Unverified Voracity Looks At Manning Comment Count

Brian

Roy Manning return? With Jerry Montgomery gone to Oklahoma, Michigan needs to fill a spot on their coaching staff. No, it will not be Mike Hart or Ty Wheatley. It'll be a defensive guy. But there is another dude floating out there who is a young former Michigan player: Roy Manning.

Manning was a little-regarded recruit who came seemingly out of nowhere to start as a senior and did well enough to get drafted and have a few years in the NFL. Like Montgomery, he's become a hot name hopping to and fro. He was hired at Cincinnati in February, got a standing ovation for doing so, and had just landed at NIU after Jones took the Tennessee job. Fluff bits:

He's got a Ron English basso going on.

Home ice and the future. Michigan finishes its regular season this weekend with a home and home against Ferris State needing a sweep and some help to secure a first-round home series in the playoffs. If they don't acquire the requisite points, Michigan's last home game in front of the students will have been the February 1st matchup with Michigan State. Which… wow. Just another way in which this season has been bizarre and disappointing.

It's senior day for the, uh, seniors, and it looks like a pretty manageable class to replace:

  • Lee Moffie: Michigan's #4 or #5 defenseman in the unlikely event everyone is healthy.
  • AJ Treais: Tied for second in scoring with 11-12-23; had excellent start to the year and tailed off as guys like Sinelli and Copp moved onto his wing because they did that skating hard stuff. Copp has actually produced decently, but not having a reliable offensive option on the other wing has hampered production from him.
  • Kevin Lynch: I have no idea what line he's on; ideally would have become a Rust-like shutdown center. Instead is anonymous middle-of-lineup guy with 6-13-19.
  • Lindsay Sparks: diminutive winger will go down as Craig Murray 2010 for me, a player on the third line who I liked more than is rational and spent four years expecting a breakout from that never came. 4-4-8 in 16 games this year.
  • Jeff Rohrkemper: fourth line jack of all trades.

The key, of course, is what happens with Michigan's offseason defections. There are a ton of guys who are departure threats, starting with the dream D pairing of Merrill and Trouba and extending to Nieves, Guptill, Bennett, and Di Giuseppe. While none of those extended guys seems NHL-ready, Guptill was left at home for a series this year and is a third-rounder. He seems like a candidate for the Chris Brown "really?" departure.

A goalie will be scoured for, of course.

Welcome to the team. Here is pack of raving dingoes. Enjoy. From ESPN's exit interview series comes this nugget from Mike Kwiatkowski($):

My lowest moment of my career was probably be my first year, [Rich Rodriguez'] last season, when I was playing scout team left guard. I had thought about if this decision was right for me. I wasn’t playing my position and going against Mike Martin all the time.

Despite being a freshman walk-on tight end, he did not die. I'm using Mike Kwiatkowski as a bomb shelter in the event we teleport back to 1980 and there is a nuclear war on.

No more flyovers? Step A in any debate about cutting spending is to go right to the stuff that people notice no matter how small. Like flyovers:

Federal budget cuts would end flyovers at sports events

Of course, they have to fly the planes at some point—can't have a war with a bunch of crop dusters flying F-16s unless you can start cloning Randy Quaid—so the net additional cost of having some of those flights buzz stadiums is, um…

“It’s no additional cost to the government for support of any public events. Typically, if you see a unit fly over a football game, that is 90 seconds out of a several hour training sortie that they’re flying.”

Zero? Here is someone's attempt to explain why this is a thing:

"We just have a reduced number of those training hours, and so everything is being dedicated to just preparing for that overseas deployment and for flying that's actually happening overseas," Varhegyi said.

Not very good. Later they mention that Army/Navy/Air Force sports could get hit despite 95% of Navy's funding coming from sources other than the government. Filed under scare tactic—dollars to donuts the flyovers continue.

Something that is not true at all. Drew Henson talks about his brief baseball career in a non-bylined article that prevents me from hammering whatever intern wrote this:

But he always had his sights set on baseball — simply, he said it was more fun — and even signed with the Yankees after they made him a third-round pick in 1998. They agreed to let him finish his college football career, and he played summer ball in the Yankees system while still at U-M.

John Navarre would not be a divisive figure if this was true. Oh, and Michigan probably would have been awesome in 2001. Also that article is based on another article, which it links right at the end of the piece in a non-underlined URL link. Bad intern.

Etc.: Derrick Walton is a Mr. Basketball finalist, puts up 31 on Taylor Truman for senior day. WTKA afternoon show is kaput. Recruits' 40s are lies. Does the recruiting deregulation need to be salvaged? If so, suggestions to do so.

Comments

Skiptoomylou22

March 1st, 2013 at 6:51 PM ^

The Devin Gardner look alike standing behind RR during the horror years? I recall having a grad assistant that played for Carr, I'm not positive tho that it was him.

EGD

March 1st, 2013 at 7:01 PM ^

Being also from Saginaw, I am strongly in favor of a potential Roy Manning hire.  Saginaw is basically Tatooine, but colder and with only one sun. 

YoOoBoMoLloRoHo

March 1st, 2013 at 8:03 PM ^

I suspect Roy is a good choice and he canl ably recruit - young, NFL experience, great voice, etc.

However, I don't understand the need for another D coach when the weak link is O and Brady focuses on DL. When Brady arrived, we probably needed 6 D coaches to put out the GERG tire fire; now, we need O to get coached up.

If Roy can recruit a couple elite WRs and DBs, then sign him up.

Logan88

March 1st, 2013 at 8:37 PM ^

So, I looked at the piece on fake 40 times for high schoolers and saw that Zach Boren participated at the NFL combine. Let me repeat that: Zach Boren...a no talent fullback who played half of a season at MLB for OSU was invited to the combine while Michigan only had one player invited. WTF is that about?

M-Wolverine

March 1st, 2013 at 9:58 PM ^

Since this is the place to complain about such things and you bring it up, Huge in the afternoon after failing the first time is the height of stupidity. I know it's going on the cheap, but every time they go on the cheap the station crashes and burns. It was a mess when Dennis was let go and hit rock bottom when the short lived station manager took the slot.

The afternoon show wasn't all great. But seemed to be improving with Holden (though he needed someone else to play off of). Marcus Ray seems more suited to TV (B1G Network, are you paying attention?) than radio, but who doesn't love them some Marcus? (and how embarrassing to just start him and do the RUB promotion and then cut it) DeFran wasn't popular, but he had the best guests. And the Beatniks could be good if they had a variety of opinions. The sports round table is a lost art becoming message boards.

Huge is just 97.1 redone, and I don't need to listen to that either. Awful decision, probably forced on Ira, but ten Ira doesn't seem like he makes great decision with what he's given either (with the most pass the buck quote ever).

Don

March 2nd, 2013 at 8:21 AM ^

And from the generally horrible financial condition of the talk radio industry. Cumulus's stock price plunged by almost 50% in 2012, getting downgraded by Moody's in the process, and many industry insiders say that the ownership is extremely top-down in its management, leaving little room for local station decision-making. There is also a spillover effect from the even worse condition of Clear Channel, which is facing huge debt payments in 2014 and 2016, and has been quietly laying off hundreds of employees all over country for the past several months.
I strongly suspect that Ira was forced to dump the local programming and take Huge by Cumulus management in its Atlanta headquarters. I wasn't a Defran listener, but occasionally he had guests that were worth listening to. I like Holden a lot, and I hope he gets a chance to come back.

Canada loves S…

March 1st, 2013 at 10:18 PM ^

For me, its Marcus Ray.  Just last week he said he was becoming a big fan of hockey.  I was looking forward to walking him through the nuances of the greatest game in the world. 

I will also miss Michael Bradley's weekly appearances with DeFran. Not the Hogan's Heroe's bit but his East Coast take on things was always interesting.

Space Coyote

March 1st, 2013 at 11:16 PM ^

Or is it more a fan wish to get an ex-player back as a coach. I do think he would be a good candidate. He played LB, which is the position I've heard Michigan is trying to get another coach for (one to coach MLBs, and another probably for OLB, with WDE mixed in there probably). But so far, including in his time as an offensive graduate assistant under Brady Hoke at Michigan, he's coached RBs.

So are there actual rumors to this happening, or is it more fan hope? I like Manning. I think he'd be a great addition (I think young, black coaches are a tremendous asset in recruiting, and he seems to be fairly well praised so far, and has connections to the area and staff).

SeattleWolverine

March 2nd, 2013 at 1:13 AM ^

The statement on Henson could have been worded with more nuance but it is basically correct. When he came out of Brighton in 98 the Yankees drafted him and the understanding was that he could finish his college career at Michigan and play a more limited baseball schedule than a minor league prospect normally would. That seems to be what the writer was referring to and it was indeed the understanding during the 98-00 seasons. Later on he was traded to the Reds during the 2000 baseball season and then traded back to the Yankees around the time of the spring game in 2001. From the Yankees perspective, that agreement ended at the point he was traded to the Reds. Then when he was traded back to the Yankees Henson agreed to a new contract and to quit football and play baseball only. So the Yankees did push for him to quit baseball but in so far as the writer was referring to the first time they owned his rights it is correct. It was only after he was traded to the Reds and traded back that they forced him to choose between football and baseball. Could have been written more clearly certainly.

Derelicious

March 2nd, 2013 at 1:30 PM ^

I hope this doesn't count as political, but why doesn't the government just make you pay to have a flyover?  A little extra revenue for them and we'd still get them for the big events that people want to go above and beyond on.

blue in dc

March 2nd, 2013 at 1:56 PM ^

My understanding is that in general, charging any sort of user fee requires legislation. Furthermore, using any money generated for a specific purpose rather than just having it returned to the general treasury would also require legislation.

Which is not to say it's a bad idea, just a complicated one to implement, when one of the basic arguments is, should the deficit be reduced solely through cuts or through a mix of cuts and revenue increases.