The other half of the elephant: (For information only. Not a conspiracy theory).
We have spent a lot of time on this site going into the motives of the Freep writers in the NCAA investigation. (I hear that Rosenberg has so many “ulterior” motives that he hired an “ulterior” decorator for his house).
Yet, I suspect that the NCAA does not care much about their motives, only the facts: eg what the players said and why they said it. Unfortunately, I can’t find much on the site about the players who made the accusations. Sure, they are supposedly anonymous. Yet, that poses a problem, since the reliability or bias of the accusers supposedly is a major factor in an NCAA verdict, as it is in a real legal proceeding. I do not really know how these hearings work—and maybe I am wrong---but I presume that UM should go into the August hearing with knowledge of any possible or suspected accusers whose testimony could be biased in any way.
So, let me then dare to ask, who do you think are the players who made accusations vs. UM/RR to the Freep. Do you think they have attitudes that bias their testimony or not?
A WORD OF CAUTION:
I readily admit that I don’t have a lot of information. I am asking for you to help me fill out the picture. Then UM can decide what’s relevant and what’s not.
I hesitated even to post the information I do have, for fear of stirring up a hornets’ nest of misinterpretations or accusations of a conspiracy theory. Well, let the chips fall where they may. I am willing to take that chance and face the consequences, since I figure that UM should have all the information it can get.
That said, I can only think of one player who spoke out publicly and now, two other, possible or probable accusers.
1. Tony Clemons: accusations vs UM/RR made public. Clemons reportedly left upset that RR was stockpiling receivers at a record rate and that he was not being used much at all (12 catches for the season during insignificant parts of the game). He was the major recruiting tie for his cousin, OSU QB Terrelle Pryor, with whom he is reported to talk often (link below).*
Possible/probable suspects
2. Justin Boren: left UM for OSU to play with brother there, left with bitter feelings and accusations of a poor “family atmosphere)
3. Morgan Trent: Recently made public remarks accusing RR of practice violations. Morgan lives in Ohio, is paid indirectly by the Ohio fans who watch the Bengals, and—possibly more importantly-- is paid directly by Mike Brown, the owner, who spent much of his childhood living in Columbus Ohio (ages 6-11 at least). As young Mike was growing up, his father, Paul Brown, was the Ohio State University head coach and won their first NC..**
AGAIN, I SHARE THIS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY, NOT TO REACH OR SUGGEST CONCLUSIONS. THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY.
I do not know whether the accusers listed above are biased in any way. These are just the facts I found, which I judged to be interesting, If I had found other B10 schools or competitors mentioned, I would have listed them, but I did not.
In any case, you should not see these facts and jump to conclusions about the OSU ties as evidence of a possible, organized conspiracy. Such ties to the accusers are sometimes quite indirect…I do not even know for sure that the latter two players were among the accusers. Also, I have no basis for assuming that these accusations are not independent or that anybody actually planned anything. (It's not like the got together wearing ski masks and went to the FREEP for a hit job en masse.LOL)
The only question in my mind is: what attitudes, motivations or other factors may influence these or other players’ accusations? I think that is the question a lawyer would ask.
Some posters here may also want to add that Tressel and, supposedly, Herbstreit, spoke out in support of UM re: the accusations. Well, we all know how credible they are. (ugh…”I voted Miami #1” and “I know nothing about UM being searched prior to the OSU game” etc (tressel) and “Les Miles and John Tenuta will be the next UM coaches” (Herbstreit)). But neither the support of Tressel or Herbstreit is really pertinent here, their motives are indeterminate and irrelevant.
What matters are the facts; and I reserve judgment about the significance of the facts above pending knowledge of the other players involved. But I do hope you will feel free to add more names and information, even debunk my facts if you find them to be wrong. In fact, go ahead and condemn me if you want for even raising this topic.
Then, maybe we –and more importantly, UM--can, in a level headed way, judge whether the testimony on which the Freep and NCAA accusations are based could be biased in any way.
http://www.realfootball365.com/articles/michigan/13793
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Brown_%28owner%29
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2147
http://sportscensored.blogspot.com/2008/01/terrelle-i-have-everyone-by-…
*to be fair, Breaston is also a cousin, but I have not seen any reports that they talk at all, much less talk often
**although he was too smart to go there, apparently, and went to Dartmouth.
Both Clemons and Boren seem to have left for petty, personal reasons. Clemons thought he deserved more PT/catches and Boren didn't like rigorous exercise or the fact that UM didn't offer his brother a scholarship. Any OSU connection seems pretty coincidental to me.
I just don't get the Trent thing. He seemed to just blurt out the "UNACCEPTABLE!!!" memo when he was a starter on the team that went 3-9. I don't know if there was some rift with the coaching staff or if he was misquoted, but it seems odd for a player on that team to turn around and blame the coaches for the lack of success.
One word: diary. That is all.
Wasn't the NCAA investigation based on interviews with a lot of current/former players and staff that may or may not include the players cited in the FreePress 'expose'?
I was under the impression that they talked to staff and players that were of their own choosing and did not go follow up on the the sources specifically, although the anonymous ones may have been approached inadverntently as a former player..
Anyone?
I am not sure, but you raise an interesting point. Were some members of the staff they spoke with part of the old athletic department under Carr...did any of them hold grudges? Get fired or expect to get fired?
(see also the comment about ex-defensive players for English above)
The NCAA and the UofM independent inquiry did interview who they chose. (I thought they were going to talk to every player). I would imagine former players and former staff had the option not to be interviewed if they so chose. The players and staff currently at Michigan probably had to submit to an interview. So it's not like we will necessarily be able to identify Freep confidential sources from interviewees selected in the inquiry.
Does it really matter in the end? The "extra practice" seems to be a question over how the NCAA determines stretching and warm-up that we've admitted to. It sounds like the QC staffers presence will be confirmed by all. The GA coach apparently told them he wasn't, but they had enough claims that he was, that they allege he lied.
Doesn't sound like there is much left to refute or gain by impugning testimony of disgruntled players; maybe the extent of the coaching activity.
At one level, you may be right, that there is little to gain. If you are correctly interpreting the NCAA conclusions, though, it would seem awfully over the top to hit UM for any scholarships or practice time or probation time. It would be especially maddening if any of these penalties are related to undisputed, anonymous information that is untrue.
Let us put emotions aside, though, and assume--as you reasonably argue-- that any information we got would not change the outcome.
The problem is that it would change the signal we send to people who feel at liberty to lie about the program. The proven falsity of the Freep allegations now makes it clear that either the Freep writers are lying or they found a few players who were lying--or at least doing so indirectly by knowingly ignoring the definitions of practice time. Thus, by doing nothing to try to get to the truth, we may give a green light to future attacks. And if the last two years teaches us anything, it is that these attacks have no end, so long as the attackers don't pay a price.
Now, we can go back to the cost benefit question and ask if sending a message to the liars is worth the costs--even if you find the liars, then publicizing who they are can just bring more unwanted attention and reinforce prior misconceptions, no matter how false they are. It seems to me that this is the ultimate question. I personally don't have enough inside knowledge to answer it. But I am pretty confident that the new AD will make a wise judgment.
He seems angry because he was blamed for poor play and wants to blame it on RR instead.
That kind of anger certainly could bias a player's account of the truth of the practice time.
You could see a player saying we succeeded because we practiced a lot
OR
we failed because we didn't practice enough.
But players on teams that practice too much do not generally set school records for failure.
Is anger trumping logic?
On the other hand, maybe he expected RR to cover the deep passing routes, since RR was a CB (I think)
a) Rodriguez was a safety, not a cornerback.
b) Trent doesn't need to blame Rodriguez for the defense's poor play in 2008. Rodriguez has already fired the biggest guy to blame (Shafer), other than himself. Seriously, Rodriguez firing Shafer is the smoking gun - it was NOT entirely the players' fault. His defensive coordinating was a poor fit and an utter failure.
Let's say you own a McDonald's. You have good employees, and everything is running smoothly. Then you have to hire a new night shift manager because the old one moved on to Chick-Fil-A. The new manager's night shift goes crazy - they're coming in late, being rude to customers, not sweeping the floor, etc. - and you fire the manager almost immediately. Isn't that a pretty good indication that the MANAGER wasn't doing a good job of supervising?
I basically agree with your points but think there is a bigger picture.
First, I see the logic in saying that Trent doesn't need to blame RR for the defensive coaching. At the same time, RR did not just hire Shafer but also fired English, who also was a candidate for the HC position. Judging from the apparent reaction of English, there was great animosity between him and RR after that. So, I do not think it is beyond question that the attitude could have rubbed off on some of the players he worked with very closely (as I recall English was a DB coach prior to being the DC). In fact, many have speculated that a disgruntled English supporter outside of UM was the one who had a wife who worked on the Freep and got the whole investigation going.
Second, I share your assessment of the Shafter hire. I too was disappointed that English was not kept on and, with 20-20 hindsight, see that the Shafer hire was a mistake. But now, after seeing English's apparent anger, and realizing that keeping him could have threatened RR, I can understand why RR possibly did not want to keep him.
That is not to say that I justify RR's decision. IMO English was a good coach; I even thought he was a plausible, if not the best, candidate for HC. In any case, his salary was being paid for a year after RR came, and I wish he had continued to coach at UM that year, at least as a DB coach, if not as a DC. To me, it all seems really unfortunate, that decisions, apparently, were made based on politics and not based on the long-term welfare of the UM program, probably on both sides of the pro- and anti-RR factions.
To me, all that matters is the welfare of the UM program. I am encouraged that the new AD has commented on the need to stop any in-fighting that has contributed to the troubles over the past few years. IMO, this did not even start with RR; there was significant cronyism under LC, who was a fine coach nevertheless. So, what I am saying is that there is probably a lot of blame to go around.
But Trent has certainly proven that he deserves his share of it, if only for his public comments.
My guess is that it was a defensive player, one close to Ron English. From there it's easier to connect the dots: English to Stapleton, who used his connections on the Freep editorial staff to get them to launch the investigation.
If he was close to English , that could explain his comments...he was PO'd that English did not get the job...also that English was fired.
but does it really matter what brought the skeletons out of the closet? The fact is they were there.
To me, the 'violations' seem rather harmless - I made the analogy to me driving 25mph through the driveway at work where the speed limit is 15mph.
In any case, the people who brought us these 'facts' had enough fact that the NCAA is now interested. I think we're at a point where we need to deal with the elephant, rather than concern ourselves with who brought the elephant. I think we're (and by we, I really mean they) better served by fixing the problem than by throwing around blame at whoever found the problem.
I still think we're in a unique position that we can suggest some meaningful changes to the system, above and beyond accepting our hand slaps. To do that without pointing fingers or dragging current and former student athletes through the mud is, IMHO, what makes us Michigan.
then I agree with you.
I also agree that the offense is minor.
Unfortunately,regardless of what we think, the NCAA is calling it major. If we are for the first time in our history given major violations (as seems likely), and if the accusations, or at least many of them, are false, then I would want UM to defend itself.
Whether you are a student or not, you need to learn not to go around making false accusations that can ruin peoples' lives, smear your University, then get off scot free. I you are old enough to die for your country, you are old enough to take responsibility for your own words.
I would also want to know if--as many have suggested here-- some of the some disgruntled people in the athletic department are involved in the Freep accusations or the development of them. The new AD then needs to do some major housecleaning, or the infestation will just come back again.
"To me, the 'violations' seem rather harmless - I made the analogy to me driving 25mph through the driveway at work where the speed limit is 15mph"
If we end up losing scholarships and on probation for this I would have a hard time calling them harmless. I agree that they seem very petty and something every school likely does. However, if they cost us something like scholarships I can hardly say they are harmless.
How he played over his career at Michigan made me dislike him enough, know after he said his comments he is just under the Justin Boren level of hate.
I like how I took a lot of heat for disliking Boubacar Cissoko. That is, AFTER he acted cocky on the field and AFTER he got in trouble with the law and AFTER he got suspended from the team.
But people disliked Trent for not being a good enough player? Eh, no big deal.
Apparently, around here it's okay to hate a player who doesn't tackle well enough or make enough interceptions, but it's not kosher to dislike a player whose off-field actions cause him to have run-ins with the police and get booted off the team.
Back...and to the left. Back...and to the left.