Colorado vs. USC - Tony Clemons

Submitted by True Blue Grit on

Nice to see former U-M receiver Tony Clemons score a TD against USC (not).  He looked good on the 27 yd. play.  Normally I like to see former players do well, but given the history here.....

ken725

November 4th, 2011 at 9:16 PM ^

Marquis Lee also looks good and has looked really good all season.  

He would have been an instant impact here.  Too bad we were considered a long shot for him last year.  

goldenmug8

November 4th, 2011 at 9:19 PM ^

Toney is a fucking coward. I hope he breaks both his legs and gets a concussion to knock him out for the rest of the season.

Everytime he catches the ball a devil baby is born.

Section 1

November 4th, 2011 at 9:30 PM ^

There's no need for that.  In fact, there's really no good cause for that.  I feel sorry for Clemons almost as much as I feel for Stokes and Hawthorne.  They were all used.

Let's just hope for the Buffaloes' sake that Clemons doesn't take his touchdown back in the 3rd quarter.

TheLastHarbaugh

November 4th, 2011 at 10:00 PM ^

More like took them out of context and twisted them to fit in with their wildly incorrect and preconceived  notions of what was going on within the program.

 

Example:

Rosenberg: "So...you guys have been working hard, eh? I've heard the coaching staff has been really tough."

Wide-eyed Freshman: "Oh, man. It's been crazy. The coaches have be working us to the bone. I've never been pushed so hard in my life. It feels like we work a million hours a week. They're great though."

Rosenberg: " A million hours a week, huh?.............."

Rosenberg scribbles furiously in his notebook

 

 

 

justingoblue

November 4th, 2011 at 10:50 PM ^

Just to elaborate (and I didn't realize just how bad it was either) Hawthorne came into RR's office in tears the Monday after the Freep story came out, in some terrible combination of frustration, fear and regret. Those guys quoted in Rosenberg's article are probably some of the most sympathetic characters in M football history.

As bad as the rest of Three and Out has been (the story, the book is first rate), that's probably the most heart-wrenching part so far.

Phil.engin2011

November 4th, 2011 at 11:30 PM ^

the RR tenure make me respect the hell out of those guys.  I know it looks like Hawthorne has lost his hold on the LB position, and other guys that are hold-overs will probably not see much more PT (especially when next year's class gets here), but I'll never forget their names and that they stuck with Michigan through a the proverbial "perfect shit storm."

jaggs

November 4th, 2011 at 11:27 PM ^

Your comments would not have been taken well if he did what you though he did. Wishing injury upon a teenager who besmirched your beloved program is always frowned upon.
<br>
<br>A better response would be 'I hope he goes undrafted and spends the rest of his life plowing snow in an unsuccessful family business.'

Tater

November 5th, 2011 at 9:15 AM ^

Your comments aren't "well-taken" because most people here have a tacit rule that you don't wish broken limbs on a college student, even if he plays for Sparty or Brutus, or has badmouthed the program.  

There is a gray area that coaches often straddle, where they teach their players to "knock the quarterback out of the game."  I think it's part of football, but even that doesn't go over well on a civilized blog like mgoblog.  

In other words:

Temporary boo-boo = gray area

Permanent harm = no-no.

This, however, is only one person's opinion out of however many thousand participate here.

Section 1

November 4th, 2011 at 10:03 PM ^

Clemons was an '07 recruit who decided to transfer in the spring of '09.  He wanted to play more, and wanted to play in a more of a standard offense that would suit him as a true wideout.

By all accounts -- including Clemons' own account -- his departure from Michigan was amicable.  He had made himself clear, he expressed nice thoughts about Michigan, there was no controversy and not even a lot of notice.

Then Stretchgate happens.  After the Freep went to press on the weekend of 8/30/09, and the other sportsnews outlets are trying to catch up and hitch their own ride on the "scandal" story, some genius at ESPN thinks, "Hmmm, 'former' players... Like, uh transfers?  I know some of those names... I think I'll give 'em a call..." 

And apparently the only one who returned anybody's calls was Clemons.  Who basically said that yeah everything he told the reporter was true.  (I'm guessing it may indeed have been true; and it was the reporter who twisted the story.  The incomprehensible treatment of Stokes and Hawthorne bears that out.)  ESPN of course breathlessly ran with the story, "Newspaper story confirmed," after which Clemons later tried to back down from vouching for the story insofar as it made some very heavy allegations (Clemons would have been very smart, in hindsight to do that!) and thereafter Clemons just finally said, "Hey I am done talking aobut this whole thing."

Clemons essentially confirmed that he was interviewed by Rosenberg, and that he never asked for any anonymity.  Which makes Rosenberg a confirmed institutional liar inasmuch as Rosenberg claimed (this is a technical newspaper/code of ethics thing) that Clemons (and all other players to whom he gave anonymity) asked to be kept anonymous.  Rosenberg has never explained, and can't possibly explain, how or why he'd have given anonymity to somebody like Clemons, who had nothing to fear from Michigan coaches and who didn't even ask for anonymity, versus Stokes and Hawthorne, who were named... and apparently deviously abused and misquoted.  

Trogdor

November 5th, 2011 at 1:17 AM ^

“The allegations are true,” Clemons said. “Nothing is fabricated or exaggerated in that story. I was there on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. or 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. depending on if guys needed treatment. You were there daylight to nighttime.”

“On Sunday, it was lifting, film, dinner and practice,” Clemons told Schad. “I usually got out around 10:20. I truly don’t want to be associated with the program back there. But I am going to help benefit my teammates back there by speaking and giving testimony.”

The first part of the quote can be written off as glossing over countable versus non-countable hours. The second quote is where he really loses a lot of M fans in my opinion.

Section 1

November 5th, 2011 at 11:34 AM ^

And what you correctly report would probably have left me feeling really angry about Toney Clemons.  If the story ended there.

I said in my post above that I was trying to do the fast version.  Even the fast version went for several paragraphs.

So here's the rest of the story.

Again, the quotes that you supplied were reported exactly as you say.  But then there was this, which is substantially what I tried to report above, absent links and footnotes; from the Denver Post online:

 

 

Clemons played at Michigan in 2007 under then-coach Lloyd Carr and last season under Rodriguez. Clemons transferred to CU in the spring.

 

Quoted by Schad, Clemons said: “The allegations are true. Nothing is fabricated or exaggerated in that story. I was there on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., or 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., depending on if guys needed treatment. You were there daylight to nighttime.”

Perhaps realizing that this may create a firestorm of media inquiries, Clemons put out this statement through the CU sports information office on Monday:

“It was not my intention to come to the forefront of any situation dealing with the Michigan football program. I talked to a reporter (Schad) Sunday night, but did not answer any questions. Nor did I contribute any information. I don’t have any ties to the original allegations and my involvement in the matter doesn’t go any further than reading the (Detroit Free Press) article and confirming the allegations made by anonymous sources.

“If I am asked to answer questions by any official party, be it the University of Michigan, the Big Ten or the NCAA, I will be honest about my schedule while at Michigan. But for right now, I am a Colorado Buffalo and no longer associated with Michigan or its football program. It’s time for me to concentrate on my classes and my teammates here at Colorado.”

CU sports information officials told reporters Monday that Clemons did not believe he would be quoted by Schad and did not want to appear vindictive against Michigan. Clemons has not denied the quotes attributed to him, however. 

 

 

http://blogs.denverpost.com/sports/2009/08/31/cus-clemons-explains-quotes-re-michigan-allegations/4329/ 

Section 1

November 5th, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^

The very notion that Clemons "was there on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. or 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. depending on if guys needed treatment. [And that he was] there daylight to nighttime,” is really the essential problem with the whole story.  Yes, guys may well have been at the football building for that length of time.  Just like guys all across the country in other programs.  Those are not countable hours.   A  A 

It is the real crux of the whole insane problem with Rosenberg's story.  He was taking stories about "hours" which were not countable, and shoehorning them into "Countable Athletically Related Activity (CARA) hours"  We know damned well what the NCAA found with us; that they had to parse a few minutes of stretching each week, and the exact job-description language and responsibilities of some of the Quality Control non-coaching staff, in order to find any violations.

As I read all of this (and as I think Brian Cook, or any other informed reader would), what had dawned on Clemons was that while everything that he thought that he said to Rosenberg was true (Clemons sure as hell didn't want to be portrayed in the national press as a liar), the import of how his quotes were being used ("equals major NCAA violations") had probably not dawned on him, and as soon as it did, Clemons was outta there in about 4.49 seconds.  With the help, perhaps, of a CU Buffaloes compliance officer who was whispering in Toney's ear, "Dude, that's what we do too!  It's not a violation..." 

Again, I blame Rosenberg first, foremost and last in all of this.  Your point, Trogdor, about the gratuitous nature of the 'second part' of Clemons quote to Joe Schad does leave me feeling pretty cold.  So you are right about that.  Still, in the end, one would think that Clemons did indeed provide an accurate statement to the NCAA, and that there was not much to whatever was said.  And so my sympathies with Clemons are only a little less than my sympathies for Stokes and Hawthorne.

 

nyc_wolverines

November 4th, 2011 at 10:49 PM ^

Can take the rule breaker out of Youngstown, but can never take the rule-breaker out of the man.

Suppose he's fixing any Saturday morning Jr Varsity games after the Saturday morning prayer breakfast?