EDIT: the math below assumed that the Freep was talking about work in excess of the 20 hours.  After a re-read, it's hard to say exactly what the running total is, but it would appear to be FAR LESS than the 44 hour total I came to.  I very much doubt that U-M is working substantially less than the rest of the country.  In this case, I would understand the arithmetic performed as "even if they worked twice as much as the Freep documents", they'd still be about average.

In taking on this particular brouhaha, Dr. Saturday mentions perhaps the most relevant bit of context for the Freep article.  As he says:

"A survey of Division I athletes last year revealed the reality: Time limits or not, big-time football everywhere is a full-time job that consumes vastly more hours than the NCAA officially sanctions -- and has to be, if the competition is putting in the same work. That players will "voluntarily" go above and beyond the proscribed limits is taken for granted."

Now quoting the linked survey:

"Football players in the NCAA's Division I Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) said they spent an average of 44.8 hours a week on their sport — playing games, practicing, training and in the training room — compared with a little less than 40 hours on academics."

So we should in fact be able to determine exactly how far above and beyond the average Michigan footballers train under Rodriguez.  According to the Freep article, Michigan footballers played in excess of the NCAA maximum (20 hours) in the following manner:

"With three hours on Saturday and a full day on Sunday, players tallied about 12 hours on those two days. They were off Monday. Players said they would spend an additional three to four hours with the team on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, bringing the weekly total to 21- 24 hours."

Which brings the absolute total to 20 + 24 = 44 hours per week.  And from the USA Today survey, we know the average is ~45 hours per week.  While this doesn't exactly settle the question of whether this is right or why Michigan players are going to the press, it's clear the Freep didn't do its job.  The proper frame for this is would absolutely be to cite prior investigations, like SEMO and SDSU and, if it existed, a massive survey of D-1A college football players.  Clearly, the Freep would have no way of knowing if these things existed.

The major issue is settled.  The real questions now are

A) Why are our players going to the media and anonymously at that?
B) Is there a legitimate concern here?  Are these kids suffering as a result?

As to the latter question, Dr. Saturday helpfully reminds us of the incentives:

"Coaches follow the letter of the law at the peril of their records and their jobs."

True this.  If the NCAA is going to allow the average to be what it is, new coaches with something to prove are obviously, in the very least, going to have to be at that average.  Honestly, I'm very surprised that Rodriguez isn't well over the average.  This potentially reflects far more on Carr than it does on Rodriguez assuming there really isn't a quality of life issue here.  Mr. Hinton makes just that point:

"In that sense, assuming that Carr's staff really were the sticklers they're widely reputed to be (an assumption backed up by the Free Press' reports), the exuberance of their successors is just another case of Rodriguez and Barwis bringing the program into the 21st Century. The fact that they're being singled out may only be because they're doing it at one of the very few places that knows the difference."

As to the former question, the disconnect between what the players were doing and what they must now do to see the field may very well be the difference maker here.  If Lloyd truly was running his program differently than anybody in the country toward the end, this kind of reporting would only come out here, about Michigan football.  This is perhaps less the Freep's doing (outside of their inability to contextualize anything at all) than fall out from an iconoclast leaving the program.