Marcus Witherspoon done at Rutgers
It looks like Marcus Witherspoon will never play at Rutgers either.
Per Rivals, Coach Schiano said Witherspoon had some "personal issues," and will be gone from Rutgers after the semester.
I really wanted this kid to play for UM, and I was disappointed when he left. I wish him the best, but Schiano made it sound like he would not be playing football anymore.
...how much maturity plays into success in college athletics. Some kids have it at 18-19 yrs old, some don't. Unfortunate for Marcus. Hopefully he'll be able to address his personal issues and get back on track.
Yeah, there's so many factors that have very little to do with player's actual desire on the field that can affect them--just like everyone else.
You have no idea whether his maturity had the slightest thing to do with this. You don't know the kid or his situation. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt?
Well, this has to be the first Michigan transfer in awhile not be wildly succesful at their new school... Perhaps we're not totally cursed.
He wasn't even really been talked about at Rutgers. They had and will still have a deep front 7 and he would have been buried on the depth chart. They switched him to DE in Spring practice but it didn't make any difference. Whatever is going on with him I wish him luck.
This kid definitely had the talent to be successful. From what I've heard, he just lacked any work ethic whatsoever. I'm not sure if that was because of his personality or because of outside circumstances, but hopefully that's not indicative of how the rest of his life will go.
Word is he refused the axe and wanted to use a chainsaw
I hate to see kids with such great talent throw it away because of lack of work ethic.
reading somewhere (i'm sorry i can't remember where) that a rutgers asst. coach wasn't expecting witherspoon to ever suit up for rutgers and that maybe Michigan was onto something by getting rid of him. at the time i thought, "man there's something weird in the water in jersey" but now it appears that guy (and RR and co.) might've seen something. who knows? just thought i'd relay that
Seemed at the time that RR et al were very upset about not getting him in, and even more upset that Rutgers was able to do so. Was RR pulling a Bill Laimbeer on this one?
I guess he's now a bona fide "spork" as he's had a fork put into him twice.
Screw Rutgers. Schiano runs a shady program and for all of their recent "success" they've still yet to finish higher than 3rd in the 8-team Big East. It's easy to go 7-5 when you play the baby seals they do non-conference.
"It's easy to go 7-5 when you play the baby seals they do non-conference."
It is? Hmmm...Delaware State University, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Notre Dame...
7 & 5 with a creampuff OOC schedule is not great. We recognize that. If RichRod was going 7-5 consistently here he would not last long. It appears that there are some here who have taken it upon themselves to call out any criticism of other programs that could also be remotely made of the Michigan program. This is not one such instance. Schiano is a D-Bag, and his shenanigans during our coaching search should have confirmed that to every Michigan Man.
I just think it's funny that Michigan fans would make fun of anyone's creampuff non-conference schedule and say that it's easy to go 7-5 after two consecutive years of our creampuff non-conference schedule having barely netted us 7 victories (8, to be exact) in TWO years.
Wish more posters could be objective about Michigan here, even if this means being critical.
Do you see any strength of schedule changes on the horizon with the new administration? I recall that the financial rewards for playing home games and for wins are so great there is a serious disincentive to schedule home and away games ooc with competitive teams.
Nah, I don't see us changing our SOS anytime soon. Even though the Big Ten gets disrespected by the national media, the fact that OSU, PSU, Wisconsin, and Iowa are on our schedule year in and year out (except for the occasional rotation) will keep us in the national title conversation if we win all/most of our games.
The Boise States of the world are the ones who need to schedule heavyweights in their non-conference agendas.
Besides that, with the somewhat murky future of the program (how long will Rodriguez last?), scheduling great teams for five years down the road might be suicide. At that point, we might still be in a funk, although I certainly hope not.
It can be generally accepted that a coaches D-baggery and shenanigans are unrelated to his ability to win football games (the examples are too obvious to bother with).
Nonetheless, I seem to have missed something - how is Schiano a D-bag? What were his shenanigans? I honestly do not know. But, one should remember that many uninformed folks feel RR is a D-bag and that he engages in shenanigans. I am not asking for a comparison, just to keep in mind that people distant from a program, who follow a program through the mass media only, often have skewed and uninformed impressions of a coach's behavior.
What a shame, he definitely had the talent to be very successful. Hate it when kids waste away talent cause they don't want to work hard.