Chad Lindsay To OSU
A much-needed boost to Michigan's offensive line is apparently headed to the worst possible place:
Alabama transfer Chad Lindsay is expected to sign with Ohio State, per source. Buckeyes get new center for Braxton Miller
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerCBS) April 22, 2014
Well played, Urban.
Running around in a circle is a little over the top, but only a little. That Lindsay rejected his former OC and an almost certain starting spot is alarming, and now Michigan enters next year with zero senior scholarship OL.
This sucks, because we didn't get a recruit we really wanted that probably would have helped us immediately.
But Ohio had a starting spot to offer as well, is coming off of a much better season, and is a program in much better shape than ours, currently.
Linsay is strictly interested in football right now, and it's hard to argue we have a better program than Ohio. I don't think this is "alarming" in terms of recruiting, just representative of what happens when you go 15-11 over two years.
Hoke and staff has demonstrated they can recruit; now they must prove they can win.
w admission standards?
always our fall back position?
In this case, it's plausible. In order to grad transfer your new school has to have a program your current school does not. You also have to be granted admission to sed program.
Michigan doesn't exactly have bullshit grad programs in basketweaving. Rackham is also not the easiest thing to get into.
but there are other good schools out there. And I suspect you overstate both the athlete transfer and grad admissions process. No bullshit.
Also, we wouldn't have been recruiting him or would have stopped recruiting him if we didn't think we could get him in.
Listen, I think the most likely reason is he flat out picked OSU. Why wouldn't he? They've lost 2 games in 2 years and have a potential juggernaught of an offense coming this year. We've lost 11 games in 2 years and don't know how to run forward. No Bullshit.
That being said, the academics argument is plausable. No Bullshit.
Nothing was overstated, those are the rules, plain and simple. You have to have never transfered before, have one year of eligibility left, have finished your undergrad degree, and be seeking a graduate degree in a field that your current school does not offer. No Bullshit.
As for gaining admission to Michigan grad school, they don't make the same exceptions that the undergrad programs do to get athletes in. Nor should they. No Bullshit.
And it's not like we've never recruited players before who ended up not getting passed the academic/institutional road blocks. No Bullshit.
April 23rd, 2014 at 10:01 AM ^
Your admissions argument would only hold water if the guy had been turned down at Michigan, and so went to OSU. In fact, he didn't even apply at Michigan. The argument that he didn't even apply because he was afraid of rejection doesn't fly.
If he wanted to come to Michigan but was not sure he could get in, there was nothing stopping him from applying and finding out. There's no particular rush here; if he couldn't get accepted at Michigan, there was plenty of time to apply at OSU.
No bullshit.
bullshit.
/s - just wanted to say Bullshit on the Internetz.
If admissions is the problem, then Dave Brandon really needs to start working with the educational aspect of the university. There are plenty of interdisciplinary graduate degrees they could invent just for the sake of a particular faculty member's own personal interest that fits the necessary requirements for his transfer request, could they not? At Michigan, we should have no issue educating a student, no matter where he is from. That's the point of the university, is it not? I'd like to know if I'm wrong here.
on you!
Yes, it is, and I'm fucking sick of it. Michigan needs to loosen its academic standards, at least for athletes. I'm sick of losing the chance for good players just because he has worse grades than someone else.
for football players as OSU. it's true.
April 23rd, 2014 at 10:04 AM ^
Then if grades are the issue with Chad, why will he play for them and not Michigan?
Michigan lost out on getting a career backup center, whatever shall we do?
OSU returns one starter, Michigan returns five players with starting experience plus has five more that could bounce somebody in front of them. Michigan has two centers, Graham and Kugler, that could vie for starting time plus Jack Miller for end of game clean up duty. Additionally those five, from the challenges of last year, have likely formed their own type of chemistry and bonding and would be loath to accept a mercenary into their ranks.
Contrary to the majority meme running through this blog in general, and this topic specifically, I like this group of kids and I think the concern coaches will ultimately have is not who will start on the OL, but who won't.
Lindsay might have seen the same thing and decided that there were fewer obstacles to playing time at OSU.
April 22nd, 2014 at 10:12 PM ^
April 22nd, 2014 at 10:24 PM ^
A distinction without a difference.
You are the sum of your actions.
They may BE good someday, but so far - they are what they've put on the field.
April 23rd, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^
Welp, guess the guys we have better step it up.
Yepppp... thats where the program is at these days. Thought the days of darkness left and went to Arizona. Guess not.
Looks like we are going to have to ride this roller coaster out.....
Anyone who thought the decline of Michigan Football was all on Rich Rod deserves what they are getting right now.
It's the Michigan Men. Don't let anyone tell you different.
It's not all on RichRod, but the crappy 2010 and 2011 recruiting classes are not helping matters. We should not be in a position where we're hoping for a grad student transfer to bail out the OL.
It's certainly not all on Rich Rod. But that situation played a biga part in all of this, some his fault and some not. He did not recruit well, and he did not retain recruits well, that we know, and that has led to less success.
He didn't recruit well because his job situation was on notice immediately after the Freep story, if not earlier. Hoke hasn't been recruiting well since last August. Reason being that it's starting to become very apparent that he isn't a good coach.
RichRod's biggest problem wasn't recruiting, it was player retention. His classes looked OK in February, but a lot of them didn't make it to campus or left soon thereafter. His 2010 class of 27 was down to 9 guys by last fall.
That type of attrition is not unusual following a coaching change. Especially when the new staff has a different style or play than the previous staff. The real problem is that it happened when RichRod arrived too, so it is the second roster purging in a 5-6 year span. Stuff like that leaves a program in permanent rebuilding mode.
I know it is all doom and gloom around here, but it's not like he's going to OSU to be a back-up. OSU should be a good team next year, and have space.
supposed to make us feel any better?
Not supposed to make anyone feel better; everyone here is a UM football fan. You should be used to a moderate amount of disappointment. Just pointing out that he's going to a situation that makes 100% sense for him. He's not picking OSU despite them having some incumbent in front of him.
Taylor Lewan stayed an extra year and fell in the draft. Draft may not be on this guy's mind, but anyone shopping around for a place will look at something like that.
This will pass. We were looking for a short-term fix for a medium-term problem and it didn't work out. My litmus test for '14 isn't how good the line plays out of the gate but how well they progress over the season. This makes it rougher but it doesn't change what everyone has to do.
is that he knew he wouldn't be able to crack that starting interior lineup of Kalis, Glasgow, and Bosch. Too intimidating for him, for sure.
Just win games.
know man. I just don't know.
I keep searching for my passionate Michigan football fandom but I am starting to get the feeling that I misplaced it somewhere during the middle of the 3rd quarter against State last year. The hits just keep on coming and I am becomming surprisingly and alarmingly numb to all of it.
April 23rd, 2014 at 10:14 AM ^
...It was around the 2nd quarter of that game where I realized I was little brother for real.
I'm not sure why this was downvoted, but you raise a valid point. Many fans point to the rigorous academic standards at UofM as a selling point that a good education can be had here. This comes with the fact that some aren't admitted. I'm thinking that grad school admittance is a bit more difficult than undergrad admittance.
to get admitted into Michigan, Hoke wouldn't have recruited him to begin with.
Michigan's academic standards aren't that rigorous. They're the same as any team in the country. If they're rigorous, most of the players on the team wouldn't be playing for Michigan.
First of all- grad school transfers and Juco's are not even close to the same thing. I can't imagine that UM could not find a grad program that would admit Lindsey. This was a simple recruiting battle that Michigan just plain lost to Ohio. Lets not pretend it is anything more than that.
April 23rd, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^
"This was a simple recruiting battle that Michigan just plain lost to Ohio."
What do the Bobcats have to do with any of this?
April 23rd, 2014 at 10:18 AM ^
People like to project our undergrad admission requirements (vast difference between us and OHIO) onto the athletic department's (not so much). Our sense of superiority is really based on the outlying academic reputation, not what we do with our "student-athletes."
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