Justin Feagin Dismissed
So I got an email yesterday predicting the departure of a quarterback from Florida and thought to myself "oh God, not Denard Robinson."
Well, it wasn't Denard Robinson. Sophomore-to-be slot receiver Justin Feagin is no more:
"Justin Feagin was dismissed from the team for a violation of team rules Thursday evening," head coach Rich Rodriguez said in a statement.
That's ambiguous as to whether the dismissal or the violation came Thursday, but I'm guessing it's the former.
I'm of two minds about the departure. On the one hand, it would be hard to pick out a player on the roster whose departure would be less likely to impact Michigan's performance on-field both this year and going forward. Feagin was a late flier Michigan took on the off chance he might be a viable quarterback. He was not and got bounced to slot receiver, where he wasn't a factor. With the spring emergence of Roy Roundtree and availability of freshmen Terrance Robinson (a redshirt), Jeremy Gallon, and Je'Ron Stokes, he didn't figure to be a factor in the fall. And it's not like slot receiver looks like 
a thin spot going forward; enough bits have been spilled about Michigan's receiver-mad recruiting class to fill all the tubes of the internets.
On the other hand, Feagin is the first Rodriguez recruit to leave [UPDATE: forgot about Taylor Hill, who left almost before he arrived] and did so in inauspicious circumstances. The email yesterday provided some murky detail on the violation of team rules and it's the sort of thing that is a no-BS immediate seeya type of thing. I'll let the actual journalists ferret out the details, as one anonymous, if prescient email does not a solid story make. I'd be surprised if it didn't end up in the papers eventually.
Though this kind of thing happens at a certain rate to all programs, it's another opportunity for evil bad PR gnomes to stroke their beards and mutter sagely about What Is Going On In Ann Arbor. And I (baselessly) liked the kid. How could you not, given the picture at right?
Also: you can subtract at least one additional point from Michigan's APR, which isn't going to be fatal or anything but it ain't good. Also also: I have Michigan at 20 scholarships for 2010 now, assuming that Cone and Wright don't get fifth years.
"It's been a while since I got to sit at a Michigan game and not wonder if the team we were supposed to throttle wasn't going to pull off the upset."
Yeah, since 1998.
There are no corners in space.
So if I send Brian an email telling a Feagin-related tale of gerbils, applesauce and recruiting hostesses, Brian lacks cajones if he wants a little confirmation before running with the story?
LeeR
Either run the story or dont. If you run it in a half-ass way like this, that just leaves everyone speculating about this young man.
For e.g. he could have done something as silly as smoke pot or as horrible as HGH or assault. We don't know. I personally don't think that's fair to the kid.
Maybe I wasn't perfectly clear in my previous post, I am NOT asking Brian to tell us what is in the email, I am suggesting to him that he should never have mentioned the following:
" The email yesterday provided some murky detail on the violation of team rules and it's the sort of thing that is a no-BS immediate seeya type of thing."
This is cowardly in my opinion.
BTW, this is absolute proof that the point system doesn't work. I am not allowed to voice concerns? If you do not share my concerns is that grounds for docking points? I know some would just love for this to turn into North Korea....but I don't think Brian intends that.
Victory is mine!
I know some would just love for this to turn into North Korea
Is someone stopping you from saying something? You can get negged to oblivion and you can still respond to anything you want. Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee you the right to speak without dissent.
Further, I think you actually have something of a point. The issue is how you phrased it. You could have voiced your concerns in a respectful manner:
"I think Brian merely should have written what he's willing to say - not alluded to things he doesn't without revealing them. That's not fair to Justin Feagin."
Instead, you called him "half-ass" and "cowardly" and said he "lacked cahones (sic)". Do you see why one may be perceived like you're being an asshole to the proprietor of the site, and the other is a voicing of a legitimate concern?
wolverineliberationarmy.com/blog
I see that.
Victory is mine!
I just saw a comment thread where someone admitted to a mistake after being confronted by a reasoned argument. Someone take a screenshot, stat, and send it to Guinness for posterity. ALL THAT CAME BEFORE IS NO MORE.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights / orgies ... darkness."
Not only TELL the story but also add PICTURES.
[Edit: this makes less sense now that it's no longer directly below the "gerbils and hostesses comment."]
I heard he was cussing at a football coaches banquet.
Simply implying knowledge of something and not having the cahoneys to some out and say it if you believe it, is ....well Tom Beaverish.
This is all well and convenient for you, if it turns out to be true you get the rep of a guy who knows inside stuff and yet was so magnanimous to stay above it all,
and if turns out to be not that horrible thing you are implying, then well you get to be the guy who was nice enough not to spread rumors.
Victory is mine!
Seriously... are you part of the Feagin PR control team?
Sooner or later, you're going to have to stick your arm up a cow's butt.
First, how is "it" false? Feagin was dismissed for a violation of team rules. That is an iron-clad fact, and Brian reported it. Someone e-mailed him a rumor of what, exactly, Feagin did. Brian has no way of verifying it, so he's kept his mouth shut. That's not implying omniscience - he has told us how he came by his information, and he has said, in plain language, that he has no idea if the information he has is true.
wolverineliberationarmy.com/blog
Brian didn't imply knowledge. Brian said he received an email with a story about why Feagins was dismissed. He didn't relay the story because it has not been confirmed by any other sources and the source itself has not proven his credibility. If you want to read unverified stories to satisfy your thirst for gossip, try Star magazine. Or Rob Parker.
There's a huge difference from what Brian does, and what Tom Beaver does.
Brian was told something, and hasn't had it confirmed, so it would be irresponsible on his part to report it as true. Brian is also a fan first, and gets upset about this stuff just as much as everyone else. Reporting something like this, then have it be wrong would not be good.
Tom Beaver throws out ridiculous possibilities to cover his ass, in case one of the two doesn't happen. Something happened here, it's just not worth talking about, and not confirmed.
Tom VanHaaren
TomVH on Twitter
U Recruit
This is kind of his job.
http://touchthebanner.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-will-michigans-defense-l...
Shhhh Magnus. This is no place for logic.
is that Feagin was running an illegal Ponzi scheme with his teammates' money and was sleeping with the coaches' wives. Definitely bad for team camaraderie. He would have been better off driving drunk.
Ann Arbor is a classy broad.
"Get off my plane!" - Ricky Stanzi, Air Force One 2
I heard he recruited the rest of the scout-team offense to pose as a crew of skilled-yet-occassionally-bumbling scam artists, with Coner serving as the face man and Wermer serving as the demolition expert, and went about robbing the biggest casino in Detroit, which is run by a long-time enemy who looks somewhat like Jim Tressel.
His plan entailed wowing UM faithful with a poor-man's imitation of Pat White last season, becoming the prince of A2, then hitting up the MGM Grand the night before he played at the Motor City Bowl. During the game, while Feagin led Michigan to a big-time win over Central, Wermer's was expected to sneak into the MGM (which would be practically barren because everyone was at the game), steal the millions and millions of dollars this game generated in high-stakes gambling, then rendezvous with the rest of the crew at some hitherto-unknown locale.
Unfortunately, Feagin's plan went awry when people watched him practice and realized he could neither run nor pass like White, punctuated by a off-balance pass at practice that was so high and wide that it caused Tacopants to tear his ACL going after it. Though he was arrested by the Bench police and held without questioning for the rest of the season, some believe that he will meet up with Wermer (who was able to nab a projector and some Big Ten Taco coupons on his way out) and the rest of the crew in Indiana, where they will plan their next big heist.
.
.
.
And in completely unrelated news, has anyone noticed that Ocean's 11 has been running on TNT for the past few months?
I heard it was gambling. Feagin had hooked up with Rick Tocchet and Tim Donaghy. He supposedly laid down big bets against UM for the 3 big rivalry games. He supposedly greased the football against Notre Dame, drugged our safeties against Sparty and informed tOSU we were going to run a spread offense. All three of those games should be erased from the official record book in light of this breaking news.
Did he have sex with Lloyd's wife and daughter, though?
When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing. -- Bo Schembechler
200 linear feet of porn mags!
neither of these two offenses are good, but on a team if someone steals from another teammate - that's inexcusable. I am not saying that drunk driving is better, but you can't trust someone you're going to war with if he's stolen from you or another friend. That's not acceptable.
Now I don't know if stealing had anything to do with the dismissal, but if it did, I can see how RR said "See Ya!"
JB
ime, Feagin was a glorified walk-on. He doesn't have a spot on the team and RR made an example out of him. This happens whenever walk-on's screw up. I had a friend who was a preferred walk-on and cared more about skeeps and ricks than he did football and LC booted him from the team to make an example of him.
It may not be fair, but it is what it is. It opened up a scholarship and nobody wants to admit that this may be the case unless Feagin indeed did something extremely bad.
And again, though this sort of news shouldn't be welcomed, a higher rate of attrition is still expected this year compared to most. Year 2 of RR should weed out the rest whomever he feels is surplus to requirements and aren't making smart decisions off the field.
i only respect other superfans
Glorified walk-ons don't typically get scholarship offers from Rutgers, Syracuse, and Miami.
This post reeks of an MSU-style "He wasn't that good anyway" mindset.
http://touchthebanner.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-will-michigans-defense-l...
Well, was he that good? And I didn't mean to sound like a typical state fan.
It's not uncommon for coaches to make examples out of players on their teams who aren't their stars. Again, i'll wait and see to what actually Feagin did before I can come to this conclusion with certainty, but if it wasn't worse than getting a DUI i'm assuming RR made an example of him.
I'm not saying anything along the lines of "he wasn't that good anyways, so who cares". Be it a walk-on or highly recruited player, I hate seeing anyone leave the program. I don't think Feagin was the answer to our QB situation but I also wanted to see him graduate in 3-4 years from now in Ann Arbor.
i only respect other superfans
I never saw him play anything but change-of-pace QB. I don't know how good he was at slot receiver. But when you call him a "glorified walk-on", that implies that he's not very talented. He played fairly well for what he was asked to do, and he did it as a true freshman. If he was a glorified walk-on, then what do you call Shawn Crable, Ryan Van Bergen, Adam Kraus, etc., all guys who redshirted as freshmen? He was a contributor - albeit on a poor team - as a true freshman. He wasn't a glorified walk-on. He was a scholarship player who had scholarship offers from several other FBS schools.
http://touchthebanner.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-will-michigans-defense-l...
A walk-on is talented. Perhaps we have different views of their abilities but if you're a walk-on, especially a preferred walk-on then you're legit. So, i'm not saying he isn't talented, at all.
But, really that's not the point. But if you want to get into the argument of his other scholarships, they weren't as a QB. And he came here to be a QB. And we already have many other slot guys.
All i'm saying, from what i've seen from the program, (and I admittedly have more knowledge of the LC era) but players who aren't as likely to contribute cannot risk getting into any type of trouble or make the program look bad b/c they are first to go/made an example of.
i only respect other superfans
You're right. His other offers weren't for QB. They were for WR and DB. He was only playing QB because we were so thin at the position. In other words, you're somehow downgrading his talent based on the fact that he has the ability to play QB, WR, and DB, rather than just WR and DB.
"Preferred walk-ons" don't earn scholarship offers from Miami.
http://touchthebanner.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-will-michigans-defense-l...
ahhh nevermind, you're stuck on the term 'walk-on'. This conversation would be a lot easier in person. This is going nowhere.
i only respect other superfans
And, How do you know that he wasn't given a chance to earn his way back on the team and didn't earn it. AA ran the steps at the stadium every morning at 6am for the whole summer after his incidents. Maybe Feagin was given a chance to do something similar and blew it off.
I NEED QUESO! QUESOOOOO!!
Then what do you mean? The list of players who were not good in their freshman year is enormous.
wolverineliberationarmy.com/blog
Feagin might turn out to be a productive WR or DB. He had some pretty decent offers besides Michigan.
"I'm Leslie E. Miles and I approve of this message."
The "he wasn't that good anyway" mindset can be found in a subset of any fanbase, UM included. I don't think you can generalize it to any particular school.
a) There was a recent discussion about MSU fans treating Austin White that way, which is why I made the reference.
b) Just because every fanbase does it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to curb that mindset. I'd like Michigan to be better than everyone else in all aspects.
http://touchthebanner.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-will-michigans-defense-l...
You can look at this two ways. First you can look at it the football way and see Feagin wasn't going to do much anyways because we have really good depth at slot reciever. Or you can look at with what Wermers said about RichRod's style of recruits. I don't agree with what Wermers said at all I think the guys that RichRod is getting are really good guys hence the stories about Michigan players doing alot of community service and having the highest GPA in twenty years. Sadly though their are alot of RichRod haters out there especially in East Lansing that are going to say that he is getting bad recruits. Basically we need some good news soon so the haters out there can quiet down about Michigan.
I have no idea what the timetable is of the events involving Feagin, but there is a strong possibility that Wermers' ineligibility, departure, and comments took place before this event with Feagin ever took place or without Wermers even knowing about it. Wermers' comments aren't necessarily pointing toward Feagin.
http://touchthebanner.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-will-michigans-defense-l...
That is true but sadly though the Michigan haters out there aren't going to see it that way. Their going to see Wermer's comments and then see that Feagin got kicked off the team and say RichRod is bringing bad kids to Ann Arbor, which isn't true. While what you say about the timetable is true Michigan haters out there won't care about that and will try to call out the recruits Michigan is getting. Which is only going to continue to annoy all of us.
Sports Entertainment>Sports
Infinity can only happen once. Think about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwGXMryTbwE
who was caught using his teammates credit cards a while back? was he a hockey player?
http://www.yostbuilt.com/2008/02/kevin-quick-stole-credit-card.html
he was stealing Kurt Wermers' homework.
for laughing at this?
Michigan Wolverines: 874 wins, .740 winning percentage, 42 Big Ten Titles, 11 National Titles, 3 Heisman winners, and 150 consensus All-Americans
Gotta make the best out of the situation?
message board said Feagin got caught stealing FWIW.
10.28 100M
I'll wait for the details to come out, but unless he's stealing nuclear secrets and selling them to the Russians, it's not clear to me why this should require immediate dismissal if Grady's DUI doesn't.
The Res Gestae - This Is Water
Its also going against the team, something RR feels very strongly about.
But I'd say yes. I'll come out and say it -- at that age, I had definitely driven drunk. More than once. After my cousin had been killed by a drunk driver. It's a bad thing, you shouldn't do it, but it has nothing to do with the team and everything with being young, and an idiot, and being sure you're bulletproof.
In my 20s, I worked at a place where someone was stealing. It is a very disruptive event. You feel violated, you feel suspected, you don't know who you can trust. It is a terrible, terrible environment. That has a lot to do with the team.
and one of the (many) differences between a DUI and theft is this:
Theft is a crime involving moral turpitude; a DUI is not.
Consider a witness on the stand claiming the light was red when you plowed into Matt Barkley's new ferrari. That witness was recently arrested for both a DUI and for stealing Plaxico Burress's common sense and a cell phone outside of the Opium Lounge in Columbus, Ohio.
Evidence of the witness's DUI is inadmissible because it is irrelevant. Evidence of the theft, on the other hand, is highly relevant to weigh on the witness's credibility, because as a crime of moral turpitude, the theft is far more probing into the witness's character than is the DUI.
There is something to be said of this distinction, even outside the boundaries of the courtroom.
"Gentlemen, this is a football."
- Vince Lombardi
Hold up. A DUI inherently doesn't involve "moral turpitude" ? Evidence of past theft immediately shows a lack of morality?
A DUI is by definition reckless behavior, reckless means a conscious aversion to the risks involved. In the case of DUI, the risk is death to any number of innocent bystanders. Period. Conscious means one is making the choice(s) willfully, involving one's reasoning and moral character.
If you are drinking and you get behind the wheel, assuming you are above age 7 and retain the ability to think, you know that your ability to drive is impaired and you could kill or maim someone. So either you make this conscious choice, or, maybe you impair yourself to the point you can't reason at the level of a 7 year old. Nothing possibly involving moral turpitude here? Of course people make mistakes, but the fact that many people make this mistake or that it was once socially misunderstood doesn't make it any better.
Compared to DUI, stealing is totally subjective. Some people steal a candy bar because they are homeless and starving. Other people steal because they enjoy it.
Claiming they are inherently different in the way you described strikes me as absurd, and yes, I think Grady should have been ass.door.out. for his choices. With Feagin, if it really was stealing, I would say it would have to be of the extreme kind to merit a dismissal. Sorry if I come off as extreme, but that's how I see it.
I don't think the Rules of Evidence really have a whole lot to tell us about the relative severity of the crimes as they relate to Michigan Football. Or, really, about how non-lawyers should view crime in most cases. The fact that theft and not DUI might be used to impeach a witness's character isn't particularly instructive. People steal for all sorts of reasons.
I do, however, agree with people that if the stealing was from a teammate, as an exclusively internal matter, that's probably much worse for the team than a DUI. And regardless of whether you think DUI should warrant removal or at least a longer suspension than Grady got, stealing from your teammates is poisonous in all the ways that other people have talked about. In my head, when I heard 'stealing' I was imagining Feagin pocketing a Snickers from the Union--and up to a certain point if he's stealing from someone not on the team the calculus is probably the same for whatever he's stolen-- not something like the Kevin Quick situation from last year, which I believe was dealt with appropriately.
The Res Gestae - This Is Water
Wermers's comment about bad kids were justified after all, which will in turn lead to a reinvigoration of the family-values-are-going-to-hell theme that will no doubt be trumpeted by media geniuses and internet gurus all over the country again. I just cannot understand why the athletic department has not really gone public with the information about the academic performance of the team last year that was supposedly behind the paywall at Rivals. Absent any open confirmation from the AD, I'm beginning to think that there is much less there than meets the eye.
If this situation came out and he got a slap on the wrist then I would understand the "Oh, no Wermers was right." Not that that's what you're saying. But the fact that Feagin has been removed from the team shows that RR is serious about team violations and will exact the appropriate discipline.
And to answer your earlier question, if the stealing is from a teammate, it is worse for the team than a DUI. It may not be worse than DUI in real world crimes but from a team morale and team unity perspective, I'm not sure I can imagine anything more divisive.