Morgan Trent Is Not All In Comment Count

Brian

greek-riots-police-eu morgan-trent-ron-english

Another week, another riot. We are all Greek. The cause of this one:

At the end of the book, Deren describes the scene with Lloyd Carr, the former Michigan head coach that recruited Trent to Ann Arbor, breaking the news to Trent that current head coach Rich Rodriguez did him no favors.

“Rodriguez had bad-mouthed him to every NFL scout he could,” Deren writes. “Rodriguez claimed that Morgan was lazy, he had an attitude problem and he was a big reason the Wolverines finished with a 3-9 record…”

Trent admits the words were “jarring,” and they were hard to understand given that he was so serious about his career that he actually moved in with his brother and sister-in-law and their two small children while going to Michigan. [ed: "Morgan Trent was so serious about football he decided to save on rent."]

But Trent was also worried about what Carr thought about his words showing up in the book. He talks to him, not Rodriguez. “I really like Coach Carr. He’s been very good to me,” Morgan says. “I think at first he was wondering, but I let him know it didn’t put him in a bad light. I would never do something like that to Lloyd. He’s great.” …

“I guess it was motivation,” Morgan says of the words that Deren estimates may have cost him $1 million. “(I) want to show people it was all false.”

Consider it done.

Here we go again, after one hell of a game of telephone from Rodriguez to NFL scout—at this point the story can get passed to and fro ad nauseum—to Carr to Trent to book author Deren. Rodriguez issued a denial

“The comments attributed to me are inaccurate and absolutely ridiculous,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “I said just the opposite about Morgan Trent to NFL scouts and wish him well with the Bengals.”

…but even so, don't you kind of believe it anyway? Don't you sort of want to believe it? I believe Rodriguez told NFL scouts some version of what Deren says. I also believe that Trent was a lazy player with an attitude problem who was one of the main reasons Rodriguez's first team was a jumbled sack of cats attempting to claw in 20 different directions. Even if he didn't say it, I believe the words attributed to Rodriguez are accurate.

Trent's personal animosity towards Rodriguez has been made plain. We've previously established around here that football players are not compliance experts and the distinction between countable and non-countable hours befuddles even said experts. A former player's opinion on Michigan's we're-talking-about-stretching violations says more about his relationship with Rodriguez than anything about the violations. It's a Rorshach test. What Morgan Trent sees*:

"I'm not surprised because I know what happened, and I know what kind of rules were broken. I couldn't see how they were going to get out of that."

"Whatever steps need to be taken (to restore Michigan's winning tradition), I'm all for it. What is happening right now obviously is not working. I don't know how long they're going to let this last until changes are made."

What Brandon Graham sees:

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

So Morgan Trent is not disposed to give Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt when Lloyd Carr convenes a special meeting of the Anti-Rodriguez illuminati with the express purpose of revealing the dastardly secret carried about by Rich Rodriguez…

stonecutters_song_1

who controls the practice logs?
who puts Michigan Stadium in a bog?
weeeeee dooooooo… we do!

…that any Michigan fan could already have told you.

Here is the reason Morgan Trent went in the sixth round:

coverbad1_thumb coverbad2_thumb coverbad5_thumb

this happened like eight times in that game

He was not particularly good at football. He badly regressed after a promising junior season. Then when he went to the Shrine Bowl he "struggled," reinforcing the opinion of scouts "already down on him." The reason for this is now obvious: he hated the transition to Rodriguez, probably hated the coach himself, and spent a year half-assing it. The responsibility for this lies with Morgan Trent, even if he was so serious about football he lived with relatives(!). Attempts to deflect it only reinforce the very criticism (possibly) leveled by Rodriguez. It had nothing to do with the quality of the team, as Trent claims elsewhere in the article. A guy from Hillsdale went in the third round this year. The Bengals hadn't even talked to Rodriguez and still waited and waited and waited to take him.

During the very moments when Trent was doing whatever it was that made him a team cancer, Brandon Graham was turning himself into a first-round pick. We have not had any reports on what Rodriguez told NFL scouts about Brandon Graham, but dollars to donuts they were along the lines of "draft this man first overall and ask if he will adopt your kids." The reason Rich Rodriguez would say this is because of the things Brandon Graham did. You see, Rudy?

Now, there are a disturbing number of people who look at the Rich Rodriguez inkblot and see big pointy teeth. One major reason for this is that Rodriguez appears to be much harder on his players than Lloyd Carr. It's the very tippy top of the peak of hypocrisy for any Bo-venerating Michigan fan to look down on Rodriguez for this (his failure to resemble Bo in the win column is another matter). Part of that veneration is accepting the idea that being a coach often involves being very harsh to people who aren't living up to your expectations.

I wish that Rodriguez had managed to enter more smoothly but don't really blame him for the massive culture clash no one from fans to players to athletic director anticipated. He has a track record.

To be perfectly blunt and enraging to the denizens of the comments who get enraged when people pop on here and say dumb MLive-type things about departed players, I do blame Trent. Michigan is not going to be in good shape if Rich Rodriguez leaves after this year, and Trent would clearly like to see that happen and is operating either without a care as to how his inability to suck it up affects the program or with the express intent of getting rid of Rodriguez. Loyalty to the institution does not occur to him. It appears that correcting the record is so important to him that he's willing to sell out his alma mater to refute allegations that may not have actually happened and no one knew about. In doing so he's convinced me that the potentially fictional and definitely obscure allegations are true.

So… congratulations Morgan. You've invented a variant on the Streisand Effect.

As for Carr, he gave explicit permission to Trent to sell Rodriguez out in this book:

But Trent was also worried about what Carr thought about his words showing up in the book. He talks to him, not Rodriguez. “I really like Coach Carr. He’s been very good to me,” Morgan says. “I think at first he was wondering, but I let him know it didn’t put him in a bad light. I would never do something like that to Lloyd. He’s great.”

No, just Rodriguez. Any question as so whether or not there is a major rift between the two coaches is now gone. If there wasn't, Carr would have talked to Rodriguez about it. He would have gotten some clarification or a denial or something, and he wouldn't have presented it to Trent in the fashion he did. If he didn't do that, he would have told Trent to shut up when given the opportunity.

If there is really a New Era of Accountability in the athletic department, Carr and David Brandon should have a come-to-Jesus meeting in which Brandon does a lot of screaming. Trent is a pissed-off kid who was working for a scholarship. Carr is supposedly a program icon and an athletic department employee. Michigan shouldn't be paying someone who is actively working against the interests of the athletic department. It's obvious that Carr could have helped smooth things over with any number of players but chose not to, chose to exacerbate things in certain situations. He could have been of help during the transition; he was the opposite.

Through it all, Rodriguez just grits his teeth and asks if you've heard his Lion King joke. I shudder at the tell-all book that will inevitably follow a Rodriguez canning.

*(meta: I had to link to a mgoboard message board post instead of the News because the News shoved their story behind a paywall a month after they posted it. No one is ever going to pay for that article. Go newspapers.)

Comments

Captain

May 10th, 2010 at 2:47 PM ^

Why would a relatively unknown author, who can't find a legitimate publisher, who wants to sell at least one copy of his crummy book and who transparently worships the ground Morgan Trent walks on want to embellish? 

 

I'm not positing on whether it is likely or unlikely that the author is mistaken/lying/taking crazy pills - I have no clue.  The mere fact that he self-published a book, however, amounts to precisely zero indicia of reliability.

Raoul

May 10th, 2010 at 1:54 PM ^

I really can't understand why so much is being made about a third-hand allegation in a self-published book (meaning it didn't go through the usual round of copyediting and fact-checking that would occur at a commercial publisher)--particularly when this allegation involves three people, two of whom the author couldn't find the time to interview.

This is a failure of Journalism 101. Even a writer at the Free Press, had they been the original publishers of this story, would have contacted Rodriguez and Carr for a reaction and included their response (or "no comment") in the story.

But, of course, had Deren done so, his juicy little story would have lost quite a bit of its impact.

ish

May 10th, 2010 at 2:10 PM ^

yes, it is possible  people don't act uniformly good or bad.  lloyd carr was on balance a great coach and influence on the football program and the university.  he is also a good person.  but he isn't acting like one here.  sometimes good people do things we don't like, and even do plain bad things.  that may be happening here.

Ziff72

May 10th, 2010 at 1:20 PM ^

Brandon, Carr and RR will all be on the air Friday, it will be curious if anyone addresses it.  Sam will be dying to ask Carr, but he will probably won't because he will know it will piss Lloyd off. 

Bennie

May 10th, 2010 at 3:24 PM ^

Sam will not be afraid to ask. He may not, but it won't be because he is afraid it will piss Lloyd off. He may, for instance, think that the function everyone is coming on the air to conclude, is not the time for the question. If that is what he thinks, and I don't know that it is, he should not ask the question.

bronxblue

May 10th, 2010 at 1:25 PM ^

Great post Brian. 

I do not know Trent and never really had an opinion about the kid other than the fact he seemed like a decent talent but wasn't a shut-down corner.  He was the type of player who could make the routine play most of the time, but who missed enough tackles and blew enough assignments that you were always afraid when the ball was in the air toward his man or a RB was into the second level.  His senior year was rather distressing, but on that mess everyone just accepted that the coaching upheavel screwed every kid on that team.  He was an average UM DB, and that probably meant he should go in the later rounds of the NFL draft.

But now that this whole broohaha about what RR may said and what Carr heard and how it hurt Trent's stock has come to light, I'm starting to see that RR faced not only a football transition when he arrived at UM, but also a cultural one.  The players that remained were largely loyal to Carr, and while some then became loyal to their new coach, it is clear that a vocal subset thought that RR was not the coach they signed up for when they came to UM and were loathe to accept him.

I never thought Carr retired on good terms with the University - he was in trouble until 2006, but that season seemingly bought him a new lease on life until Appy St. cut short any chance of recovery.  With the 2007 debacle, Carr knew that his head, while not on any chopping block per se (UM would never fire him), was no longer golden at UM, and at some point going 8-4, 7-5 was going to lead to him stepping down.  So he took his lumps, won going away against Florida, and retired.  But I doubt that was how he wanted to leave the school, and he was certainly not happy when his wishes were ignored and an "outsider" in RR was hired to replace him.  Then the stories came out of camp, with some of his former players complaining about RR's gruffness, his tough practices, his "lack of family values" and the like.  And instead of nipping those complaints in the bud and publicly endorsing RR and telling his former players to buy into the new regime, you get a sense that at the very least Carr allowed these feelings to fester.  He was no longer the coach at UM, but it sure seemed like he was still on the sidelines, willing to let dissension undermine the guy who replaced him.

I was never enamored with Carr's coaching ability, but I respected his recruiting and the fact that he ran a clean enough ship for a top D-1 team.  Above all, though, I thought he was a good guy who really was a "Michigan Man" for whatever that is worth.  But these past few years, with all the troubles his former team has encountered and the number of his former players mouthing off and attacking RR in the press, Carr has been largely silent.  That is unacceptable, especially for someone who professed to be from the Bo School of loyalty and passion.  I will never take away from Carr's NC and his various accomplishments on the field, but right now he is only hurting UM and what RR is trying to do. 

STW P. Brabbs

May 10th, 2010 at 1:52 PM ^

So you're coming around to the bullshit MSM line that Carr was forced out? 

This is nonsense.  I disagree with the rest of your post as well, but the revisionism of deciding that Carr actually did have pressure to resign, just because you're unhappy with him right now, is particularly silly.

bronxblue

May 10th, 2010 at 2:34 PM ^

I always thought that Carr left, at least in part, because people were becoming disenchanted with his teams.  That 2007 team was a mess for most of the year, and even in 2006 Carr still couldn't beat USC or OSU, two teams that UM was supposed to be of the same caliber.  Listen, I'm not saying that Carr was "forced out" in the sense that Martin put down an ultimatum, but I do think that there was pressure within the athletic department to get someone younger in there, someone who could shake up the malaise that was settling in. 

And for the record, I always thought Carr was a better recruiter than he was a coach, and that having the UM name certainly helped as well.  He's a good guy who really cared about UM and staying true to Bo's legacy, but his rigidity in the face of seismic shifts in college football was clear.  I will never take away from what he did at UM, but I also will not kneel at his feet just because he won a national championship and ignore some of his failings.

STW P. Brabbs

May 10th, 2010 at 3:01 PM ^

What's the basis for your claim that there was pressure from within the department, or that people in the department had identified a malaise? 

I have the strong suspicion that you're reading your own opinion into what happened within Schembechler Hall. 

Finally, in re: your overall evaluation of Lloyd - I'll be thrilled if Rodriguez ends up with a similar career at Michigan to Lloyd's.  If he does better, I'll be a pig in shit. 

  Here's hoping he does. 

bronxblue

May 10th, 2010 at 3:36 PM ^

Sure, I would love if RR turns the program around and is again competing for Big 10 titles, but I also want him to shoot beyond that.  I want UM to again compete nationally, to be considered on the same level as the Floridas, Alabamas, OSUs, USC, and and Texases of the world.  Under Carr, I felt that UM was settling into a level just below them, where you win 9-10 games but never really step up to the next echelon.  I'm not saying RR is the coach to do that, but I also do not think this team would have made any such strides under Carr as well.

As for my claims about internal pressures, I clearly do not have any proof of them.  I doubt anyone other than Martin, Carr, and a couple of other big players truly know the impetus behind Carr stepping down.  But as a fan who has watched this team for most of his life and who attended the school during the middle of Carr's tenure, I felt that Carr lost his fastball toward the second half of his tenure, and the chinks in his team's armor started to show.  We look at recruiting and how little depth resulted from the last few Carr classes, but outside of 2006, those last few years were also marked by an inconsistent product on the field, one that looked like world beaters one day and pushovers the next. 

When Carr arrived UM and OSU were on the same tier both in the Big 10 and nationally (perhaps UM was even a bit ahead); when he stepped down, OSU had clearly taken ahold of the conference and, some would argue, PSU had leapfrogged UM in the pecking order.  That falls at least in part on Carr, and while RR would love to be the third-best team in the Big 10 next year, if Carr was still at the helm I doubt UM would have caught up to either OSU or PSU the last few years.

Finally, you say that my claims are based purely on my opinions of Carr, but so are yours.  Unless you worked in Schembechler Hall and know the inner-workings of the AD, your arguments are based on your positive views of Carr.  I respect them, but at this point we just don't agree, and I doubt we ever will. 

STW P. Brabbs

May 10th, 2010 at 3:59 PM ^

Yeah, I don't have any truly solid evidence either, but Bill Martin's statements of unequivocal support for Carr, plus a lack of any criticism of Carr coming out of the department itself, leads me to think that it's more likely he had all the support he could have wanted.  Or at least an absence of pressure to move on.  Maybe things were just more air-tight in Fort Schembechler in 2005-2007 than they are now, but recent events seem to indicate that if there were grumblings behind closed doors they would have found their way out somehow.  As you say, though, this is not exactly rock-solid evidence.

I mostly agree with your post.  I'll buy that Carr was tailing off a bit, but I don't think people realize how good that fastball was in its heyday.  I'd love to see Michigan compete for national titles year-in and year-out too, of course, I just think a lot of us didn't realize how hard it was to keep any program at the level just below that - which is where it generally was under Carr. 

bronxblue

May 10th, 2010 at 4:48 PM ^

I agree that it is difficult to keep a program at the top, and I will never fault Carr for the passion he brought to the job or the success he enjoyed.  But I guess I just lived through 4 years of teasing, with Brady & Co. looking like world-beaters in the Orange Bowl my freshman year but always tailing off, always missing the big win that would have made the team a national player.  If it wasn't UCLA or Oregon on the road, it was allowing some lesser-weight Big 10 team beat UM late in the season at home.  Maybe if I was there during the late 90s, when the team won the NC and every year the team seemingly reloaded for another run, my feelings about Carr would be different.  But I became disenchanted with the team a bit as they failed to live up to expectations (maybe they were just my irrational expcctations), always drawing you in with a late-season bowl win or a nice start to the season but then breaking your heart. 

I believe that Carr really cares about UM and only wants the best for it, but I guess I am just tired of seeing this team be dragged through the mud by the media, rival fans, and even former players.  I don't know if Carr was forced out (though Martin giving him full support is somewhat empty - he was always going to support him, but if the call came in to fire Carr Martin probably would have just resigned himself instead), but to this day I do believe that his last year was bitter-sweet and if he had his druthers, probably would have wanted a better send-off.  Still, I want Carr to make some public statement to the effect that he supports RR, that the quotes and ill-will being professed in this book are misconstrued, and that is proud of both his former players and the current team. 

mtzlblk

May 10th, 2010 at 4:51 PM ^

because i don't have one, but I remember many being of the opinion that Carr stayed around longer than he wanted to at the request of Martin.

I don't buy that there was any pressure on Carr to leave, I think there were honest discussions about him wanting to step down and the timing of that process.

mejunglechop

May 10th, 2010 at 1:29 PM ^

Sorry Brian, but this is some bullshit. It's quite a feat for you to insinuate that Lloyd doesn't have any loyalty to the program. He's given more of himself to it than just about anyone. He has always been fiercely protective of his players and just about all of his players glow when they talk about him.

And as for Trent- why does Rodriguez get a pass for the fallout of culture shock, but not him?

mejunglechop

May 10th, 2010 at 1:57 PM ^

But seriously, most of my posts are argumentative because when I agree with something I usually just pos bang it and leave it at that. My pos/neg ratio, if you care to look it up, is actually pretty healthily in the pos so I think I'm not actually that sour a guy.

Blue in Yarmouth

May 10th, 2010 at 2:26 PM ^

I always thought loyalty meant something like stand behind something regardless of circumstance.

Now I am not saying this is true, but hypotetically if Lloyd doesn't agree with the RR hire and is doing things like this (actively trying to have RR removed regardless of its impact on the program) I have a hard time imagining him as being loyal.

Just because I worked somewhere for the better part of my life and did a good job for them while I was there (blood sweat and tears and all that) doesn't mean I am loyal. If I were to retire and then do things to tear that company down I would say it is the opposite.

Lloyd had a vested interest in working hard for UM while he was the HC, his career depended on it. Just because he did a good job doesn't make him the portrait of loyalty IMHE.

Again, I am not saying Lloyd did these things because I have no inside info. I am simply saying IF it is true, saying he is loyal is a little bizarre.

DesHow21

May 10th, 2010 at 1:39 PM ^

AFTER the interview so there was really nothing LC could have "stopped".

That said, I am not sure exactly why the university is paying LC. Honest question. I am just curious, does he raise funds for the program ? 

mtzlblk

May 10th, 2010 at 1:59 PM ^

but before it was released, I assumed, at which point Trent would still have some influence in whther or not it saw the light of day.

You're right though, no timeline or specifics are known and it may be that at that point Trent would have no ability to redact his comments.

Basic fact of LC-->Trent remains though, along with some discussion of how Lloyd would be portrayed, regardless of when it took place.

samsoccer7

May 10th, 2010 at 2:00 PM ^

Lloyd Carr isn't going anywhere b/c he brings in a lot of money for Michigan.  It is not just for the athletic department, which I imagine he's bolstering by going to all these dinners in Michigan alumni hotbeds and doing speeches and things, but he and his wife have been (I believe) the biggest fundraisers for Mott Childrens' Hospital.  Also, the athletic department supports the Childrens' hospital, as evidenced by the proceeds from the spring game and other events.

Sgt. Wolverine

May 10th, 2010 at 1:49 PM ^

is filled with a few too many assumptions based largely on words in a book whose reliability is unknown at best.  All we really know is what Trent said and what RR tells us he didn't say.  We don't actually know Carr's role in this, nor do we know what he said to Trent or when he said it.  Until there's legitimate information on who said what and when he said it, I think it'd be better for everybody if these opinionesque columns stayed unpublished.

Bando Calrissian

May 10th, 2010 at 1:57 PM ^

I for one resent the loud questioning of Lloyd Carr's loyalty to Michigan, which inevitably turns into the same tired criticisms of his coaching record, bouje showing up to make a comment about a "country club atmosphere," the list goes on and on and on.

At the end of the day, this is a he-said-she-said scenario from a self-published book, with uncited stories based on, essentially, hearsay.  Yet it's enough to indict Lloyd Carr, which, to my knowledge, Brian has never done before.

Lloyd Carr has done more for Michigan than, likely, all of us combined.  And at the end of the day, for a lot of people, it will never be enough.  And that's unfortunate.

mtzlblk

May 10th, 2010 at 2:04 PM ^

It is a Lloyd disciple quoting him directly in a book that Trent is obviously involved with, making assertions that negatively impact someone that he professes to respect and admire.

Unless this is a complete and utter frabrication on the part of Trent or the author, Lloyd did indeed intentionally act to erode the RR regime.

If it isn't enough to indict Lloyd Carr, then by the same standard, nearly every bit of negative PR generated against RR is similarly voided.

Six Zero

May 10th, 2010 at 2:13 PM ^

Given the integrity and class we've all come to love and expect from Lloyd, if this was just some tall tale on either the author or Trent's part I think we'd all expect Coach Carr to step up and do the right thing and call them on it.

If he did say it, that too is his right.  But make no mistake, there's a new sheriff in town and one of Brandon's goals is to break up the factions and create a culture of solidarity.  At the very least, it could have been handled internally.

A wise bald man once said, "A George divided among himself, cannot stand."  So too, then, is the Michigan football program.

mtzlblk

May 10th, 2010 at 3:04 PM ^

Trent was interviewed by Derens, correct? The information being presented was gleaned from that interview, and thus, barring fabrication on the part of the author, attributable directly to Trent.

At the end of the book, Deren describes the scene with Lloyd Carr, the former Michigan head coach that recruited him to Ann Arbor, breaking the news to Trent that current head coach Rich Rodriguez did him no favors.

“Rodriguez had bad-mouthed him to every NFL scout he could,” Deren writes. “Rodriguez claimed that Morgan was lazy, he had an attitude problem and he was a big reason the Wolverines finished with a 3-9 record…”

Trent admits the words were “jarring,” and they were hard to understand given that he was so serious about his career that he actually moved in with his brother and sister-in-law and their two small children while going to Michigan

STW P. Brabbs

May 10th, 2010 at 3:15 PM ^

You do know that paraphrasing and quoting are two different things, right? 

Ok, I'll give you a hint.  Writers, when indicating a direct quote from Mr. X, tend to alert the reader with cues like 'X said,' or 'according to X.'  

Another important clue is that you'll see acutal fucking quotation marks in such cases.  I'll admit that this is a tricky one, because the passage from Deren's book is in quotes.  But when you're quoting something that is quoting something, you use those little inverted comma thingys. 

An example (here, Morgan is being used for a Direct Quote):

"I actually began to question a lot of things about the life I had led after spending enough time in the presence of Morgan.  His skin glowed like the harvest moon at midnight.  'Sometimes it kinda weirds me out when you look at me like that,' Morgan told me once, but deep down I know he felt our special bond."

ShockFX

May 10th, 2010 at 4:01 PM ^

Lols.  I'm a big fan of your work farther down in this thread as well.  My advice is to just bang your head into a wall 50 times instead though, it'll hurt less than reasoning with people that want an OMG CONSPIRACY for this whole thing.

mtzlblk

May 10th, 2010 at 5:23 PM ^

What is an 'acutal fucking quotation mark'?  Please tell me oh learned one.

Does it help you if I say instead, 'directly sourced' as opposed to directly quoted? You can argue semantics all you want, but does it change anything? No.

Author interviews Trent extensively for book. Book relates that Trent heard from Lloyd Carr that RR was slamming him to any NFL scout that would listen and that the said appraisals were along the lines of 'lazy, etc. etc. you know the rest' (I'm paraphrasing here).

You will note that I wrote, 'unless the author fabricated something', thus accounting for the possibility that the author may have taken liberties in relating the story, however I don't think so.

Trent was a primary source for the book who would have been well familiar with exactly what was being printed and would have objected had the author misrepresented the story in any way.

ShockFX

May 10th, 2010 at 5:29 PM ^

mtzlblk buggers goats.

Hey man, don't look at me, that's just what I heard after that totally unnecessary game of telephone played, simply because I didn't just relay your quote as a quote, using those "actual fucking quotation mark" things.

It's like reading a freaking movie poster:  "...stunning..." ~ NYTimes.  The actual quote though was something like "This movie fails to live up to all the stunning hype that was promised."

mtzlblk

May 10th, 2010 at 5:46 PM ^

Like I said, Trent is directly sourced in a book by Derens as saying that Lloyd Carr related to him that RR was giving Trent negative appraisals with regard to work ethic and attitude to any NFL scout he could find.

Again, IF, as I have stated elsewhere and here, a big IF, neither Trent nor the author were fabricating any of this information, then Carr did indeed do something that would be construed as having a negative impact on the University of Michigan football program and Rodriguez in particular.

For the record, I'm not purporting that there is any kind of conspiracy, merely that IF this occurred, big IF there, and there is not fabrication on the part of the author ot Trent, it showed very poor judgment on the part of Carr to relate such information to Trent.

Read elsewhere and you will see that it don't think it plausible that things went down this way and that it seems petty and beneath the Llloyd Carr that I am familiar with, however looking at the information it would seem that unless Trent or Derens are completely making things up, that some form of the discussion took place.

If goats could talk and an author interviewed one and that goat stated unequivocally that I indeed buggered him, then I would think it plausible to say that I bugger goats, until such time as someone asks me and I say, 'No, I do not bugger goats, however I do fellate them on occasion.'

STW P. Brabbs

May 11th, 2010 at 9:10 AM ^

Based on Angelique's story today, I'd say that difference between a 'direct cite' and a 'direct quote' is looming pretty large.

When journalists, or wannabe journalists, can quote someone, they usually do.  When it looks like they're bending over backwards to add their own spin through paraphrasing, something is fishy.

mtzlblk

May 12th, 2010 at 1:45 AM ^

what?

So I wrote 'direct quote' instead of 'directly sourced', what is your point? I was only stating that this is an author that spent a lot of time with Trent one-on-one and I honestly don't believe he pulled the stuff out of thin air after talking with Trent.

We don't actually know what the Deren wrote at this point as it is the bengals.com site that paraphrased the book. hopefully nobody buys the book to find out.

Read through my posts above and count the number of times I said IF, as in big IF...and then read this:

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/new-morgan-trent-richrod-allegations#comment-481104

I am not one of the people that was throwing Carr under the bus, I loved Carr as a coach and still do.  

I believe RR did give Trent a poor appraisal as to his attitude, but probably said some good stuff too. I am perfectly ok with that.

I believe Carr and Trent discussed what RR said to scouts. I am perfectly ok with that also.

I am glad to have the record set straight that Carr did not contact Trent to inform him of anything RR may have said, and if you read my other posts, I was skeptical of that from the beginning.

El Jeffe

May 10th, 2010 at 2:34 PM ^

First, I totally agree that this whole kerfuffle is based on the flimsiest of evidence. There is simply no way we can know (1) What RR said to scouts, if anything, (2) what scouts told LC, if anything, (3) what LC told Trent, if anything, and (3) what Trent told Deren, if anything.

However, I think the argument that LC is above reproach simply because of his past efforts on behalf of UM is specious. What if we had rock-solid evidence that LC was going around dogging RR? He still would have done more for Michigan than any of us combined, but in that hypothetical scenario he would deserve criticism, no?

So this leads me to my third point. I understand why LC thinks he shouldn't say anything in these situations, but I think he is operating from a very out of date understanding of how small-p politics works. Maybe it used to be the case that saying nothing was the best strategy, and that unpleasant rumors went away. I just think he's wrong about that.

Ironically, it strikes me that the erstwhile yokel RR has outplayed everyone on this, by loudly, forcefully, and quickly denying the claims, but doing so in a way that highlighted the rumor aspect of the allegations; that is, without directly calling out LC and Trent as liars.

mejunglechop

May 10th, 2010 at 6:34 PM ^

It's not that he's beyond reproach, it's that there's little to no evidence he was actually undermining Rodriguez with current players or in public via the Freep leaks and Brian is throwing him under the bus.

For me, keeping sensitive opinions private is enough when you're an icon like Carr is. If David Brandon doesn't agree, then he should give him an ultimatum. But he should be careful because if he fires Lloyd it won't look good.

Section 1

May 10th, 2010 at 2:59 PM ^

You never heard me once question Carr's record.  I never questioned his ability as a coach.  And I never once questioned his contribution to Michigan football before he retired.  I never, ever, suggested that Carr created a country club atmosphere.

But if Carr chooses to side with a couple of Free Press sportswriters, or a Cincinnati Bengals defensive back, over the current Head Football Coach at the University of Michigan, then yeah there is a very, very big problem. 

BlueVoix

May 10th, 2010 at 7:27 PM ^

Well we've certainly had Jake Long, Chad Henne, Mario Manningham, and Mike Hart on the team the last two years.

We get it, you're fucking miserable with the state of things.

MGlobules

May 10th, 2010 at 1:51 PM ^

RichRod to people, might or might not have patched various situations up. I'm not saying he did or didn't. But I think there is an alternative scenario--again, not claiming it IS so--where an ambivalent Lloyd simply sits on his hands, given what he sees, and considers his own integrity to be above that of institutional loyalty here.

As both a Lloyd and RichRod fan, I see this possibility: an aging and somewhat hidebound Lloyd sees RichRod enter with a very distinct cultural emphasis and is (almost) bound to be somewhat taken aback. There's no denying that RichRod comes with controversy attached, and there is an impicit critique of Lloyd's approach in RichRod's. So he makes the polite noises he feels he must, then sits back to watch.

Now let's move this hypothesis in a still more speculative direction--Lloyd gets wind of the fact that RichRod dissed one of his former favorite kids (or simply failed to big him up to scouts). He tells him. He doesn't really have to call RichRod a dick for this story to take wing, right? He only has to say that Rich was sour on the kid.

As a long-time Michigan guy, Lloyd may feel it more prudent not to slobber on RichRod at this stage. Odds are still fairly long against the current coach, IMO (though I really, really want him to succeed); Lloyd may feel he'll be here long after the RichRod experiment goes up in flames. Lloyd probably has every malcontent former player and rich alumnus calling night and day to complain anyway, and--simply by virtue of his former position--has tended to look like the anti-Rod from the get-go. Discretion being the better part of valor, he may be saving his own take for HIS book.

Somewhere up the road I see a battle of implicitly dueling books. I also tend to see this as in the nature of off-season gossip of a kind that makes women look good. Hope we can go out and just massacre some Husky and Buckeye this season and finally put all this sh*t behind us. 

STW P. Brabbs

May 10th, 2010 at 1:55 PM ^

This is one of the most outlandish predictions I've heard in a while.  I would bet anyone anything that this will not happen. 

I don't really see RR doing it, either, for that matter.