What could have been.....Michigan alumni

I hope nobody says what I'm thinking. And I'm not giving clues to what I'm thinking, but I'm giving a +1 to the first person who says it.

Kicked off the team by Lloyd after getting into a fight.

IIRC, made the final tackle in the 1998 Rose Bowl on a hook and ladder pass play which was completed, and WP tackled the trailer after the lateral. Thanks to Will for the tackle and to the OP for the update.

Not to be disagreeable, but I'd bet the most memorable Michigan defector of all time is an offensive lineman from Ohio whose dad played for Bo.

that you're thinking that Boubacar might take neagtively to being benched and transfers and ends up with a so so career in the NFL, are you?

I certainly hope you're not going there. He has talent, he's just green and needs better technique.

Pulling him saturday is like pulling a starting pitcher who's getting shelled. You don't want him to lose confidence, but you want him to keep fighting, while trying not to hurt the team's chances of winning.

I excluded the likes of Mallet and Boren from this conversation because we have no idea how their careers are going to turn out yet. Though we can all speculate about how much they would have helped last year.

I'm not in any way saying what is going to happen to Cissoko. The previous Diary entry that I linked covers that in far more detail. I still think he'll turn into a competent contributor to the team this year and in the future, though I'm not sure any of us expect him to ever be a shut-down corner.

Bowens was one of my favorite players when he was still at Michigan. He came in with DiAllo Johnson from Orchard Lake St. Mary's and was a complete monster. He ended up transferring to Western Illinois after his sophomore year.

He played under Jim Hermann as a LB for the Jets for the last two years and is now with Mangini again as a member of the Browns.

He's never been awesome in the NFL, but he had 40 tackles, 4 sacks, 1 interception and 2 FF last year.

or at least a part of it, was spent at safety, if I recall correctly. Carr quickly realized how misguided this was and moved him back to corner.

If he hadn't blown his knee out I believe he would have been the starting QB last season. Guy had all-world potential.

You're correct - he did spend a year at safety and I think he's even played a little safety in the NFL for the Colts.

I think Carr was hoping to end the "Michigan safety-hating-god" era and try to survive with other people at corner so that we could upgrade at safety. Obviously it was a somewhat failed experiment.

It really shows you how bad our safety situation has been over the years when Justin Fargas (a starting NFL RB) and Marlin Jackson (a starting NFL CB) have been tried at the position. That's not to mention two of the safeties Michigan did use (Tommy Hendricks and Cato June) were moved to LB once they got to the NFL.

When will this torture from the safety position end! I long for the days of Tripp Welbourne and Vada Murray!

Am I only one that thinks Donavon wasnt a lock down corner last year, and leon Hall wasnt lock down ever. Maybe I just remember getting tooled on by Dewayne Jarrett in the USC game.

too bad rod can't recruit high character guys like will peterson, james whitley and trevor pryce

Justin BOREN

If my memory serves me correctly, Fargas broke his leg and the other RB's (A-Train??) stepped up thier games and became dominant. Fargas then had to deal with lingering injury issues and couldn't crack/couldn't get back in the RB rotation. In order to get playing time, he was offered and accepted the DB role.

When he fully healed, and realized he would rather play RB than DB, he transferred to USC.

It wasn't that he couldn't have been effective - we just were loaded at RB at the time and there was no playing time left to share.

Thanks for the shout-out.

Here's some guys I've heard about:

Eugene Germany Is a DII star, and has Minnesota-Duluth a surprise in the Top 10.

Cobrani Mixon Was the MAC player of the week for Kent State earlier this year.

Taylor Hill earned a starting job with ISU

Marcus Witherspoon redshirted and has not seen the field (so much for playing early at Rutgers)

James McKinney was dismissed from Louisville before ever playing a down. Don't know where he is now.

The Unmentionable Former Defensive Lineman plays arena football for The Mahoning Valley Thunder. According to local press, he found religion and is a positive role model. Good for him.

Matt Gutierrez played as a backup for the Pats last year and is now a backup QB on the KC Chiefs.

Pierre Rembert who was a fantastic pass blocking RB for M, transferred to Illinois State and was a legendary workhorse back for them. He hung around a few NFL scout teams last year (Green Bay mostly). Don't know where he is this year.

Keston Cheathem was kicked off Oregon State's team for a gun charge.

Avery Horn is the star feature tailback for Reedley College.

Clayton Richard was a stalwart out of the bullpen this year for the Chicago White Sox, before being traded (with others) to the San Diego Padres for Cy Young winner Jake Peavey.

Quintin Patilla is a star at Grand Valley State, and has been playing both ways (DE and TE)

Boren and Mallett you know.

What about Ryan Mundy? He graduated, found a loop hole and played another year at WVU. He's with the Steelers now and seeing the field on occasion b/c Polamalu is out.

I lived with his cousin in college. Dude said Trevor smoked high quantities of high quality weed. And his cousin seemed to know his way around high quality weed.

Could be unrelated, or it could be one of the reasons he left Michigan (if the coaches got wise to his lifestyle).

Kelly Baraka?

I hadn't considered Henson for this post but in many ways that's a good one. I think his early departure set Michigan back for a while. Navarre had a pretty impressive overall career but he got thrust into the starting spot long before he should have. And Michigan avoided recruiting some big-name QB's to appease Henson early in his career.

That whole fiasco really annoyed me at the time because of the way Henson handled it. In the end I think he was probably scarred more by the way things turned out than anything....though I'm sure he still rolls around in a pile of money every day.

The Yankees rushed him through the minors too fast because of his price tag, he switched back to the NFL and went to a coach that didn't want him, he got sold out by that coach by getting thrown into playing time with little preparation, and then he's been left for dead by the rest of the league because he's too old to be a prospect.

Hard to turn down the money he did, but it would have been amazing to see what he could have done as a senior and then in the NFL.

Jumpin' Johnny Sears.

Oh, I think we'd be on our 7th national championsip in a row if he'd have stayed.