I was driving to Detroit from Chicago this afternoon and caught an interview with Mike Rosenberg on The Huge Show on AM 1660, Kalamazoo. A couple of, in my opinion, absolutely stunning details came out of that interview, and since I haven't heard any of them repeated directly since coming home to Detroit I thought I would add them to the discussion.

The shocker: when asked whether players had approached him about the alleged violations or if he had uncovered the story himself, Rosenberg said that he was not approached by any players directly, past or present, but that through the course of talking with Michigan players he ascertained that the program might be in violation of NCAA rules, and follow-up interviews confirmed his suspicions.

I'll repeat that: Rosenberg said that no players came to him with reports of NCAA violations. He had to ask.

Now, from the way this article was written, any logical reader would assume that there was great dissent and unrest within the Michigan program, and that players on the team had come forward to tell the Free Press about violations. But based on Rosenberg's interview, that was not so. Not even ex-players with an axe to grind came forward with allegations, they simply corroborated the details of the Free Press' findings.

Now, this does not mean that Michigan has not broken or severely "strained" the rules. They may have. But that has not been the big story here. As we all know, the story has been that current players went to the press about violations, which many have been quick to declaim as "crybaby" behavior and signs of program discord. Based on Rosenberg's interview, that didn't happen.

I was absolutely shocked at the seeming irrelevance with which Rosenberg made this statement. It was also telling to hear the show's host remind Rosenberg that during past interviews he had admitted to being "critical" of Rodriguez, which Rosenberg acknowledged while refusing to provide specific reasons for his feelings.

Also, when asked how many current players he had interviewed on the topic of violations, Rosenberg said he could not remember(!!!).

One last note: at no point during the 20-some minute interview did Mike Rosenberg say that he'd written the story or pursued the topic for the safety or health of the athletes. I thought this would have been an easy, albeit somewhat absurd, justification for the story; to claim that it was newsworthy to protect student athletes from NCAA-banned overwork. But obviously that was so far from Rosenberg's mind and his rationale for writing this piece that he didn't think to bring it up.