.

*(Article erroneously states that a grayshirt is an early enrollee a la Devin Gardner, Ricardo Miller, and company. Those folk are usually termed early enrollees. Grayshirts are the opposite: instead of accelerating and skipping their last semester of high school, a grayshirt (usually) signs a LOI and then waits an extra semester to join the team. Sometimes they enroll, sometimes they don't. They're not on scholarship if they do.)

Etc.: I plan on front-paging these when all hell is not breaking loose, but here's FA's recap of baseball's first weekend. There is a research-heavy argument about recruiting rankings going on in the diaries. Do they matter? Not really, definitely at Michigan, only when five stars are around.