Not My Crowd: What?

I have a hard time reconciling the 'not my crowd' quote with the last one in the article - "I loved my teammates".

Kids.

I think what he meant by his comment was the RR was bringing in players that pushed themselves the extra mile. Those that were willing to stay in the weight room after the regular workout session was over or stayed out on the field to run a few extra sprints to help themselves get in better shape. See Wermer was one of those players that was ready to get back to his cozy little room as soon as he could. These new players were making him look bad....and he just couldn't have that

Both RR and Greg Robinson have said they are impressed with the conditioning of the players. Such effusive praise and optimism is hard to come by from these two demanding personalities. You're not hearing the "I wish I had another month with these guys" line anymore. I think Barwis really sets a high standard that some ppl simply cannot achieve. And he doesn't feel bad about guys who fail because it's not like he can't get any other good players. Is that a "business"-like atmosphere, yeah probably. But it's good for the players and it mimics real life.

And I don't buy the argument that playing football makes you any less of a college student than just going to college. College itself is great for the friendships you make and what not, but at the end of the day, you're competing with other students for the top grades and the best professional opportunities. Competition is a reality of life and I'm glad we're seeing that from the football and basketball programs. In the end, competition makes us stronger.

I remember when Sportscenter a while back had a feature on the town of Pahokee. Even though it was a poor town the guys that lived there from the feature really seemed like great guys who worked very hard every day. So I was upset when this first came out because I thought he was calling out the kids that we were getting from southern Florida. If he did or not good riddance to him. It's one thing to want to transfer, it's another thing entirely to go out and try to call out the program because you were leaving.

See, to me, the "not my kind of crowd" thing is a throw-away.

It's like saying you read Playboy for the articles. It's not the real reason. The rest of it, the real (no pun intended) meat of his rationale lies in the work. He wanted a more laid back approach than Rodriguez and Barwis want. Maybe the staff makes it so he doesn't like football the way they coach it. And that's fine.

So that means he definitely did the right thing. If you don't want to work as hard playing football, there are a few things you can do. One is join an intramural team. Another is transfer to the MAC. Good for Wermers. He now won't have to work as hard at school or football. Thank God he won't be entering the job market for a few years. I would hate to see him against any kind of competition for a job.

Boss: "Can you work any Saturdays?"
Wermers: "Seriously? Sorry man, I spend my Saturdays trying to finally beat my nephew at Trivial Pursuit. You run this place too much like a business. I'm transferring to Chrysler."

His comments: particularly his "not my crowd" comment, were not very well considered.

My first thought was his comment could be viewed as black players from the south not being the kind of guys he'd feels a family tie with (at best).

Given the revelation about academic ineligibility (whether that was chicken or egg), and the fact he wasn't approaching the two deep, it is pretty clear that despite being on a UofM team with the least experienced offensive line in most people's memory -- this guy was just not working out. Apparently the different guys who are not his crowd, also manage to maintain academic eligibility, and compete to be in the two deep.

So agreed: Kurt really would have been better off not saying a word, or just saying he and the program were not the best match.