Fred Jackson on McGuffie

Submitted by Jay on

Scroll down to about midway through the article. I get the impression that Jackson wasn't exactly thrilled with McGuffie's decision to sit this game out. There are rumors now that he won't be traveling with the team to Columbus next week as well. Make of it what you will.

http://michigan.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=877096

jmblue

November 15th, 2008 at 9:27 PM ^

It would suck if he transferred, but I wouldn't view it as catastrophic. All of our other backs and receivers will return (barring unexpected offseason attrition).

jmblue

November 15th, 2008 at 10:09 PM ^

A player has to get medical clearance to play. I don't think there's any rule about players having to agree to play before they're put in the game, but I imagine that it's risky (from a team chemistry standpoint) for a coach to force a player to play if the player doesn't think he's healthy enough.

Chrisgocomment

November 15th, 2008 at 9:39 PM ^

McGuffie's white, no loss. LOL....ha ha....just kidding.

I really hope he doesn't transfer..that sucks. Hopefully this is just Jay be negative like always. boo-ya.

Hey Jay, I heard Lloyd, Rodriguez, Beilein and Red Berenson died in a fiery car crash tonight. Anybody hear about this?

downst

November 15th, 2008 at 9:43 PM ^

I guess I'm just imagining the world of getting the needle and going back in. It seems to me it would be worse for team chemistry to practice all week and then pull yourself out the morning of the game.

willywill9

November 16th, 2008 at 7:58 AM ^

Since we're not talking about baseball (bad joke), I'm assuming he's talking about when players go back to the locker room a la Chad Henne, get a shot to reduce/minimize pain, maybe rub a little dirt on it, and continue to play through an injury. Apparently, they don't always work:

"Until I read a recent Free Press article, I did not realize the seriousness and extent of his shoulder injury this year, that taking a snap under center would sometimes dislocate it, that a shot in the joint intended to be curative, touched a nerve in a rare scenario, and numbed the hand causing an untimely interception. That explains his struggle in the loss at Wisconsin."

http://umgoblue.com/absolutenm/templates/default.aspx?a=479&template=pr…

jmblue

November 15th, 2008 at 10:10 PM ^

Well, that's not good either. But that just makes the one player look bad, not the coach. If you're the coach and you start forcing guys to suit up against their will, that could alienate a lot of your other players.

downst

November 15th, 2008 at 10:00 PM ^

Well. There have certainly been a few rumors about homesickness and now this. I think RR's game works with just about any of the backs we have here. Maybe it would be better for all parties if McGuffie ended up closer to home next year.

TorontoBlue

November 15th, 2008 at 11:03 PM ^

dude practices all week and then can't go on game day? and ur position coach calls u out like jackson did in this quote? not about asking a player to take a needle for the team, he's gone. . . .

TorontoBlue

November 15th, 2008 at 11:33 PM ^

(see my pic for how i feel about him as a woverine). keeps his mouth shut and does not draw attention to himself, just wants to contribute. prototype M football player. hope he stays.

mth822

November 16th, 2008 at 12:28 AM ^

When McGuffie was recruited, he was all blue! From his myspace page to whatever he said in the media. When he picked his team on the air in Houston it was MI. When Carr left, he wavered to CAL, the Jackson brought him in. The question you have to ask yourself as a player is what form of blue are you loyal to. Maybe he sees this is not a good fit for him. But if he goes it's bad juju for MI. And I am talking from an offseason PR position. Im sure if he goes, Mr. McGuffie wont say it is over Family values though. And I wouldnt be surprised if he winds up back at CAL, Texas or Texas Tech(depending on Leach).

WolverineinDallas

November 16th, 2008 at 1:42 AM ^

I am sorry, but you guys are blowing this particular quote from Fred Jackson way out of proportion. I read all of your comments before I read the actual article, and I was getting kinda worried. Then I decided to read Fred Jackson's quote for myself and saw absolutely nothing that would advise such skeptical reactions and paranoia.

For a true freshman, McGuffie has been given allot of playing time this year and is in a system that perfectly suits his skills and abilities. Why would he consider transferring? It seems like a great situation for him. I could be wrong, but I just do not have any reason to believe that Sam is going to be playing for a different team next year, and this article definitely does not suggest anything of that nature.

Sommy

November 16th, 2008 at 3:15 AM ^

I've also heard he's very likely considering transferring, probably to Cal.

Can't really do much but say, "Oh well, he doesn't deserve Michigan," and pretend like this isn't going to be a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge loss.

chitownblue (not verified)

November 16th, 2008 at 9:16 AM ^

Guys? He could just be, you know, hurt.
If he stays, I hope the people proactively talking about his "lack of toughness" or other such shit get ball-smacked.

wolverine1987

November 16th, 2008 at 12:08 PM ^

I'm not stating that he is gutless, and I have no idea what type of person he is, he may be outstanding in every way. But when you have a coach in a quote questioning your will, and excuse me but that quote from Jackson is not really open to interpretation, the point is that there is something up that raises a question.

chitownblue (not verified)

November 16th, 2008 at 12:12 PM ^

You actually, in so many words, questioned his toughness:

"the clear implication from Jackson is that McGuffie wussed out--that is worrisome enough on its own".

And clearly, the quote is open to interpretation, as we interpret it differently.

wolverine1987

November 16th, 2008 at 12:23 PM ^

... a philosophical point made in the context of our team. I suppose we could debate whether all interpretations are purely subjective in this world or is there an objective truth that can be grasped by those with the wit to perceive--but let's save that.

I'm concerned because Jackson questioned it--not me. I actually admired his toughness early this year in catching that one ball over the middle and getting cracked, then coming back. But when your coach questions your will, that has implications for perception and thus playing time, for someone that could be one of our best players in future.

Rush N Attack

November 16th, 2008 at 11:49 AM ^

This was what the article said:

"Those were the disappointing parts. Others were downright frustrating to the coaches, including freshman running back Sam McGuffie's game time decision to pull himself from the lineup.

"Sam came [to me] right before the game and decided he was too banged up to go," said running backs coach Fred Jackson. "He's got some injuries. He's a freshman and he has to be able to fight through them and go. I thought he was ready to go. He practiced every day. I was shocked."

So the author was asserting that the coaches were frustrated with his decision not to play. I don't have a problem with the kid not playing. But if the coaches can be frustrated and shocked, I don't find it too unreasonable for fans to react negatively to this news.

arod

November 17th, 2008 at 12:36 AM ^

Clearly "frustrated" is open to interpretation. It could be that Jackson was frustrated with joy. Or maybe the author was misinterpreting Jackson because he couldn't see Jackson's facial expresses due to blinding sun-light and couldn't hear Jackson's tone because the author was half deaf. Or maybe Jackson has Asperger's Syndrome and so his tone and facial expressions don't match up with his intended meaning in the usual manner. Or maybe when Jackson said, "he HAS to be able to fight through them," he didn't mean to imply that McGuffie SHOULD have fought through them. He just meant McGuffie has to have the ability to fight through (but he SHOULDN'T use this ability).

As we haven't ruled out any of these contingencies, we clearly should not give the quotation a negative interpretation. Whenever I read a quotation, I simply refuse to interpret it unless there is one interpretation that holds in all contexts. Of course this means that most quotations I read are entirely meaningless or very uninformative, but hey, I'm not jumping to CRAZY conclusions like you.

arod

November 17th, 2008 at 2:04 PM ^

parse the shit out of that comment, then how could anyone claim that Jackson's comment was not a negative one? I agree that we shouldn't parse the shit out of a comment like Jackson's, because there really is not anything to parse. He was upset with McGuffie. How upset he was, or whether he was justified in being upset are totally different issue are all open for debate, but what cannot be debated, without some sort of ridiculous interpretative analysis, is that Jackson was upset with McGuffie. Based on the article there is no wiggle room on that point.

Continuing to belittle: Its funny to see someone criticize someone who interprets a comment negatively, when the comment is, under any every-day reading, clearly negative and then see that same poster lauded later in the thread for his "common sense." That's pretty good. I just don't see how anyone could think that this comment by Jackson is not negative on any interpretation that is driven by "common sense." But that's just me. Maybe I should wait until I know more about the situation. Perhaps I should call the writer of the article to make sure he heard Jackson correctly and to make sure that "frustrated" was not merely a typo for "over-joyed".

chitownblue (not verified)

November 17th, 2008 at 2:11 PM ^

What I was saying, a-rod, was that I wasn't going to reach a conclusion about McGuffie's relative toughness based solely on Jackson's quote. I wasn't going to assume that he pussied out of playing, or whatever, due to that.

It turns out that patience was the correct thing - we've now learned that McGuffie's grandmother had died that morning, so perhaps the various comments castigating his toughness were premature, and perhaps we shouldn't have damned him based on the single quote. No?

arod

November 17th, 2008 at 3:53 PM ^

Jackson was not justified in criticizing McGuffie. But as I mentioned before, that's distinct from whether Jackson criticized him at all. I don't think that someone who understood Jackson as calling into to question McGuffie's toughness is being unreasonable. Someone who concluded from this understanding, "OMG, McGuffie is fucking pussy," is being unreasonable. I've never questioned his toughness let alone dammed him. Others may have, and wrongly so. But it is still silly criticize someone for pointing out that Fred Jackson was upset with McGuffie. Look, I'm not saying we should make a big deal about this, but it did happen and it is reasonable to discuss what implications it might have (perhaps it will have none).

I think that many people are so concerned about keeping away the "OMG, FIRE RR" idiots that they dismiss anything critical as unreasonable jumping to conclusions. This is good to a point, but too much of it leaves us in useless state of suspended judgment (here I have in mind the poster, whose name I forgot but we might as well call him David Hume, who wrote a post about causation the upshot of which was: we cannot isolate all the variables in determining if the coaching was bad, so we cannot make the judgment that the coaching was bad. This guy is being a dumbass. We nearly never have all the variables isolated in real life, or even in experimental settings, yet we draw causal inferences all the time. These inferences are not certain, but they certainly are useful. Anyway, I'm rambling in a parenthetical now.)