I wonder if he’ll pull up on would-be slashes and take more midrange twos in this game. If the Badgers plan to sit back and play for flops when it looks like he’s driving, and their defense offers the two, he’s probably the best hope of making those right now.
With a lot of high-profile freshmen, I’d worry about them pressing, in an attempt to emphatically erase that earlier game goose egg. I worry less about that here.
Also, In a game that doesn't matter much, seeing next year's potential heir apparent to the position vacated by the sitting starter is a treat too. It builds (hopefully) some anticipation for next year. At the same time, it's a motivator for kids to come to a place where they won't start immediately. Languishing behind a star all season, waiting impatiently for your chance to shine? Well here you go, brother. Go get 'em!
The discussion didn't touch on the possibility of an NCAA-sponsored insurance program. For players contemplating entering the NFL draft, couldn't a panel assign them some sort of likely draft spot (like basketball players can get) and then use that to determine an amount for a catastrophic injury policy? It's far from simple and clean, but it seems a lot easier to implement than some of the other payment mechanisms, utilizes established (insurance, actuarial tables, etc) mechanisms, and might motivate, I dunno, half of the planned bowl-skippers to go ahead and play in the game?
All in all though, some people think that there's way too much fuss being made of this. As soon as the dust settled after The Game (or, at the end of the first quarter, when it was clear that no pass rush would be forthcoming), whatever bowl game Michigan would be playing in ceased to matter much to a lot of people. As you said, a spectacle that we might go to, or watch, to support our alma mater, but ultimately, yawn... And when it was announced that it would be Florida again...oof!
In the last ten years Alabama has had 65 of it's players get drafted, 14 of whom were defensive backs, and Michigan 38 (6 DBs). Since we already heard that Hill has a high GPA, we can also dispense with the ignorant assertion that he doesn't want to work at academics. It's so tiring to hear people who are so far removed from being 17 or 18 years old, haven't lived the life of a 5-star recruit, and don't really have any idea what's going on in said recruit's head, proclaim that they know why he made a choice. Maybe he decided it was too cold. Maybe he liked that Alabama was a bit closer to home. Maybe his friends shamed him (good-naturedly or not) after the Ohio State loss (that matters a lot more to most kids his age than it does to us). The kid could play at any school he wanted. And until someone knocks them off, Alabama is at the top of the heap. Is it so hard to imagine him changing his mind and wanting to go to the winningest program, and get the media exposure that comes with that?
I think you're right about people underestimating the firestorm. It's easy to say, "well, their fan base won't care, and recruits that want free reign won't care, so how bad will it be? What does Ohio State care if the talking heads on the Today Show lambaste them?"
There's logic in that. But if you look at the Baylor example, where much of the citizenry is basically Ohioans in stetsons and ropers, and in which Baylor is a much lower profile private institution that has a lot more leeway to do whatever the heck it wants, they STILL managed to get the savior coach (Art Briles) fired, and <sort of> clean house when the scandal there unfolded. It was a slower burn, still smoldering in fact, but I think the Buckeye apologists for Urban Meyer are going to be surprised at the level of external pressure.
You hate an entire state? What does that entail? The trees and lakes and stuff? All the people in it? The tomatoes that people grow alongside their garage there?
No one there is going anywhere willingly, until they get their giant payouts, like the $15M that Art Briles got from Baylor, or the $5.6M that Ken Starr got. The whole thing is eerily similar, with some donors (see Drayton McLane, for whom the stadium is named) and “fans” continuing to support the program, selling their very souls for a few wins (that they somehow choose to take credit for as supporters of the program) and local police looking the other way,
At the height of the scandal, Baylor regents vote unanimously to reject a call for a third party to review the university's handling of the sexual assault scandal. The call was made by a group of the school's major donors.
The litany of accusations at Baylor, over the span of 2012-2016, is absolutely staggering, and yet, on they play.
Yeah, well put. He’s like the unpopular interim CEO/CFO that a VC or PE firm puts into a struggling business to lead austerity or other restructuring efforts. He or she is not there for the long haul, doesn’t need to please people, and has a thick skin. He’s executing an agenda and taking the heat for it, and probably has no expectations of a long-term role. I think his soul mission is to limit liability, by delay, obfuscation, or any other mechanism at his disposal...not to “do the right thing.”
That lack of response IS depressing...I was wondering about that. We were touring the University of Tennessee last week, and talked to students about the Greg Schiano protests (because of his alleged behavior in witnessing, but not reporting, Jerry Sandusky abusing a boy in the showers). They were joined by state politicians and others too, and I got the sense that they were sick of the football program’s reputation staining their image. I know that Knoxville isn’t the epicenter of progressive thinking or morality, but there was a palpable sense of outrage and determination among the students I talked to, something that may not be as prevalent in East Lansing.
Hah! Yeah, that’s what I would have thought also, before visiting, which we did on the advice of a college matching service that we’re working with. These honors colleges are a growing trend among public universities hoping to contend with private universities for students on the higher end of the achievement scale, and worth thinking about when exploring options. They’ve built a lovely, dedicated facility there, the students we talked to were sharp, eager, and polite, and the faculty we met were passionate. Admittedly, they’ve got a lot to overcome with the University’s reputation, but the reputation of their honors college is beginning to spread, like it is for others. Still, it didn’t impress me as much as Georgia or Clemson, which we’ve visited in subsequent days.
Johnson’s brother Cole was a key special teams player for Northwestern who earned Practice Player of the Week honors six times for the Wildcats from 2013-16, before earning a degree in communication studies and enrolling in dental school. He may have done more of the transfer recruiting than Fitzgerald did.
I was at Ole Miss the last two days touring the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College with my kiddo, and asked about ten people what they thought of Shea Patterson transferring to Michigan. A couple said “good riddance” and proceeded to regale me with tails about Patterson’s purported immaturity and arrogant BMOC behavior, but most didn’t express any ill will, saying that he deserved a chance to play somewhere else given the situation. What surprised me a bit was how complimentary most folks were about Harbaugh, and his prospects for developing Patterson.
I think that it DID have some positive impact when Hand and Harris listed Michigan. I never claimed that his Twitter post had anything more than SOME impact, but people who are a long way from being a 17 year old football player are naive if they cling to the belief that it has no impact at all on other prospects. These kids consciousness revolves around social media a lot more than it does for most of the poeple posting in this forum.
A lot of people get way too carried away with recruiting news, and you see many giddy posts when someone puts a Michigan logo in their "considering" Twitter post. So, if that's going to fly, then it's only fair for the hand-wringing nay-sayers (I'm neither of these, I watch with detached interest until they show up in a jersey) to be similarly concerned when someone in state does NOT list Michigan.
I know that kids choose their school for a lot of different reasons. And I know that some recruits are lost causes from the get go. I also know that I'm asinine sometimes. But I'm not wrong that social media endorsements or cold shoulders matter to other recruits, to one degre or another.
When fellow recruits see that he's from the state, and doesn't have the in-state team in his top 8, they might think, "Whoa! He's FROM there, and not considering Michigan. What's up with that?" Sure, we've heard that his coach is anti-Michigan, and recruiters are going to do the REAL work one-on-one, but this social media stuff matters to recruits, and it seems clear that an in-state, 5-star (which matters more in recruiting that it does in game play, as the Kalis comments indicate) who rejects Michigan has a potential impact on other recruits.
If, like me, you’ve seen most of the films mentioned here multiple times (and will watch them again) but want something different, check out “Went the day we’ll?” It’s about English villagers repelling an attempted German invasion, based on a story by the the fine writer Graham Greene. It’s simultaneously suspenseful, quaint, and inspiring. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/went_the_day_well/
of behavior. Maybe they feel that they’re above “talking shit”, and have no desire to sound like an Ohio State fan. If this had any impact whatsoever on the results of the OSU game, I guess an argument could be made that Michigan fans should all go get lobotomies, and trash talk on fan forums with Buckeye fans. But it doesn’t, so, phew!
and keep expectations low, in this case. People love a redemption story, but Manziel is going to have to fundamentally change who he is, and that’s pretty unusual. Long before any of his antics made the news, he was infamous in central Texas for his childish temper, entitled attitude, and boorish behavior. And the Apple apparently doesn’t fall from the tree, as his many of his relatives have exhibited similar behavior. He probably thinks that he’s normal, and everyone else is strange. His comment about the Browns having a problem with his drinking suggests this. He might just be an irredeemable jerk. The good news, for him, is that that doesn’t appear to be a big inhibitor to success or popularity.
...universities across the nation. As I help my second child through the college selection process, I'm encountering similar sentiments all over the place. If the tax payers and the officials that they elect have reduced the subsidies to provide financial aid to lower income students, is it up to the university - feeling pressured themselves, economically - to make up all of the difference? That would result in cutbacks on facilities spending, and with research and salary cuts, would eventually lower the quality of the education. If the university looks at two options: 1. Abandoning their legacy of academic leadership or 2. Catering to more out-of-state students to make up the funding gap, it's pretty easy to see why they would choose #2. Does anyone particularly LIKE that? Probably not, but the people of the state of Michigan share in this decision with their funding decisions.
I don’t know if the author of that piece reads this board, but people hungry for Wolverine football news aren’t COMPLETELY desperate, dude. Could you not spend an extra ten minutes writing something halfway coherent? Yeah, I know, Milton’s entire interview consisted of sophomoric cliches, but as he’s a freshman football player, that’s to be expected. But what, in those comments, suggests maturity? Eagerness, confidence, determination...sure, but maturity?
And then there’s this: “Despite his true freshman and early enrollee status, Milton enters the Michigan program with plenty of confidence”
People reading Bama Insider or Buckeye Insider might overlook the basic logical construction failure there, but not HERE. You’re implying that it’s surprising that he has such confidence despite being a true freshman. Perfectly valid point. But that surprise is OFFSET by his being an early enrollee. See, being an early enrollee makes him less of a true freshman...but that’s obvious to you, surely. You just rolled out a trite cliche because you wrote this piece on the john, and you were in a hurry because your cheeks were starting to fall asleep. We expect better around here, Michigan Insider, but we’re happy to give you another chance. Make us proud, bruh.
Terence Mann: . Well, I've got news for you. I spent all my misery years ago. I have no more pain for anything. I gave at the office.
Hold on there, Mr. Mann...we’ve got just one more little misery to inflict before you go away...
There’s a pretty decent chance that whomever winds up being the national Champion eventually has the title stripped and their wins vacated, but that’ll be a couple of years down the road, and small consolation to the runner-up. Been THERE before, eh? At least with the Tour de France, they give the title to the highest finisher (like, the 7th place guy) who passes the PED test.
...like, every other time he touches the ball, including the play before, when he used his “brakes” so effectively. Hahahhaha! Dakich...man...I gotta mute the TV.
He’s a Michigan Man. I was a Bunting-Shaped tight end in high school, many decades ago, so I was really pulling for the guy to succeed. As you’ve reminded me, whatever his stats may add up to, he HAS succeeded, in what matters most. Thanks for the insight.
Maybe he has work to do to get into his grad program of choice (missing classes, higher test scores, wait-list, etc)
Maybe he’s deciding if he wants to play football for one more year at all. His injury may have shown him what life could be like after another, possibly worse one. Maybe he’s worried about CTE and thinking, “I’ve gotten this far on football, maybe it doesn’t take me up any higher.”
Maybe it IS the girlfriend. If it is, no amount of bitter sniping from some old dude on a message board is going to mean anything to him.
I don’t know the guy, but it’s pretty clear that he has way more options than some players coming out of college. It really WOULD be tough to sort all those out between December graduation and January enrollment.
It’s always been frustrating to see MAAR get the short shrift, while media folks would wax endlessly over the greatness of Irvin. Sure, he had many good moments and skills, but he sure seems to have delivered far less value over his career than MAAR has. I guess that Mr. Basketball title is just kind of a royal decree that stays with you.
He COULD have had three assists in three minutes, if Matthews had taken the open three in the corner that Simmons fed him after a nifty push up the court out of traffic. I’ve no room to dispute the point guard rotation or playing time decisions, just wondering if there’s “talk” around the program about him being frustrated. I can imagine a scenario in which he’s reasonably content. He didn’t transfer for playing time, like Matthews did...he had all the PT one could want at Ohio. He just wanted a bigger stage, and a possible NCAA run, right? And maybe to get started on a graduate degree at Michigan? He had to know that the team was in a rebuild mode, and that there were no PT guarantees. If he were angling for an NBA run, would he have risked the congestion at Michigan, or just stayed put?
"Two weeks ago, Park Hill senior Ronnie Bell paraded around a gymnasium with a three-foot tall trophy, one reserved for the top high school football player in Kansas City. But the college football offers had oddly remained silent, so Bell had instead secured a Division I basketball scholarship."
"“I just kinda hoped and prayed that somebody would take a chance on me,” Bell said. “I knew if anybody reached out, I was going to let them know that football is what I wanted to do.”
The initial plan was always football, Bell said. He loved the game his father once played collegiately, and there was a certain appeal to following an identical path.
But as his senior season progressed, and as the touchdowns reached record-breaking numbers, the offers never came. So Bell, a wide receiver who won the Thomas A. Simone Award, took the opportunity he had on the basketball court, signing to play at Missouri State."
But then things get a little shady-sounding:
"Last week, he reverted to his initial instinct and reopened his recruitment. Missouri State officially released him from his letter of intent Friday.
Michigan came calling. Even if no one else did.
'It’s such a blessing,” Bell said. “When I signed for basketball, that’s what was best for my family, so I stuck with it. But once my dad said to go do what I want, I knew that was football.'”
No offers, he signs his LOI, but then abruptly changes his mind, gets a release, and reopens his recruiting for football - where there had been no interest, mind you - and suddenly gets an offer? Sounds like he knew that the offer would be forthcoming if he got his release.
...and he already had 1000 yards receiving and had been named his conference's Offensive Player of the Year, so he was doing noticeable stuff as a football player before he signed that letter. It's just weird that no college football teams recruited him before he signed that LOI on the 8th.
I get it...teams purportedly didn't recruit him for football because he committed to play basketball somewhere. But, that somewhere was Missouri State? I mean, #80 in KenPom? They've had exactly two dudes play as many as 20 games in the NBA in their history, and one of those was drafted in 1970 (Curtis Perry). And it's hardly an academic powerhouse (with apologies to any of its esteemed graduates reading this), sporting just a 53% six year graduation rate, and accepting 86% of applicants. It's just weird that there wouldn't be more schools trying to sway him to football if he really had that much potential. It feels like a desperate grab to make news by having some players sign on December 20th, so we don't get left out of the first early signing day.
Not challenging the statement, just wondering.. When I was a kid, and cable was new, the Internet but a glimmer in Ajit Pai's eye, the Senior Bowl provided invaluable exposure. But today, it feels like a fading anachronism. That said, if Cole is going to play Center, it probably makes MORE sense for him to play in the game than if they'd invited him as a Tackle...
...and then there's the trip. Okay, Cole should definitely go, but should other sure-to-be-drafted players?
yeah? When he was bringing the ball upcourt my teenage daughter, who barely notices Michigan basketball, but occasionally sits with me for a few minutes while snap chatting, said, "wait...I thought that dude played for Michigan."
deserve the death penalty? Particularly when they don't really harm anyone, except for a college football "fan" who takes it all much too seriously, and imagines that he's somehow been the victim of injustice? Or maybe it's Freeze's ignorance and/or stupidity that earns him that spot rotting in your hell...in which case, you'd better duck, brother.
...wouldn't a guy like that make a first rate college Athletic Director? There are lots of possible positive outcome here, son...they don't all revolve around getting drafted.
The upshot: he's been a model prisoner, and the breakdown of 11 parole criteria detailed in the article makes it seem very likely that he'll be paroled on October 1st. It also makes it sound as if he'll have to stay in Nevada, rather return to the home he established in Florida so that their homestead laws would prevent the Goldmans and Browns from seizing it to chip away at their $33M civil judgement against him.
He could make a good bit of change in Las Vegas, but one wonders if he'll bother, if every penny goes to the Goldmans and Browns.
Recent Comments
“Oh swell, Brian Snead hanging around campus with time on his hands...”
...said every female student at the school.
Someone edited all of Obioha's dunks out of his basketball highlight video.
Russian hackers, probably. Like we're supposed to believe that a seven footer can't dunk...right.
I wonder if he’ll pull up on would-be slashes and take more midrange twos in this game. If the Badgers plan to sit back and play for flops when it looks like he’s driving, and their defense offers the two, he’s probably the best hope of making those right now.
With a lot of high-profile freshmen, I’d worry about them pressing, in an attempt to emphatically erase that earlier game goose egg. I worry less about that here.
They could even print it on the screen that they raise behind the goal posts for kicks:
"Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl Amateur Athlete Indemnification Policy Underwritten by Allstate Insurance, the Good Hands People"
You'd need to raise the goal posts to about 200 feet high to fit all that between them, but that seems doable...
Also, In a…
Great point.
Also, In a game that doesn't matter much, seeing next year's potential heir apparent to the position vacated by the sitting starter is a treat too. It builds (hopefully) some anticipation for next year. At the same time, it's a motivator for kids to come to a place where they won't start immediately. Languishing behind a star all season, waiting impatiently for your chance to shine? Well here you go, brother. Go get 'em!
<grunts,…
Speak for yourself
<grunts, drags knuckles...>
Whoops, I typed my response as Bring The Wood was typing his. Apologies for the duplication.
The discussion didn't touch on the possibility of an NCAA-sponsored insurance program. For players contemplating entering the NFL draft, couldn't a panel assign them some sort of likely draft spot (like basketball players can get) and then use that to determine an amount for a catastrophic injury policy? It's far from simple and clean, but it seems a lot easier to implement than some of the other payment mechanisms, utilizes established (insurance, actuarial tables, etc) mechanisms, and might motivate, I dunno, half of the planned bowl-skippers to go ahead and play in the game?
All in all though, some people think that there's way too much fuss being made of this. As soon as the dust settled after The Game (or, at the end of the first quarter, when it was clear that no pass rush would be forthcoming), whatever bowl game Michigan would be playing in ceased to matter much to a lot of people. As you said, a spectacle that we might go to, or watch, to support our alma mater, but ultimately, yawn... And when it was announced that it would be Florida again...oof!
Haha! Clever. I see what you did there....spelling incompetent incorrectly to keep the thread going. Well done, Sir.
In the last ten years Alabama has had 65 of it's players get drafted, 14 of whom were defensive backs, and Michigan 38 (6 DBs). Since we already heard that Hill has a high GPA, we can also dispense with the ignorant assertion that he doesn't want to work at academics. It's so tiring to hear people who are so far removed from being 17 or 18 years old, haven't lived the life of a 5-star recruit, and don't really have any idea what's going on in said recruit's head, proclaim that they know why he made a choice. Maybe he decided it was too cold. Maybe he liked that Alabama was a bit closer to home. Maybe his friends shamed him (good-naturedly or not) after the Ohio State loss (that matters a lot more to most kids his age than it does to us). The kid could play at any school he wanted. And until someone knocks them off, Alabama is at the top of the heap. Is it so hard to imagine him changing his mind and wanting to go to the winningest program, and get the media exposure that comes with that?
I think you're right about people underestimating the firestorm. It's easy to say, "well, their fan base won't care, and recruits that want free reign won't care, so how bad will it be? What does Ohio State care if the talking heads on the Today Show lambaste them?"
There's logic in that. But if you look at the Baylor example, where much of the citizenry is basically Ohioans in stetsons and ropers, and in which Baylor is a much lower profile private institution that has a lot more leeway to do whatever the heck it wants, they STILL managed to get the savior coach (Art Briles) fired, and <sort of> clean house when the scandal there unfolded. It was a slower burn, still smoldering in fact, but I think the Buckeye apologists for Urban Meyer are going to be surprised at the level of external pressure.
The “Rangers training squad”? With apologies, you sound kind of like my Mom talking about baseball. She might be surprised as well.
67% Crystal balls for Michigan right now, SkyPanther (25% Ohio St, 8% Northwestern).
https://247sports.com/PlayerInstitution/Trevor-Keegan-at-Crystal-Lake-South-165453/CurrentExpertPredictions
And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you sound baked at all.
You hate an entire state? What does that entail? The trees and lakes and stuff? All the people in it? The tomatoes that people grow alongside their garage there?
No one there is going anywhere willingly, until they get their giant payouts, like the $15M that Art Briles got from Baylor, or the $5.6M that Ken Starr got. The whole thing is eerily similar, with some donors (see Drayton McLane, for whom the stadium is named) and “fans” continuing to support the program, selling their very souls for a few wins (that they somehow choose to take credit for as supporters of the program) and local police looking the other way,
At the height of the scandal, Baylor regents vote unanimously to reject a call for a third party to review the university's handling of the sexual assault scandal. The call was made by a group of the school's major donors.
The litany of accusations at Baylor, over the span of 2012-2016, is absolutely staggering, and yet, on they play.
Do you think it’s winning games, at this point, or limiting liability? Both, I guess.
Yeah, well put. He’s like the unpopular interim CEO/CFO that a VC or PE firm puts into a struggling business to lead austerity or other restructuring efforts. He or she is not there for the long haul, doesn’t need to please people, and has a thick skin. He’s executing an agenda and taking the heat for it, and probably has no expectations of a long-term role. I think his soul mission is to limit liability, by delay, obfuscation, or any other mechanism at his disposal...not to “do the right thing.”
That lack of response IS depressing...I was wondering about that. We were touring the University of Tennessee last week, and talked to students about the Greg Schiano protests (because of his alleged behavior in witnessing, but not reporting, Jerry Sandusky abusing a boy in the showers). They were joined by state politicians and others too, and I got the sense that they were sick of the football program’s reputation staining their image. I know that Knoxville isn’t the epicenter of progressive thinking or morality, but there was a palpable sense of outrage and determination among the students I talked to, something that may not be as prevalent in East Lansing.
Hah! Yeah, that’s what I would have thought also, before visiting, which we did on the advice of a college matching service that we’re working with. These honors colleges are a growing trend among public universities hoping to contend with private universities for students on the higher end of the achievement scale, and worth thinking about when exploring options. They’ve built a lovely, dedicated facility there, the students we talked to were sharp, eager, and polite, and the faculty we met were passionate. Admittedly, they’ve got a lot to overcome with the University’s reputation, but the reputation of their honors college is beginning to spread, like it is for others. Still, it didn’t impress me as much as Georgia or Clemson, which we’ve visited in subsequent days.
Johnson’s brother Cole was a key special teams player for Northwestern who earned Practice Player of the Week honors six times for the Wildcats from 2013-16, before earning a degree in communication studies and enrolling in dental school. He may have done more of the transfer recruiting than Fitzgerald did.
I was at Ole Miss the last two days touring the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College with my kiddo, and asked about ten people what they thought of Shea Patterson transferring to Michigan. A couple said “good riddance” and proceeded to regale me with tails about Patterson’s purported immaturity and arrogant BMOC behavior, but most didn’t express any ill will, saying that he deserved a chance to play somewhere else given the situation. What surprised me a bit was how complimentary most folks were about Harbaugh, and his prospects for developing Patterson.
undoubtedly crashing more often in the process, you'd have probably said something about crazy women drivers not belonging on the track.
I think that it DID have some positive impact when Hand and Harris listed Michigan. I never claimed that his Twitter post had anything more than SOME impact, but people who are a long way from being a 17 year old football player are naive if they cling to the belief that it has no impact at all on other prospects. These kids consciousness revolves around social media a lot more than it does for most of the poeple posting in this forum.
A lot of people get way too carried away with recruiting news, and you see many giddy posts when someone puts a Michigan logo in their "considering" Twitter post. So, if that's going to fly, then it's only fair for the hand-wringing nay-sayers (I'm neither of these, I watch with detached interest until they show up in a jersey) to be similarly concerned when someone in state does NOT list Michigan.
I know that kids choose their school for a lot of different reasons. And I know that some recruits are lost causes from the get go. I also know that I'm asinine sometimes. But I'm not wrong that social media endorsements or cold shoulders matter to other recruits, to one degre or another.
When fellow recruits see that he's from the state, and doesn't have the in-state team in his top 8, they might think, "Whoa! He's FROM there, and not considering Michigan. What's up with that?" Sure, we've heard that his coach is anti-Michigan, and recruiters are going to do the REAL work one-on-one, but this social media stuff matters to recruits, and it seems clear that an in-state, 5-star (which matters more in recruiting that it does in game play, as the Kalis comments indicate) who rejects Michigan has a potential impact on other recruits.
...universities across the nation. As I help my second child through the college selection process, I'm encountering similar sentiments all over the place. If the tax payers and the officials that they elect have reduced the subsidies to provide financial aid to lower income students, is it up to the university - feeling pressured themselves, economically - to make up all of the difference? That would result in cutbacks on facilities spending, and with research and salary cuts, would eventually lower the quality of the education. If the university looks at two options: 1. Abandoning their legacy of academic leadership or 2. Catering to more out-of-state students to make up the funding gap, it's pretty easy to see why they would choose #2. Does anyone particularly LIKE that? Probably not, but the people of the state of Michigan share in this decision with their funding decisions.
dogged the guy. They just said that he might be a bit of a project, and that the recruitment scenario was unusual.
An article in the Kansas City Star (http://www.kansascity.com/sports/high-school/article190451359.html) confirms his preference to play football, his disappointment at getting no offers from anywhere, and settling for a basketball scholarship at Missouri State:
"Two weeks ago, Park Hill senior Ronnie Bell paraded around a gymnasium with a three-foot tall trophy, one reserved for the top high school football player in Kansas City. But the college football offers had oddly remained silent, so Bell had instead secured a Division I basketball scholarship."
"“I just kinda hoped and prayed that somebody would take a chance on me,” Bell said. “I knew if anybody reached out, I was going to let them know that football is what I wanted to do.”
The initial plan was always football, Bell said. He loved the game his father once played collegiately, and there was a certain appeal to following an identical path.
But as his senior season progressed, and as the touchdowns reached record-breaking numbers, the offers never came. So Bell, a wide receiver who won the Thomas A. Simone Award, took the opportunity he had on the basketball court, signing to play at Missouri State."
But then things get a little shady-sounding:
"Last week, he reverted to his initial instinct and reopened his recruitment. Missouri State officially released him from his letter of intent Friday.
Michigan came calling. Even if no one else did.
'It’s such a blessing,” Bell said. “When I signed for basketball, that’s what was best for my family, so I stuck with it. But once my dad said to go do what I want, I knew that was football.'”
No offers, he signs his LOI, but then abruptly changes his mind, gets a release, and reopens his recruiting for football - where there had been no interest, mind you - and suddenly gets an offer? Sounds like he knew that the offer would be forthcoming if he got his release.
...and he already had 1000 yards receiving and had been named his conference's Offensive Player of the Year, so he was doing noticeable stuff as a football player before he signed that letter. It's just weird that no college football teams recruited him before he signed that LOI on the 8th.
I get it...teams purportedly didn't recruit him for football because he committed to play basketball somewhere. But, that somewhere was Missouri State? I mean, #80 in KenPom? They've had exactly two dudes play as many as 20 games in the NBA in their history, and one of those was drafted in 1970 (Curtis Perry). And it's hardly an academic powerhouse (with apologies to any of its esteemed graduates reading this), sporting just a 53% six year graduation rate, and accepting 86% of applicants. It's just weird that there wouldn't be more schools trying to sway him to football if he really had that much potential. It feels like a desperate grab to make news by having some players sign on December 20th, so we don't get left out of the first early signing day.
...wouldn't a guy like that make a first rate college Athletic Director? There are lots of possible positive outcome here, son...they don't all revolve around getting drafted.
http://www.si.com/nfl/2017/02/14/oj-simpson-parole-jail-sentence-robbery
The upshot: he's been a model prisoner, and the breakdown of 11 parole criteria detailed in the article makes it seem very likely that he'll be paroled on October 1st. It also makes it sound as if he'll have to stay in Nevada, rather return to the home he established in Florida so that their homestead laws would prevent the Goldmans and Browns from seizing it to chip away at their $33M civil judgement against him.
He could make a good bit of change in Las Vegas, but one wonders if he'll bother, if every penny goes to the Goldmans and Browns.