Hand : Elephant in the room

I don't care. It's over. Move on

He chose Bama over Michigan not because of academics. Because of duh...... WINNING.

I don't doubt that the staff told Hand that Michigan engineering is hard to do - whether you play football or not. I graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and I still remember at orientation when they showed a graph. One axis was all the new freshman's grades in high school (mostly if not all 4.0s). The other was their freshman year grades (relatively normal distrobution around 2.7, with tons of kids having failed out).

Michigan engineering is damn hard. If you want to go abroad, great! But you can't take any engineering classes - no taking Statics while you're in France, because Michigan Statics is there to test you. Michigan engineers have to take Chem 101 (Pre-Med weeder class) Econ 101 (B school weeder class) through calc 4, an advanced math class, and oh yeah, engineering classes (at least the ME) Fresh-Jr year are all graded on a strict 2.7 curve. So if you're average, you've got a 2.7 GPA.

If you're Hand, you're looking at probably 3 years in school where you'd like to take classes you enjoy then you'll play on Sundays. Maybe the idea of going to Bama and not having to work as hard in fun engineering classes (they exist! I swear!) as opposed to enjoying his classes and working his ass off in Michigan Engineering sounded like a better deal. Just my $0.02.

Also, there's the whole "Chance to win a national championship" thing that he actually said after his choice.

There has to be some element of truth to this.  They must have settled on Civil Engineering as something that was "manageable" and sold him on it.  Saban & Co's attitude is he will likely be gone in three years so tell him anything now.  He seems like a nice, thoughtful kid, but also fairly susceptible to a good, flashy sales job.  He just turned 18, what do you expect?

I also believe Peppers is a significantly more important recruit for UM and am happy where things are.  He's in a more natural recruiting region for UM, is an unqualified believer in the school, and IMO has a chance to have a greater immediate impact on the field.

JMO but I don't think Hand could have handled engineering at UM.  I knew of one contributing athlete who was in the engineering program.  Lots of people are weeded out, not to mention the time demands of football.  He may be able to study engineering at Bama.  Who knows.  It's not as demanding and they may water it down for him as well.  Best of luck to DH.

We don't lie to kids. We don't tell them they have a 4 year scholarship and then fuck them over 4 years into their academic career. We're Michigan. That's not us. Good luck to every player that doesn't want to go to Michigan. 

There are a lot of schools out there that are better fits, for whatever reason. Da'Shawn felt Alabama was better for him. Oh, well.

I highly doubt Michigan told him he couldn't study engineering at Michigan. If he chose Alabama's engineering over ours it must be because he didn't think he could handle the course load at UM. I highly doubt coaches tell you that you can't have a certain major

I simply don't believe the football program wouldn't let Hand be in the engineering school--I suppose the engineering school may not have accepted him (though I've seen nothing to support this mere theory).  He was the #1 recruit in the country fergodsakes.  There are some lines we thankfully won't cross when recruiting--not letting a kid pick his school simply can't be one of them.  We need a cathartic reason that someone would pick Bama over us--the engineering meme serves our purposes cuz it reinforces our sense of specialness.  I suspect our recent problems may well have played a role--though choosing the top football program in the country certainly would have its own attraction.

he had a fellow blocking for him named Stefan Humphries, who managed to be "steered" into engineering. Why are people so willing to wring their hands and accept the gospel according to Harbaugh?

http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1122144/index.htm

We are just another in the long line of programs Saban has beaten out for a recruit from the Southeast.  He goes into Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, etc. and steals recruits right from under their nose every year.  It's not like Hand was from Michigan or even grew up a Michigan fan.  We were lucky we were in it this long and if it really was about engineering he could have just gone to Virginia Tech.

Myron Rolle said that the same thing happened to him.  I think UM was in his top 3, but he chose Florida State because he said that they were the only school that seemed to take his academic interests seriously.  Then he went on to become a Rhodes scholar.

We don't know each other, so I have no basis for this, but reading between the lines I assume you had Alpha-Bits for breakfast. You seem like a guy looking for answers.

moving on..

Then continue to recruit him and put the full court engineering press on him.  It's not over til it's over.

Don't know about the Hand situation, but though I'd point out Jordan Morgan on the basketball team will be graduating with an Engineering degree this year.  So it's not like it's impossible for UofM athletes to do it.

I don't think they discouraged him from doing it.  They were probably realistic about the prospects.  The Michigan program being highly regarded probably also implies that it's more demanding than Alabama.  Not to mention the distance from the Athletic Campus.

It's not like Alabama has a ton of Engineering majors on the team.  On the other hand, our basketball program has an Engineering Grad(!) who was All-Big Ten Defensive team last year. Different sports, sure, but I can't imagine hoops is any less demanding (30+ games and weekday road trips vs. 12 games, only on the weekends).  I don't think you can jump to the conclusion that we discouraged him from pursuing it.  I think he probably decided that it was more practical to pursue at Alabama, and I can't help but believe the location of North Campus played a part in that.  

My two cents.  

You start a thread on what might have been said based on conjecture? C'mon.

Woodbridge H.S. is where Hand attends school.  It is a below average Virginia high school in terms of math proficiency and reading proficiency and does not even show up in the ranking of best Virginia high schools.  My guess, as a Virginia based alum familiar with the Woodbridge area, is that anyone going to that particular high school would be likely to face a pretty stiff challenge with Michigan academics in general and perhaps an impossibly difficult challenge in the engineering school.  It may be that he was simply told the truth after the staff examined his academic background.

Seems like if you are aren't in Kinesiology or Sports Management, then you aren't playing Michigan Football.

I was a walk-on (preferred) in 1991. Michigan only signed Felman Malveau and needed more WRs. I played at Cass Tech with my twin, and we were both All City guys and ran track. Wilcher was our track coach (wasnt football coach yet). We went to Michigan on an academic scholarship (Evans Scholars), and once the coaching staff found out, Lloyd Carr and Schmitty (trainer) came to Cass and asked us to walk on. Its still one of the highlights of my life.

Was a frehman with T Wheatley, Shonte Peoples (prop 48), Jay Remiersma, Che Foster, Ed Davis, etc, etc.

Moeller was the head coach. I was enrolled into the college of Engineering and my twin was doing engineering/Industrial Design co-major. Once the coaches found out, they REALLY tried to talk of out of studying Engineering. Even as walk-ons, they did not want us to do it.

I was so surprised, but they want you focused on football 100%. It is a shame that we lost Hand because of this (and I know not completely, as Bama is THE football program now).

I just want everyone to know that this entire thing is true.

I did end up leaving the team for another reason (I had a torn ACL from high school and had to leave the team..and never went back), and I did go on to get my Mechanical Engineering degree and finished in the top 30% of my class and have done very well for myself.

Many of those guys are still close friends of mine and my nephew ended up starting for Michigan at middle linebacker years later (Kenny Demens). So, someone in the fam got to play (but not while studying Engineering)!

Shawn

UM Class of '96

 

I'm only posting this because I want an mgopoint.  There's absolutely no way anyone is going to care what's on page 3, therefore I won't bother myself with a theoretical anecdote.

I got to "I assume.." and quit reading. Stop it ppl. when was the last time we were even in the running for the number one recruit in the entire country? Let alone his second choice, and let alone the same year we pulled the number two recruit in the entire country. Yes, clearly reason for panic and time to make up baseless and theoretical arguments so we can all freak out and be worried about recruiting on someones assumption of what happened behind closed doors. Huh??

People get too caught up sometimes (many times?) on the idea that someone needs to go to the best school possible to get a good education. Sure, Michigan is a better school than Alabama for engineering (and many other things), but at the end of the day he is still going to get a good education in the area he wants to study. The difference between "good" and "the best" doesn't really matter that much unless the student is one of the best of the best and wants to be the best of the best. Sometimes (even though people tend to not want to acknowledge it) good is good enough when it comes to education.