Blackwell Details:Part Deux (Conflict of Interest)
Seems that Blackwell is going to be the fall guy based on the headlines of the main articles of the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.
DetNews: MSU Police: Blackwell interfered with investigation
FREEP: MSU Staffer: Blackwell had unprofessional rapport, "conflict of interest"
It seems like we hear about this story ad nauseum, but new details continue to be aired in public. This time, the staff are complaining about how he conducted himself around the Detroit area athletes. It sounds petty to me, but maybe I'm looking at it incorrectly.
But here's a juicy paragraph (DetNews) in case you don't want to click through.
One staffer, whose name was redacted, said “I’m not a big Curtis guy,” and indicated he believed Blackwell’s association with the “Sound Mind, Sound Body” camps created a conflict of interest. That staffer discussed the close relationship Blackwell had with players from Detroit and said in the report that “Curtis is the one football staff member who he would question their integrity,” while adding, “Curtis would withhold information related to the Detroit kids.”
Usually by now I'd start bitching (mostly to myself) about how there are 1,103,912 MSU threads as of late.
But quite frankly, every time I open one of these it's like a little present. Love to see these guys burn.
that number so you could sneak 3 & 9 in the middle and hope that no one noticed you made a 3-9 joke?
Now this makes me question the validity of the Jones Day report even more. It clearly stated that Robertson went to Dantonio first, they contacted the OIE and then police, and then Robertson told Blackwell about it and that Dantonio already had things in motion.
Unless there was a big lapse in time between the OIE and Title IX office getting on the same page, this doesn't smell right.
Blackwell told investigators he had spoken with two players later identified as suspects well before Michigan State’s Title IX office had been made aware of the incident.
And from the Jones Day report:
Nonetheless, there is evidence that, on January 16, 2017, this staff member learned about an incident potentially involving football players from the reporting player who initially reported to Dantonio. The reporting player informed the staff member that he had already spoken with Dantonio and that Dantonio was reporting the information to OIE.
Dantini took notes from Chris Carter's fall guy speech, but Carter didn't discuss keeping your story straight.
So that could be the reason for the discrepancy. Either way, it seems the staff didn't like him and they sound jealous of him and relieved he's gone. As long as Dantonio and those assistants are at MSU they may have kissed all the elite football players in Detroit goodbye with that sentiment.
How do you go into King or Cass Tech and talk to a coach or player who's friends with the guy you complained about to the cops?
And Detroit coaches aren't the only ones to pick up on this information. Blackwell was beloved all over the Football Camp community around the country.
Dantonio is going to have to be let go if they plan on getting back into the recruiting game like they did before. If he isn't fired from the legal/player issues, it will be from performance two to three years down the line. No way MSU comes back with this same coaching staff. They can't get the troubled kids because the school already has too much of a bullseye due to criminal cases, etc. And now they'll have a hard time getting the good kids because many high school coaches have an affiliation with Blackwell and see this as a "fall guy" situation.
Not good at all for Dantonio's prospects, even if Blackwell was 100% to blame for this (which I think is bogus).
Will they go to Narduzzi is the replacement?
Daugherty was never a Michigan assistant. You're probably thinking of Duffy's predecessor Biggie Munn, who was an assistant to Fritz Crisler.
The goofy part is MSU didn't start having problems until they finally started getting some decent recruits (or at least that we knew of).
Most of Dantonio's success came with 2 and 3 star guys who were pissed off that they weren't recruited more. They all worked their asses off and had a common bond with the "chip on the shoulder" mentality.
Some of them are fine but let's face it, a lot of highly rated guys have an ego because they have been told they were the greatest since they were freshmen in high school. Dantonio's biggest flaw seems to be that he couldn't manage egos and let them run rampant.
I think there were some issues that were relatively ignored, because Dantonio kept repeating that he was the "Dean of Discipline" to a fawning media. Rathers Hall incident, Winston, likely PED use by the Rose Bowl suspendee, etc...
And can a leopard really change its spots? If Mork decides to suddenly be the disciplinarian, that's a completely different culture with which both the players and the staff isn't quite in sync. It would be better just to let the whole staff go and get someone else in than try to change it. I honestly can't see how this gets any better without a bigger change.
But that's fine. I'm willing to let the couches burn in EL.
Only a matter of time!
That's it, it's official. UMBig11 = Becky Dantonio, loving wife of 27 years of one Coach Mark Dantonio...
Thanks a lot!! That's not fair to my Michigan loyalty!
God, please tell me it's a loveless, sexless marriage. ;-)
I know for a fact one more on the two deep is tranferring. There are some unconfirmed reports of up to 7 more that could be gone. A total house cleaning. (Not sure I buy the 7 more, but at this point I cannot I canoot discount the validity either)!!
Good God, seven more??? I am almost starting to feel bad for the program. Just kidding, no I'm not, because whenever that feeling emerges I remember...
"I find a lot of the things they do amusing. They need to check themselves sometimes. Let's just remember, pride comes before the fall. ... They want to mock us, I'm telling them, it's not over. They want to print that crap all over their locker room, it's not over and it'll never be over here. It's just starting. ... I'm very proud of our football team, and I'm very proud of the way our football team handled themselves after the game as well. You don't have to disrespect people. If they want to make a mockery of it, so be it. Their time will come."
If you ever again start to feel bad for them, remember this ultimate little brother troll job by mr. "pride comes before the fall"....
curtis was probably taking the photo!
About 12 people in that photo, almost as many as their entire current roster.
I'm not even tempted to joke about feeling bad for them, because I can't muster the conviction to be convincing about it. They spent the last eight years or so being worse than they accuse us of being, in the arrogance department. Watching the program do its very best Hindenberg impression is a schadenfreudey good time.
There will be freshmen walk-ons on both sides of the ball in their 2 deep at this rate. One half decent player on their defense and there is literally no depth. Many of the starters would be backups on many B1G teams, also.
So is Mork just going to bend over and take his spanking from every team they play this season? This team is going to look like PSU did a few years back, completely shorthanded everywhere. It would take a monumental coaching job to just not let the team quit, let alone win 3 games.
Just start reading the articles. He was one shady dude! Impermissible contact and impermissible benefits. All coming to the light of day. I have hinted at this in some of my posts the last few weeks.
We should expect that they should have expected that as well.
If even before his obstruction of justice Blackwell was perceived as a problem in any way, I wonder why in the hell he was given such a big raise a year ago.
What I like about the OP's quoted paragraph is it both speaks poorly of Dantonio's program and doesn't involve the hideousness of rape and covering up rape. This is a Sparty shit show I can get behind!
In-fighting! Intrigue! Abyssmal teamwork! It's the feel-good movie of the summer!!
They can charge him at any time. He knows he is not out of the woods. He is lawyered up.
Why incriminate yourself for a job you're not going to keep? Only people who are going to speak are those with nothing to hide or friends willing to cover for your lies.