Unverified Voracity Checks Injury Status
Injury status. You've probably heard about Charbonnet Panic 2019 by now, which had its origins in a Facebook post by a family member of a player, got Yodered by an OSU guy, and then ran around the world several times before meeting some pushback. Let's address that and Michigan's other walking wounded:
- QB Shea Patterson: says he's 100%: "I did get banged up in the first game, and it did kind of wear on me a little bit, but I’m ready to go. … I think it affected all aspects of (my play). An oblique is no fun, but I’m ready to go." Patterson said he was 100% after the Army game, when he was apparently not 100%, so… yeah.
- RB Zach Charbonnet: zillions of conflicting reports, some of which don't even make sense internally. Jon Jansen was pretty strident about the fact that Charbonnet has not had surgery and was walking around normally; Jansen said "fully expect[s]" Charbonnet to start Saturday. Other reports have been more circumspect. It seems certain that Charbonnet did miss practice earlier this week. That probably started up the rumor mill and now we're in the eight iteration of telephone.
- RB Tru Wilson: "We'll see if he's back this week, or soon," per Harbaugh on his radio show three days ago. Did not practice the previous week, paving the way for Christian Turner to solidify the #2 job. Turner seems fine after taking a hard hit late in the Army game.
- WR Donovan Peoples-Jones: ominous radio silence aside from a "not sure" from Harbaugh. His injury was reported very, very late in fall camp as a high ankle sprain, which is the kind of thing that can linger forever. No insider rumblings, which is in contrast to a lot of the other guys on this list. Signs point towards no.
- LT Jon Runyan Jr.: "Ready to go" per Warinner.
- DT Donovan Jeter: Played a few snaps against Army and was put in front of the media this week so should be full go.
- DT Mike Dwumfour: Was reputed to be ready to go two weeks ago against Army; did not play. Apparently the only issue remaining is with his arm(?) and could have been left out of the Army gameplan for tactical reasons. Like DPJ, no encouraging insider noises may mean he's still out.
- S Quinten Johnson. Johnson posted a picture in which he was about to undergo surgery. A redshirt, already likely, is now assured.
If Dwumfour is out I don't see how Michigan doesn't spend a significant chunk of the game in a 3-3-5. Michigan doesn't trust their freshmen, I can't imagine Ben Mason is going to be able to cope against the Badgers, and Kemp/Jeter are unlikely to play every snap.
[After THE JUMP: Spartan Stadium's beleaguered grass.]
Uh. Well. Warinner says that with Runyan's return Ryan Hayes is set to rotate at right tackle:
"There's nothing that would keep me from playing Ryan Hayes," Michigan offensive line coach Ed Warinner said Tuesday. "We haven't made all those decisions yet. Sometimes you see how it's going. But I think you'll probably see them both play."
Warinner made a habit of this at previous stops. I'd be more comfortable with this if we were talking about Andrew Stueber, who is clearly Wisconsin-mashing size. Hayes I'm a little dubious about after his last outing.
A long read. Ben Mathis-Lilley on American Football:
The first University of Michigan bumper sticker I saw while driving through Ohio to Ann Arbor to watch Michigan play Wisconsin last fall was affixed to a Subaru Outback. The Outback is a go-to vehicle for financially comfortable but socially conscious liberals, which was appropriate; it was being driven by a bearded sixty-something man, which was also appropriate.
I was going north on I-75 from Hamilton, Ohio, the town outside Cincinnati where my in-laws live. Hamilton was chosen as the subject of a 1982 non-fiction book called Hometown in part for its all-American demographic representativeness; at the time, it was a factory town, with facilities for manufacturing paper, tools, and safes. Now it’s disproportionately white relative to the rest of the country, though it has a growing Latino population, and the factories are closed; the big employer downtown is a call center run by a customer service contractor called StarTek. It’s still football country, and the afternoon before I left I had by coincidence ended up at a game between two high-school freshman teams (my wife’s niece was a cheerleader) from area Catholic schools.
Worth your time.
No apology forthcoming. Arizona State did a thing with a fork!
MOOD @StevenMiller71 pic.twitter.com/jigvohwJYo
— Sun Devil Football (@ASUFootball) September 15, 2019
If Michigan had done this there either would have been a tearful apology from Brady Hoke or a months-long inquest about the damage done and the old lady terrified by it when Michigan laughed at the idea of saying sorry. It is in this way you can tell whether poking some grass is a real transgression or not.
Blackwell's deposition. Explosive allegations are contained within it:
Blackwell said in his deposition that multiple assistant coaches asked Dantonio not to offer Robertson a spot on the roster because he had a history of troubling behavior. Blackwell said he witnessed defensive line coach Ron Burton tell Dantonio that he didn't want Robertson to be on the same campus as his daughter.
"So for Ron Burton to say it was that bad that he didn't want his daughter around him, I knew he had some real serious sexual issues," Blackwell said in his deposition. …
Blackwell said that he, Burton and fellow assistant Dave Warner all suggested the team steer clear of Robertson in a meeting with Dantonio.
"I want to say [Warner] spoke with the principal and the coach ... and they had nothing good to say about him," Blackwell said. "[Warner] couldn't really find anybody that could say anything good about Auston."
Robertson went on to commit a sexual assault on campus and is currently in prison. Dantonio told the media Robertson had gone through an extensive vetting process, which was a lie:
No one from Michigan State requested information about Robertson's criminal history in Fort Wayne through formal records requests during the school's vetting process, according to the city's records department. Officials in Fort Wayne were not able to determine if anyone at Michigan State had attempted to contact local law enforcement officers via email or phone to discuss Robertson.
Allen County (Indiana) Prosecutor Karen Richards said no one from Michigan State contacted her or her office for records or discussion about Robertson during the time that Michigan State was vetting him. Richards' office prosecuted Robertson for the misdemeanor battery charge that prompted a delay of the scholarship offer.
That Dantonio still has a job is testament to MSU's broken culture.
What could possibly be wrong with the same pants? Jim Harbaugh has some kid running around presenting him with khakis:
Jim Harbaugh officially has a khakis guy pic.twitter.com/yEXOx5JUTD
— Gump Cathcart (@bubbagumpino) September 19, 2019
How can those khakis meet with disapproval? They're the same! They're all the same!
Gus! Harry Lyles Jr came up to AA two weeks ago for a piece on Gus Johnson. Johnson grew up in Detroit, of course, and has a connection with Michigan as a result:
After his Little League baseball games, his mom would serve up soup and sandwiches while he and his dad watched Bo Schembechler and the Wolverines. “Daddy and I would watch,” he says, “And Mama would always root for the other team for some reason. She just knew how to get on our nerves, and we’d be mad at her, like, ‘Why are you talking good stuff about them!’”
Johnson met Schembechler once at an airport. Schembechler was carrying his own bags, a fact Johnson seemed impressed by. He walked up to the legendary coach and introduced himself.
Schembechler told Johnson he was proud of him, before correcting himself and saying “we” are proud. “That was the only time I met him,” Johnson says, unsuccessfully fighting back tears. “That’s all I needed.”
It's nice that Michigan has a connect with both Keith Jackson and his successor, as much as anyone can succeed Keith Jackson.
I don't know how anyone watches the NFL, an ongoing series. Tulane pulled out a fake kneel last night:
Tulane with the fake kneel! pic.twitter.com/2RvatLW25O
— BettorIQ (@BettorIQ) September 20, 2019
They followed this up with a ludicrous touchdown where the safety came in and airballed on a guy. Chaos is good.
Etc.: Random USHL name for 2020 recruiting: WMU decommit Mark Estapa. ND also in the running. Ambry Thomas details his recovery. Mel Pearson wants some rule changes that small schools will shoot down because they suck. MSU LT Kevin Jarvis out "at least" six weeks, which takes him to the PSU game. Bo's first game.
September 20th, 2019 at 10:59 AM ^
Hey Mork...
September 20th, 2019 at 11:40 AM ^
There’s a clue to the answer to this question in Blackwell’s complaint. The part where he describes the way Dantonio handled this guy once they had him on campus. Basically he just met with him weekly — so we can see that Dantonio is used to having tremendous power over these guys — he seems to have thought that he could control this guy just by meeting with him individually, that he could use his power over his NFL future to manipulate him into not being a rapist or something like that. It’s an arrogant and foolish point of view, as anyone who works with deeply troubled people could have told him. But no, he’s God almighty at MSU. He doesn’t see that all his power and virtue comes from his position, not from some inherent natural ability.
September 20th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
Among the many frightening things about this is how much non-Sparty people buy into it. I can't find the link at the moment, but in one of those anonymous coaches' polls, Mork received multiple votes for who they'd want to coach their son. It really boggles the mind.
September 20th, 2019 at 2:04 PM ^
Yeah well, so did Bobby Knight before that cultural touchstone aged out....
(shrugging gif here)
September 20th, 2019 at 12:20 PM ^
The counterpoint to that, of course, is that he is a molder of men and forgiver or sins and, goshdarnit, he's going to do his damndest to make sure this kid has a second chance at life and stays on the straight and narrow.
Also, he's a good football player. But he can change!
(no, he can't)
September 20th, 2019 at 3:35 PM ^
People can change. Not quickly, but they can change. Auston Robertson may change one day but my money would be on the idea that he is more likely to change after a few years in prison than he would have at MSU.
September 21st, 2019 at 7:38 AM ^
Not defending him at all, and yes we need to isolate him from the public because he is dangerous, but prison in America does an exceedingly bad job of reforming people for the better.
September 20th, 2019 at 12:35 PM ^
MSU is trying now to spin this like they did their due diligence and they were caught off guard but I remember that recruitment very well as I'm sure many other people around Michigan do too. That dude had red flags on his red flags. Nobody was recruiting him anymore and his only landing spot was MSU. It stood out like a sore thumb that MSU got a top 100 player that no one else wanted to touch. Mork knew exactly what kind of person Robertson was and decided the risk was worth the potential reward. That's on him no matter how much he and his slappies try to spin it
September 20th, 2019 at 2:13 PM ^
Yeah, that was a class where I think two MSU recruits had major legal issues at the time (they had a defensive end who couldn't sign his loi because he was in jail). But everyone knew Robertson has been arrested already and a lot of programs had cooled on him. Every article pointed it out as well. For then to feign ignorance is pretty brazen.
September 20th, 2019 at 1:46 PM ^
The fact that your h.s. coach and your h.s. principal can't muster up one good thing to say about a kid afforded a chance to go to a Power 5 program astounds in and of itself. Add to it easily discoverable sexual assault allegations? And the fact that while you're not a super-elite program, it's not like you have to troll the bargain bins to find serviceable players for your program.
Dantonio is a POS on the order of ... . Tom Izzo. That whole win at all costs culture in EL was and seemingly remains trash.
September 20th, 2019 at 11:07 AM ^
Warinner made a habit of this at previous stops. I'd be more comfortable with this if we were talking about Andrew Stueber, who is clearly Wisconsin-mashing size. Hayes I'm a little dubious about after his last outing.
I don't know anything, but if Seth's FFFF is accurate, they're basically playing OLBs as rush ends with DEs as tackles. That feels like it leans toward agility and less toward bulk.
September 20th, 2019 at 11:10 AM ^
Perhaps the khakis had pleats?
September 20th, 2019 at 11:23 AM ^
A few months ago my wife and I were cleaning out a bunch of old stuff from our storage room and I came across some dress clothes from my college years (mid/late aughts). I was horrified to discover that some of the pants were pleated. Why -- why didn't someone tell me?!
September 20th, 2019 at 11:27 AM ^
Pleats were the thing back then, man. All anybody at the time would have told you is "nice pants brah."
September 20th, 2019 at 2:08 PM ^
The late aughts is like 10 years ago!
Pleats haven't been "the thing" since Dwayne Wayne was on a college campus!
September 20th, 2019 at 11:57 AM ^
Wait - so the pleated pants I wore yesterday are no longer "in fashion?"
September 20th, 2019 at 12:22 PM ^
There is a chance they have actually been outlawed. I would check out your local ordinances.
September 20th, 2019 at 12:51 PM ^
I suppose cuffs are out as well?
September 20th, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
Uh oh.....I'm wearing pleated khaki's with cuffs right now
September 20th, 2019 at 2:11 PM ^
I think you're
a) lying - and -
b) counting the days until your NFL team decides to move to another city
September 20th, 2019 at 1:21 PM ^
No, cuffs are fine. Pleats have been out for a long damn time, though.
September 20th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
I've got some pants from the late 80s/early 90s that are pleated and have cuffs. I even have some suit pants that have buttons in the waist for "braces". Oh boy, that was a hot trend in the mid to late 80s.
The wife and I noticed that high waisted pants are coming back for the ladies. That was a solid 1980s thing, so you may want to hang on to those old pants. They'll be back is style in the next 10 years.
September 20th, 2019 at 3:34 PM ^
Can confirm. Was recently in Spain and the PYTs like to wear the high-waisted Mom jeans, prefereably Levi's, cut off short. Really short. Like, mercifully, joyfully, ecstatically short. Not that I was really paying attention.
September 20th, 2019 at 1:09 PM ^
great.....just friggin' great..... now i'm going to have to replace all my pants, which is going to put a crimp in my bourbon budget....
Nevermind, i've been wearing pleated dress pants all this time and it didn't matter yesterday, it won't matter tomorrow either.
BTAC '19 will be released next month!
September 20th, 2019 at 1:24 PM ^
Whooo hoooooo!!!! Free BTAC! Never shoulda locked him up to begin with!
September 20th, 2019 at 11:13 AM ^
No DPJ, Dwumfour and maybe Charbonnet would be a huge kick in the dick.
September 20th, 2019 at 11:32 AM ^
Better than a kick in the balls, honestly.
September 20th, 2019 at 2:13 PM ^
Less rhymey tho...
September 20th, 2019 at 11:33 AM ^
I would feel like this matters more if Wisconsin weren't missing their starting safety and nose tackle with two other injured starters who missed the previous game. Injuries happen, we aren't any worse off on the injury front than Wisconsin and still have more talent across the board. If we lose this game its because the Wisconsin coaching staff is better, its really that simple.
September 20th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
If we lose this game its because the Wisconsin coaching staff is better, its really that simple.
It's never that simple, really.
September 20th, 2019 at 12:58 PM ^
Correct
September 20th, 2019 at 12:37 PM ^
Football is a game of small sample sizes. Random luck and chance can often reign supreme.
September 20th, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
It’s only that simple for people who already have their minds made up and are looking for any data to support their exhaustively repetitive hot takes that bring no value to this board.
Win=talent differential. Loss = bad coaching. Perfect straw-man to support the “our coach sucks” argument.
September 20th, 2019 at 1:12 PM ^
What exactly do you think the role of coaching is? I think Harbaugh is a solid coach but he has a more talented and experienced team. You should win those games and if Wisconsin is beating us its because they developed their players better and had a better gameplan.
September 20th, 2019 at 3:12 PM ^
I seem to remember ak47 being around here for a long time without being a troll. Did something happen? Is he Brady Hoke?
September 20th, 2019 at 1:20 PM ^
I don't think it comes down to better coaching; where the injuries hit can have a bigger effect. Chryst could call the game of his life but if his backup safety borks a tackle and they lose, it's not like he could have done any better.
I agree every team deals with injuries. Michigan will have to deal with that like everyone else.
September 20th, 2019 at 1:55 PM ^
Did we win twice against Wisconsin under Harbaugh also because Wisconsin's coaching staff is better?
September 20th, 2019 at 2:19 PM ^
I mean yes. Chryst being a turtle that for some reason doesn't use Taylor in third and short situations despite averaging over 4 yards a carry mattered a lot last year.
September 20th, 2019 at 3:40 PM ^
... which would imply that Wisconsin's staff is in fact not better, right?
September 21st, 2019 at 7:45 AM ^
They have the best college football player in the country. I think we'll win but it won't be easy.
September 21st, 2019 at 7:45 AM ^
They have the best college football player in the country. I think we'll win but it won't be easy.
September 20th, 2019 at 11:19 AM ^
deep thoughts by Jack Handy-
i wonder if Harbaugh retires his khakis by converting them to Khorts to do yard work like I do with jorts?
September 20th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
That's a picture I can't get out of my head. I can see coach running around fall camp in a pair of khorts frustrated and confused as to why everyone is giggling uncontrollably.
September 20th, 2019 at 2:21 PM ^
drinking whole milk and eatin' steak in my khorts with enthusiasm
September 20th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
Frito?
September 20th, 2019 at 11:20 AM ^
The thing about oblique injuries is that they take a long time to heal even when the injury feels pretty mild. If Shea's oblique was bad enough to affect his play two weeks ago, there's no way it has fully healed by now. A minor oblique strain (the type that would heal in two weeks) is not going to have a significant effect on your play.
September 20th, 2019 at 12:52 PM ^
or if he is feeling ok today, sure seems like the kind of thing that could be reaggravated by a hit or a quick movement or something like that
September 20th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
Just rub some 'tussin on it.
September 20th, 2019 at 1:55 PM ^
Okay, then it's Milton starting at QB
September 21st, 2019 at 7:47 AM ^
But he played -- so he must have been close to 100% two weeks ago, no?
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