Monday Presser Notes 9-14-09 Comment Count

Tim

Rich Rodriguez

  • Injuries: David Moosman popped his shoulder out, might sit for 1-2 weeks. Some combination of Ricky Barnum, Elliott Mealer, John Ferrara, and Patrick Omameh will fill that in. Boubacar Cissoko was still banged up against ND, but he'll continue to play. Mike Williams sat because of cramps, and he should be healthy. Junior Hemingway should be back soon, but Rodriguez won't know until later today. The full injury report will come out Thursday.
  • The secondary didn't play its best on Saturday, but a lot of the stuff can be corrected. They want to be able to play JT Floyd, Teric Jones, and Justin Turner to build a little more depth there.
  • The QBs are still listed with an "OR" on the depth chart. Tate has earned the right to take the first snap each week so far, but the competition in practice has been pretty close. Denard is a QB now, and will continue to be in the future. They aren't looking at moving him to another position.
  • Rodriguez gave some veiled criticism to Charlie Weis's excuses about the refs. "I didn't see anything." He typically will send a couple plays into the conference office, though he didn't after the Western game. The refs do a god job, and they'll call things if they see them. When the Armando Allen touchdown was overturned, Rodriguez called a timeout instead of a challenge because he wanted to save his challenge for later in the game in case they needed it.
  • Rodriguez talks to CMU coach Butch Jones twice a week. He's a good coach and a good person. Rich knows he'll have
  • Rodriguez interviewed the entire football staff (not just coaches) when he came to Ann Arbor. He didn't re-hire Coach English, though he was an outstanding defensive coordinator. Rodriguez had something else in mind defensively, and now he's happy where they are. He talked to Coach E to congratulate him for landing the EMU job. "I know he's got a lot of friends here, and as you'd expect, when you spend a couple years at a neat place you're going to make some friends."
  • Rodriguez wants fans to not only be at the game, but also to be active participants. The piped in music is art of that, along with exciting things like the Circle of Death, aka the "Team Unity Circle."

Troy Woolfolk

  • The defense was playing off receivers for most of the game, but they got a little more aggressive because they got sick of giving up the underneath stuff.
  • English was Troy's primary recruiter at Michigan. The two don't talk anymore, because Troy has lost Coach E's number, but he wants to play well this Saturday to show that he was worthy of being recruited.
  • "I'm just glad that we got a chance to show the nation that Michigan is back."
  • Some day in the future, Troy and Denard are going to race to settle once and for all who the fastest player is.

Stevie Brown

  • Brown wasn't surprised to see ND go deep on second down with a chance to ice the win late in the fourth quarter. "That's what they'd been doing all game, and that's what was working for them."
  • Stevie doesn't keep in contact with Coach English. They talked when Ron was hired at Eastern, but not really since.

Tate Forcier

  • Although the team is ranked, they're only at the very last spot (35). The team needs to continue working hard if they want to move up. The team made lots of mistakes (Tate's fumble on the 2 yard line, a missed field goal), so there's definite room for improvement.
  • Tate had 400+ text message following the game yesterday. He doesn't have a big lecture until tomorrow, but he's sure lots of people will talk to him about the game.
  • He caught the big nighttime tilt and saw Matt Barkley (the nation's other golden boy frosh) perform pretty well. "It was kinda hard; I didn't know who I wanted to win because I don't like USC or Ohio State."
  • The rushing touchdown was a pass/run option, and the defensive end forced him to head back inside "Right when I cut it up, I didn't see anybody. Right away I knew it should be pretty good." He was confident on the final touchdown to Mathews as well. "I thought it was a perfect play call." The corner was playing with inside leverage, giving Greg room to the outside.
  • Tate said he wasn't really going to look at Michigan until the new staff came in.
  • There's no animosity between Tate and Denard, and Tate expects a big play every time Denard hits the field. He hopes Denard will get more chances to shine in the next couple weeks.
  • "Just beating Notre Dame is great, but beating them the way we beat them made it even better." Tate's family was in the crowd,and he heard they were all so happy they cried. "I wish [Jason] could have been out there playing with me."

Comments

Bando Calrissian

September 14th, 2009 at 1:03 PM ^

Is RR implying that fans have not been active participants in the game in the past? They were able to do so on Saturday at points when piped-in music wasn't played, and there were points when the music actually killed momentum.

I'm kind of getting sick of being told that just because we didn't do something before, and because everyone else does it, it's automatically true that Michigan should.

Brhino

September 14th, 2009 at 1:07 PM ^

"Boubacar Cissoko was still banged up against ND..."

How banged up? At first glance, he appeared to have an utterly terrible game. I wonder how much if any of that can be blamed on injury.

sjastrz

September 14th, 2009 at 1:18 PM ^

Shoulders popping out really hurt. Hopefully it's nothing too serious and a little rehab will fix it up but I wouldn't be suprised to hear about Labrum surgery for Moosman after the season based on my own experiences.

ERich79

September 14th, 2009 at 1:19 PM ^

With these two games against Eastern Michigan and Indiana they will have plenty of time to get this injuries healed up. I think they should rest Hemingway next week unless he is 100% ready to go. They need to get all their good players nice and healthy for the State game as that is going to be another big game. I don't think these games are really easy wins but they don't have to be as serious as the Notre Dame game.

learmanj

September 14th, 2009 at 1:27 PM ^

a.) One Forcier that hates the teams that he is supposed.
b.) One Forcier who "doesn't get nervous"
c.) One Forcier that just got Michigan a big win over hated ND
d.) One Forcier who is so confident (read cocky) he questions the other coach's play calling immediately after the game
e.) ALL OF THE ABOVE!

jamiemac

September 14th, 2009 at 1:33 PM ^

To MGoTim or anyone else out there.....

It looked like Hugye shifted to guard and Dorrenstein to tackle when Mooseman went out....yesr I dont see Dorrenstein listed as possible replacements.

What gives? Or was I still drunk on Maize and Blue Koolaid that when I rewatched the game I only imagined Dorrenstein playing.

Thanks. I will hang up and listen.

caveman.lawyer

September 14th, 2009 at 1:38 PM ^

It's surprising that with Moosman's injury, Dorrestein was not mentioned in the mix among Barnum, Mealer, Ferrara, and Omameh to play. On Saturday, it looked like Huyge slid over to right guard and Dorrestein came in at right tackle. I did not see any of the other guys get snaps.

[Edit: I posted this before I saw jamiemac's post. I have the same question.]

WolverRoudy

September 14th, 2009 at 1:49 PM ^

I wish Forcier didn't say on the TD that he saw cover 0 and knew what to do. i think he should hold back as now other teams will either abandone cover 0 or disguise it.

I'm mixed on his comments regarding thanking Charlie for the two time outs. One the one hand it tweaks ND and ND nation adding fuel to the fire. On the other it would be better to have said that he knew how to get it done regardless of having two timeouts.

Heinous Wagner

September 14th, 2009 at 2:00 PM ^

Weis has no reason to carp at the refereeing. Instead, he should look in the mirror -- a very very wide mirror -- and ponder his late-game clock management. He's Bob Davie on doughnuts.

J_Dub

September 14th, 2009 at 3:59 PM ^

There was a post about this after last game, but I wanted to throw my opinion out there: I LIKE the piped-in music/ noise.

Going into the game, I figured I would hate the amplified noise. It's "fake" after all - not something that melds with the tradition of Michigan Football. I was even thinking about writing to Bill Martin about the changes, and to voice a recent graduate's opposition to the degradation of the sacred stadium aura.

Maybe it was because there are so many other changes with the program - luxury boxes & brick, coaches, offensive and defensive styles, player types, etc, but the amplified sound seemed to fit right in. Indeed, the sounds enhanced my game watching experience. The noise came on loud, but not horribly loud, and got the crowd a little more into the game. That said, in my 7 years of Michigan fandom, I have never heard the crowd more into the game. Never was the stadium so loud - I think the luxury boxes may help as well.

I think there may even be a new repeating chant/ cheer with one of the songs. I don't know the name of it, but people were singing not the lyrics (if there are any at all) but the beat itself. If anyone knows what I am talking about, feel free to elaborate. I could see it becoming an ominous sounding vocalization of Michigan fans for years to come.

If people haven't been to the stadium yet, refrain from forming an opinion on the new sounds until after a game.

-JW

J_Dub

September 14th, 2009 at 5:29 PM ^

I have been informed that the song to which I was referring is Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. Unfortunately it was used by Penn State last year. Not long, but do we really want to be the 2nd team to use it? Maybe the winner of the Oct 24th showdown gets to use the song exclusively...