Feagin Dénouement

"Rosenberg's just another Drew Sharp now"

Maybe thats his goal. Mmm donut.

...'cause I want to rip Rosenberg's arms off right now.

Listing his "performance" in the Horror as crime might be a bit harsh.

Wait, did i say harsh? I mean...what's a word for the complete opposite of that?

i saw the headline. i thought to myself, no thank you and moved on. thanks for the summary brian!

the book should be closed on this "incident".

But of course it won't be - Rod detractors will keep it handy for those times when mud-flinging is on the agenda.

trying to be "hard"...he's just constipated.

All the time.

Drew Sharp? He still has about 472 more ridiculous articles to write to be in that category. Plus, War As They Knew It has to subtract at least a few Sharp points.

Brian, don't forget that Cissoko was arrested in the 'Quit Giving My Boy a Hard Time/Slow Speed Chase' incident.

I went to HS with Pat Lazear and he was a friend of a number of friends. He was always a stand up guy, and his crime was really really stupid but in no way violent or something a career criminal would do. He colluded with his friend, an employee of the smoothie king, to essentially fake an armed robbery.

I always respected RRs decision to offer him, he recognized that Lazear was not a deeply troubled kid and was incredibly talented and that he had an opportunity to pick up when his sock was low. It always struck me as plain good judgement to offer Lazear, in no way a sign of low standards.

FWIW im pretty sure the gun didnt even fire BBs, but plastic balls instead.

but, but, but ESPN told me Rich Rod was a bad man!

Shonte Peoples has to have everyone beat with shooting at undercover police officers he thought were stealing his Jeep, right?

I hate having to defend RichRod just because the MSM has already decided he's a criminal, a liar and all-out dastardly guy.

While one could suggest that many of the question are legitmate questions in the abstract, when taken with Rosenberg's anti-RR bent, it loses the air of legitimacy - especially with the original title.

And how is it not relevant that Rosenberg does not do the compare contrast with MSU with the timely and relevant thought...While maybe you do not compare it with osu troubles (and we all know no one wins when the may bad guys are not as bad as yours), but come on Rosenberg...how do you not mention it unless there is some sort of anti-RR agenda.

So when does the caning end? I don't agree with everyone on here that RR just needs to win and 'all this' will go away.

More likely, it will be 'RR is winning, so what shady undertakings is he involved in that allow this?'

Why do so many people in the media and his own fanbase have such an intense dislike for him that they can't be objective and are so willing to make snap judgements?

There is a lot of evidence in support of a program that is actually being enhanced in terms of character/integrity:
-everything Brian mentions in the article about Fullmer cup points and player discipline as compared to Carr
-highest team grade point average in how many years?
-rallying program and people around Mealer in a time of need
-turning non-productive players who may not get schollies extended into assistants so they can continue their education (thanks Rennaissance)
-not pulling Witty offer when he was injured and played little his senior year
-numerous quotes from players extolling the excellent family/team dynamic
-the lack of even the smallest hint of a negative comment from any of his previous players who are all unerring supporters of him and his character. Seriously, can anyone find anything from a former player (who didn't quit/get kicked off his team) that would indicate a lack of character? No, though surely it is not for lack of trying. If everything that is out there right now is the most that the legions of bitter WVU fans and administration can dig up on him, I think it is laughable that we are even having this discussion. If RR was that shady and underhanded, don't you think that that even a single WVU player would go on record to say as much? they haven't and with good reason.

People seem to suggest that RR is somehow responsible for everything players do before, during and after their tenure on his team. People seriously call him out for Pac Man and Chris Henry? They were players who had no problems prior to their recruitment, zero or very minor while playing for him and then became thugs in the NFL. If anything, this speaks positively of RR and his ability to run a tight ship while players are with him.

People are also all over this Lazear recruit and completely ignore the fact that he is now in his third year and apparently on the honor roll without any issues. Again, to me looking at the situation, this speaks well of RR and his ability to assess character and keep his players in line.

The last few years have made me realize that the stereotype of Michigan fans as whiny, petulant and spoiled is more than a little true, at least for many of them (not us, i am a true fan). Cruising your own message boards for typos and grammatical errors!? Seriously!?

Boo-ing your own team? Anyone that does that sucks and should simply stay home until the team is winning again and they can hop back on the bandwagon and be a 'winner'.

Ray Jackson former fullback (no not the basketball player) was convicted of credit card fraud in high school and Lloyd Carr still recruited him. Then while he was a student at Michigan he got caught stealing a computer from a fraternity with his cohort and model citizen Will Peterson in turn causing a full out brawl with the fraternity. Still Lloyd kept the backup FB on the team for the rest of the year.

There is one big difference between Lloyd Carr and RR. Lloyd Carr would have kept Feagin on the team!

Speaking of Winston, I figured most here would enjoy The Only Colors (MSU SB Nation Blog) take on the Winston situation, so here it is with comments:

http://www.theonlycolors.com/2009/8/10/984523/glenn-winston-is-back-on-t...

On Rosenberg. And he probably is trying to be Drew -- apparently writing horsecrap is a way to foster hits . . .

As for Rodriguez v. Carr comparison, I think the main problem is that one of very first recruits had some baggage that could probably have been detected. It's one thing to take a guy knowing of a problem, and quite another to take a guy when he has a problem you might not want to know about.

This is no big deal. It's a minor distraction, and RR took the right action. I hope it does not fortell the future.

Roasted.

It's sad to see Rosenberg lose his fastball, but that's what happens when you work with Drew Sharp.

I never thought Carr ran a particularly clean program - sure, his kids never wound up on the front page like Miami or FSU, but every major college program (and even some minor ones) have to take chances on troubled kids because they are really good football players, and you need enough of those to compete. If anything, I think RR's regime is more transparent than Carr's, and that is why we are learning about these problems earlier.

I like how he doesn't even bring up the whole state thing with that guy and his reinstatement. It's really annoying how these guys try to make out Rich Rodriquez to be a bad guy. He goes out to Michigan functions all over the country, he has rallied the fans for this season, he has overseen the team having its highest GPA in 20 years, and they do alot of charity work. This guy is a great coach and has done alot of great things off the field.

It must be hard being logical in an insane world. We all knew you liked Feagin a lot based off of some comments he made, so I'm sure it was hard to see him go. But, you do the crime, yadda yadda.

Hopefully he'll land on his feet at some FCS school and not fall in with the wrong crowd again.

P.S. Dantonio drinks fermented pee.

I've seen it.

Michael Rosenberg will detail the explosive story starting tomorrow: Rich Rodriguez's West Virginia birth certificate is fraudulent.

Yup, he was really born in Kenya.

And serves on a Kenyan Health Ministry Death Panel.

This blog can often provide a public service with posts such as this. Well done.

Thank you so much for putting out such a well written post about the article rather than the litany of curses I spewed when I made the mistake of reading it.

it's not that he brought the kid in. The fact that he immediately brought action tells me what I want to know about Rich Rod. If this was "win at all costs" like the MSM suggests, then Feagin would NOT have been kicked off the team.

You know, with the state of Michigan being down and the economy being in the crapper, perhaps the big time newspapers would try to be a little optimistic/rosy here and there? Can't remember the last time the Freep published anything positive. What a depressing newspaper to read...

Grady and Stonum were both Lloyd Carr recruits. RR has been far from questionable.

Note the early morning Free Press headline was, "Win at all costs a poor formula for Rodriguez." changing later in the day to, "Hey Wolverines: What you don't know can hurt you."

by not publicizing much more widely the academic performance of last year's team. From a public relations standpoint, keeping it under wraps is criminally negligent. They're not doing RR any favors, that's for damn sure.

....reading Michael Sharp's, I mean Drew Rosenberg's articles in the past year or so was listening to Cowherd spew ridiculous inaccuracies today about this situation and the program as a whole. I had the pleasure today of being trapped in the chair at my barber (church street barbers btw is a great place) and having to listen to that clown. My instinct was to flail about in anger as I was getting my hair cut, but preserving my stellar appearance took precedence.

What is with the local reporters hating on Michigan and Rich Rod? Can this really be improving readership? Rich Rod should sue.

is conspiracy to distribute cocaine, which is something that can buy you a LOT of time in jail.

Granted, it is not a crime of violence and he was the middle man -- neither Pablo Escobar or the street dealer -- but it is a pretty serious crime.

I think there are a fair number of people around SE Michigan, both in the media, and people at the university who look down on Rodriguez because he comes from West Virginia. There is an unspoken belief that being from West Virginia makes one a hick, less cultured and less educated than someone from the midwest.
Yost got the same sort of grief when he first came here, Carr only escaped it because he had been here 15 years before he took over as head coach.
I think RR needs to take a few members of the mainstream media and befriend them, the same way Carr did. Right now he doesn't really have anybody in his corner, other than Brian and other bloggers, who are great, but probably don't reach a lot of people who aren't already Michigan fans.

Depending on who you talk to some people fear Michigan going in a decade(s) long collapse. Michigan's enemies hope the they fall forever. There are the Herbstreits, and his buddies the Corsos who was on the OSU sideline when Woodson ran his punt return against to them in1997. There is Brent Musburger who hates Michigan. He constantly leaks out his feelings every time he talks about Michigan. I say to them eat Godzilla toejam.

It's Mitch Albom. Take a look at his recent articles - all of them, not just the UM ones, though they are pretty bad. It's like he took a look around the office, figured 'The only guys making bank around here are first-class douchenozzles who tease me with those mean Jimmy Olsen jokes. I'll show them! Unlike them, I have talent, so when I imitate them to make my millions, I'll caricature them even better than they do! I'm going to be somebody, dangit!' Let's check the scoreboard:
-Meaningless proto-memes as frames for articles? Check.
-Repetition, endless, mind-numbing repetition, of the same phrase for smarmy emotional effect? Check.
-A pronounced switch from fact-based, solid reportage to lazy, fact-free columny (I know it's supposed to be calumny, but if you combine the two, it works even better) wherein the writer veers from high-minded approval to righteous, solidly manufactured disdain? Check.

God, only my hatred of all things Mitch could force me to sit and post like this.