Coach who knows Rich Rod says Arizona promised him they'd schedule Michigan

For 20 years LSU wasn't that good, a sleeping giant that programs all across the Country pilfered recruits from their backyard; including Michigan. Did Tulane get a lot? No. But enough that they were going undefeated before LSU was.

recruiting guys like Denard and Gardner, Barnum, Omameh, and Lewan, Koger, Roundtree, and Odoms, Demens, Ryan and Morgan, Countess, Floyd and Gordon. People complain about Carr leaving the cupboard bare but RR really turned the program into a smoking crater by recruiting such low class kids.

You just slandered a respectable school (Tulane).

I think Clemson is a comfortable distance (north) of WVU, too.

There definitely were issues with recruiting academically questionable kids. That hurt. Particularly when one considers the secondary. Losing Witty and Dorsey left us with precious few recruits that when those recruits didn't pan out (JT Turner) or left early (Warren) it really hurt. I do think you are exaggerating the effect and underestimating other factors when it comes to depth. Depth was built from Carr's last couple recruiting classes which ended up terribly for us (for many reasons: injuries, schematic change, Carr recruiting academically questionable guys, to Carr signing transfer papers). Think of it like this: last year people said, "Okay, RR has to do it this year. He has his guys in place as his recruits are juniors and seniors." That was patently untrue. Most of 2007 recruiting class were Loyd recruits. Most of RR recruits were either true sophomores or redshirt sophomores with a few juniors (Odoms for example). Depth issues were primarily a factor that from 2007 to 2008 we graduated most of our offense, lost 2 Oline to injury, had a massive schematic change, and poor recruiting by Carr. 2008-2009 saw most of the starting defense depart. Thus poor depth.

Yes, RR did recruit more academically questionable kids and he paid for it and we are paying for it. But it is a risk/reward scenario. For example, this year we backed away from both Pittman and Burbridge as they were academically questionable. As such we lost out on both and now it appears that both will qualify to play. Those are two gamechanging players we lost to MSU (and maybe TSIO now). Sometimes it bites you and sometimes it pays off.

I wonder who they'd root for: the coach that spurned them or the team that took him.

Do Mascots get in for free?

That's why I posted it. For or against, it's an interesting concept. The idea that they may have said they'd try and do it, or Rich may have requested it certainly makes it juicy. It's just going to be hard to speculate on motivations and feelings of the parties without it turning into our "favorite" meltdown.

over the age of 16 use that reference? Who (talking of M fans. State and OSU fans of course used it) could be so utterly immature and lame as to ever say that??