PurpleStuff

June 8th, 2010 at 3:16 PM ^

You ask the key question.  Do we want to compete at the highest levels in football or do we want to tell ourselves we're still better than everyone else even when we lose like Vandy, Duke, Northwestern, and recently Notre Dame?  Personally, I'm in favor of actually competing in football.  All the talk about being "The Leaders and Best" doesn't mean shit if you don't have the athletes to compete at the highest level and that requires having vastly different admissions standards for athletes than you do for the regular student population, especially at a school like UM.  When Notre Dame recruited marginal high school students like Rice and Zorich, they won a national championship and were a perennial top 10 team (not to mention those guys turned out to be pretty quality representatives of the school).  Once they stopped admitting those guys they went sixteen seasons (and counting) without winning a bowl game played in the continental United States.

The holier than thou attitude about academics and football is always frustrating, but it has zero place in this instance.  If Dorsey is eligible by NCAA standards, he deserves to be admitted to Michigan at this point.  Even still, I fail to see how 85 scholarship football players (many of whom are not borderline admission cases) are going to have any negative impact on the academic reputation of a school with a total enrollment of over 40,000 students.  A school like USC has shot up the academic rankings in recent years at the same time that their football program had a major resurgence.  The success of Duke basketball probably draws a large number of students deciding between similarly ranked academic schools.  Michigan's football program has long been the greatest ambassador for the University itself because they have won games, not because they had a higher team GPA than their opponents.

SKIP TO MY BLUE

June 8th, 2010 at 4:22 PM ^

I want to say that there was a study done in the early 90's (maybe by Duke) that stated the reigning NC in basketball sees a up tick in applications by 25% - 30% the year after they win it all. I would imagine the same is true in football and that the overall academic reputation of the school increases as a result.

TrppWlbrnID

June 8th, 2010 at 2:19 PM ^

by leaving Ann Arbor's airspace vulnerable to outside intruders, the admissions department has clearly shown what side of our children's future they are on.

 

restore the No Fly Zone - for the children *cue soft piano music*

gdavis23_goblue

June 8th, 2010 at 2:21 PM ^

it's pretty crapy for michigan to be throwing this kid around at this point .. it's one thing just to say No before his LOI and not to recruit him but at this point this is his life too .. He changed over to come to michigan for a reason because someone told him he would get in and be able to play .. He isn't just an athlete, and i feel kinda bad for him right now because he probably feels like they are pulling the carpet right from under his feet .. I just hope from now on we are very strait forward and if the are even boarder line we don't offer because no one should have to go through all this crap ..

Aequitas

June 8th, 2010 at 2:49 PM ^

and if Dorsey's done nothing between now and his recruitment to embarrass himself or Michigan, they need to admit him ASAP.

Not because he's one of the biggest defensive recruits that Michigan has signed in the last 10 years.

Not because dumping him would send a signal to the local rags that THEY are now the new admissions department.

Not because he could probably come in and contribute immediately at a position of need.

But because Michigan had 7 coaches fly down to Florida, sit in his living room, look him in the eye and ask him to be a part of our team.  We recruited him, accepted his LOI and he committed to us.  If he did his part, busted his ass, and is academically qualified, then Michigan needs to do their part and honor the LOI. 

If they don't, Rodriguez and his staff, as long as they're at Michigan, will have to face this every time they sit down with the family of a young man considering signing with us.

If your son had a checkered past, or marginal grades, would you want him treated the way Demar was by the news media?

Nosce Te Ipsum

June 8th, 2010 at 2:52 PM ^

I happen to have a friend in the admissions office but they won't spill any of the beans about what is currently transpiring. I will work diligently to extract some info and if I do you all will be the first to know.

Feat of Clay

June 8th, 2010 at 3:48 PM ^

This whole thread is infuriating me but I give you a plus 1 for the Phineas and Ferb reference.

Why infuriating?  Christ people, we've SEEN what the press can do to a story.  We've seen what gets left out, twisted, ignored, played up, and so on.

So why oh why do we assume that a press story is giving us the whole unvarnished truth on Dorsey? On his recruitment?  On his application?  On how U-M has handled it?  

You gotta ask some hard questions, and most of the "hard questions" I've seen have been "Okay, why did U-M f*ck this up so bad?"  We seem pretty quick to believe that U-M is wrong, dishonest, hypocritical, bureaucratic, etc.  

Okay, admittedly, we're all those things sometimes.  But I'm not so sure we were on this one.  I sure as heck am not taking a reporter's word for it.  Nor Dorsey's coach.

oldcityblue

June 8th, 2010 at 3:08 PM ^

... need to find out what's going on, You don't really want to know just how far it's gone

Just leave well enough alone, keep your dirty laundry



 We can do the innuendo, we can dance and sing

When it's said and done, we haven't told you a thing

We all know that crap is king, give us dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down