Sam Webb on Swenson Decommitment
I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet. Sam said this morning that Swenson was told during the season that he needed to pick up his play. While Sam thinks (and I agree) that the timing could have been better, this wasn't a blindside type of decision. I wonder how much of this timing issue had to do with Partridge coaching linebackers and bowl prep/dead period stuff. I think Swenson will land on his feet somewhere in the B1G West. Whether or not he is successful, only time will tell.
January 21st, 2016 at 3:46 PM ^
But I played football with Kain when we were younger, and HS football at Fairview with former Nebraska WR Kenny Bell, who was good friends with Kain. Everyone knew that Kain was entitled, and he knew it too. He would always run to Daddy when something didn't go his way, and this went on into high school.
He played HS ball at Boulder until his dad (the head coach) was fired for being verbally abusive to his players. His family tried to spin it as something else to make the school look bad (can't remember what exactly) and Kain transfered to Cherry Creek. When a bad situation arrose, the family always tried to spin it as though they were not to blame, ever.
The point, I see a lot of parallels with this situation and Swenson's. Obviously, Swenson didn't have the injury, but there is always two sides of the story, and coaches can't comment on recruits publicly. I firmly believe the Coulter family tried to spin this situation as well, and I'm pretty sure that's what Swenson is doing now. I saw a comment above about "entitled football player" and Kain's situation reminded me, too, of this. Obviously we won't know the full story, but I feel pretty confident that this is what happened with Kain after being pretty close to the situation, and Swenson's is of the same mold.
P.S. I was rejected from Stanford even though I had a 4.8. GPA isn't the only thing Stanford looks at. But I was going to choose Michigan regardless, so whatever.
EDIT: Link to Spencer Coulter's firing - http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_13139567 It looks to me like the Coulters tried blaming race and how the "standards of conduct" of coaches was unclear. The school district wanted him to attend Anger Management classes, so assume the conduct was not what he was doing...
January 21st, 2016 at 1:26 PM ^
can directly comment. That's an inherent problem with all of this. We cannot verify what anyone is saying.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:31 PM ^
Both stories seem extreme--decent chance that the truth is somewhere in the middle.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:46 PM ^
What was extreme about the Rivals story? Was it extreme because it didn't comport with the perceived wisdom that Harbaugh is evil?
January 21st, 2016 at 1:13 PM ^
I thought it extreme because it pretty much stated that Swenson was completely aware he sucked and avoided the coaching staff and then lied about it to everyone.
It would be hard to paint Swenson in a more negative light, given the known circumstances.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:21 PM ^
If those are the facts, they aren't extreme, they just are. What is extreme is the way you colored what was said by using inflammatory language such as "sucked" and "lied."
January 21st, 2016 at 1:25 PM ^
Why are you calling them the "facts"?
January 21st, 2016 at 1:27 PM ^
when they have much reason to be less than truthful as UM's staff?
January 21st, 2016 at 1:42 PM ^
Because similar info has come from multiple recruits with no reason to lie, and I find it hard to believe that Swenson was told all of this and decided "I'll just wait until my recruitment is completely fucked and then make a big stink."
Plus the story about Swenson says things about him that the author can't possibly know. How does the author know why Swenson didn't work out for the coaches over the summer?
I'm willing to believe that the coaching staff dropped subtle hints that he should start looking around (although it seems that they more often just don't contact the recruit), and that Swenson naively waited and hoped that everything would just work out.
I find the story that Swenson was aware that he wasn't good enough so he avoided working out for the coaches, and then was told in the fall that he didn't have actually have a spot to be less believable than Swenson's.
I also find it fairly unbecoming that not only is the kid without a spot two weeks before signing day, but that someone is leaking out stories about him that make him look like shit.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:57 PM ^
You literally know nothing about Swenson or any of the recruits outside of what they tell you.
The Swenson camp as well as the other recruits camps have said things about Harbaugh and you just blindly accept it. But when someone returns the salvo suddenly your undies twist.
I mean, really.
Your inability to apply the same standards fairly and consistently undermine your posts. All of your posts are assumptions based on a preception created by the words of one side.
January 21st, 2016 at 2:07 PM ^
Its not all the words of one side.
I'm comparing the words of both sides with the known circumstances and past relevant evidence.
If Swenson had said nothing about it, and someone said:
"Oh well Swenson refused to camp for the coaches because he knew he had slacked off and wasn't any good, and the coaches told him he no longer had a spot back in the fall but he did nothing about it until two weeks before signing day"
I would be very incredulous of that story.
For the record, I'm incredulous that Swenson knew nothing about his scholarship being in jeopardy, because it wasn't a well kept secret.
But after so many recruits have come out and said that they didn't have much contact with teh staff and then decommitted, I find it easy to believe that the staff kinda left an overly naive and loyal kid in a difficult spot. I mean, Sam Webb and John U Bacon have kinda confirmed that the staff didn't actually say "You don't have a spot" until it was way too late.
The only question left for me is: Was the staff negligent with good intentions (made a mistake letting the kid down easy), or negligent with bad intentions (not being explicit with the kid until they knew they didn't have the spots).
January 21st, 2016 at 2:15 PM ^
recruits Harbaugh recruited between Stanford and Michigan.
January 21st, 2016 at 2:28 PM ^
"Because similar info has come from multiple recruits with no reason to lie"You've said this twice now and the only evidence you have provided is Colter and Swenson. You've also name dropped a few recruits who have either not said a single thing to the media or public about anything since their decommitment, or have directly refuted the agenda that you are trying to push.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:22 PM ^
Someone close to the Michigan program is saying Swenson is a lazy liar who avoided the coaches? You don't say...
January 21st, 2016 at 12:25 PM ^
The truth is we'll probably never know for certain what happened.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:36 PM ^
But we have huge pieces of evidence that support Swenson's side of things over this explanation:
1) There is a pretty well established history of Harbaugh and staff simply cutting off communication with recruits, rather than explicitly telling them what is going on. Kain Coulter at Stanford. Weaver, Enis, and Scott so far at Michigan. Matt Falcon's parents didn't know anything about his son's status until they call Harbaugh a few months after his surgery. If the staff was this open about where Swenson stood and what he need to do, it wouldn't mesh with their history.
2) The timing of this doesn't work at all. They were getting red flags because he didn't come up and work out over the summer, but it takes 6 months for them to notify him? Sam Webb makes it sound like the decision was made recently and that was wrong. If this is true, the decision was made months ago, and they have talked to him several times without being truthful about it to Swenson.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:46 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 12:51 PM ^
I did read it again.
This article states that the coaching staff made the decision in the fall because Swenson was lazy, told Swenson, and that Swenson handled that information by fucking himself over.
That does not jive with what Sam Webb said or what we have heard from other recruits.
That the coaching staff informed Swenson that he didn't have an offer and would have to walk on very recently seems pretty established at this point.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:13 PM ^
Yet you keep posting like you do. The only thing established here is that no one outside of Swenson's camps and the coaching staff knows what happened. As both have cause to obfuscate we can only shake our heads and move on.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:58 PM ^
as a person. We also do not have the full story of those other cases. We only have the side of the recruits. You are accepting at face value the words of recruits without any rebuttal from the staff.That's a seriously flawed argument.
Secondly, the timing is not an issue. They told him(according to Webb) repeatedly to come up to work out and train so they could see them. As the season grew closer the staff quite believably had less and less time to devote to Eric Swenson. They may have ntended to let him go earlier but forgot or were willing to wait or they could have done what you suggest. We don't know.
There is so much to the story that we outsiders do not know. Assuming anything about this story really depends on individual bias than anything factual.
January 21st, 2016 at 7:54 PM ^
Which side gets paid millions of dollars to be professionals about all of this, and which side consists of a single 17-year-old? It's not like this is a he said/she said without any obligation on either side to communicate clearly; it is professionals not commu8nicating clearly with an amateur, by all signs.
This isn't a good look for Michigan. The staff may have simply fucked up, or it may be that Swenson is lying for some reason, but, absent info to the contrary, it is logical to assume that the staff fucked up. What does Swenson have to gain by lying?
Qui bono?
January 21st, 2016 at 8:22 PM ^
But in this case I'm not the ass. You're assuming the Michigan staff did not communicate correctly and you're assuming the ADULT parents of Erik Swenson didn't also choose not to hear what was being said.
Yes, I've called you out for the strawman argument. This was never about adults against a naive 17 year old waif, this was about adults speaking to other adults about the 17 year old waif. Or do you have some inside knowledge that Harbaugh and company don't talk to other adults, specifically the adult parents of 17 and 18 year old student athletes?
January 21st, 2016 at 8:48 PM ^
There was an article on this on the front page of this blog last summer; maybe you should give it a read. It might give you an idea where people are coming from.
http://mgoblog.com/content/considerable-attrition-stanfords-2010-recrui…
Finally, Spencer said, "They just stopped calling. It was a bad situation. I wanted them to man up and talk to Kain.
"The thing that took the longest was finding out if Stanford was in or out," McNamara told Badger Nation Monday. "They never came out and said I was out of the picture but at the same time, there was no communication. I would say probably November was when I re-opened the recruiting process."
I'll stop there, but there were others. If that's how Stanford treated recruits that got hurt (Kain Colter had a torn labrum, Joe McNamara tore an ACL), can you see why some of us aren't in a hurry to give Michigan the benefit of the doubt now?
January 21st, 2016 at 12:57 PM ^
How can you say Enis fits this supposed pattern? There are multiple articles saying his offer wasn't pulled, and a Freep article says Jedd Fisch met with Enis at his school yesterday.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:18 PM ^
Kiante Enis in November:
"I haven't had real solid contact with Michigan. Once a month maybe. I mean I'm still pretty solid though. I don't plan on decommitting at all really, I just haven't had much contact with them."
Now he has decommited while only having visited Indiana and an upcoming visit to Miami (NTM).
January 21st, 2016 at 1:27 PM ^
Like I said, all of those guys had very limited contact with the coaches and ultimately got the message that they should commit elsewhere. The difference between them and Swenson is that Swenson wouldn't budge until the coaches told him explicitly.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:34 PM ^
My exact words:
There is a pretty well established history of Harbaugh and staff simply cutting off communication with recruits, rather than explicitly telling them what is going on.
I never said anything about pulling his offer.
Do you think they would have honored Enis' commitment if he hadn't decommitted?
January 21st, 2016 at 2:05 PM ^
You seem to believe everything the recruits are saying, so this is from the MLive article I linked above:
Enis, though, explained via text message that he still had an offer and a spot in the class if he wanted it. He decommitted because he chose to look elsewhere.
"My offer was not pulled and I had a spot in the class," Enis wrote. "It was just (my) decision."
January 21st, 2016 at 2:10 PM ^
I don't know if Enis really believed that or not, but I don't think the coaching staff would have honored his commitment. They weren't scheduling his official either.
January 21st, 2016 at 2:27 PM ^
It's probably wise to take any public statement like this with a grain of salt—same is true of all the ones put out by Swenson and those in his camp.
January 21st, 2016 at 3:01 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 2:30 PM ^
Weaver, Enis, and Scott so far at Michigan.Three times now. Three times without linking a single piece of evidence. 5 minutes on Google and not a single quote backing you up.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:22 PM ^
The only one that has said Swenson is a lazy liar is....you.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:29 PM ^
You are right. No one said "lazy". They said "complacent with his work ethic".
And they didn't say he is lying, they are just saying that everything he has said about his communication with the coaches is untrue.
January 21st, 2016 at 2:22 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 12:23 PM ^
then I'm completely fine with it. If he knew his offer was pulled back in the fall that's more than enough time for him to make alternative arrangements.
I retract my previous statements critical of the coaching staff.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:37 PM ^
the best thing to do is take it like a man.
I'm sticking with "hmmm...". It seems to fit best. Harbaugh is doing what he should. Kids are earning their scholarships.
I bet there is never an early OL offer on the scale of uncertainty to match Swenson in the Harbaugh era.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:23 PM ^
If true, that makes me feel a ton better about how this was handled
January 21st, 2016 at 12:23 PM ^
Now let's get ready for a commitment tonight from Long! Go Blue!
January 21st, 2016 at 12:24 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 12:38 PM ^
That sounds like the entitlement stuff we heard was an issue in the Hoke era. If he thought that, that was a bad move on him and his father's part. Sounds like his camp should've shown some initiative instead of blowing off the coaching staff.
January 21st, 2016 at 2:12 PM ^
Entitlement during Hoke era was about diminished competition and effort due to complacency.
Here, we're are talking about a commitment to a kid where we give you our word that you have a spot to come here at our expense and compete for playing time. If you want to see if the kid develops, or want to evaluate, then don't offer him as a sophomore or freshman or resend out a confirmation in Fall 2015.
I think the problem here is that Hoke told them one thing, and Harbaugh comes in with new rules.
Clearly, commitment these days means something different. Clearly, there are conditions with our offers now, and I suspect/hope Harbaugh is up front from the beginning--that we may change our minds and pull the scholarship for any reason.
We should all be frank and realize these "commitments" are more like engagements and less like marriages. NSD is like wedding day.
January 21st, 2016 at 3:55 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 12:26 PM ^
know what, there was something really kind of passive-aggresive about his tweet about a month ago where said "one month until I sign." There just seemed to be something under the surface that did not cohere about that particularly tweet (kind of like that is not what a person that was actually going to sign would tweet - make sense?). I thought when I read it a couple of days ago that it seemed odd and it now looks like part of kind of a PR campaign by Swenson that now includes MLive, Freep, etc. I could be wrong but that makes sense in terms of that Rivals news.
January 21st, 2016 at 1:17 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 2:19 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 12:28 PM ^
They're not really all that inconsistent--the only part I'm having trouble with is this: if they told him in the fall that he no longer had a committable offer from UM, why did they also send him confirmation of his offer?
Could it be that the written confirmation also changed the terms of the offer? If that was done clearly, I'm a lot better with all of this. I like it when stuff is done in writing.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:52 PM ^
The written offer, if not a photoshop, is dated August 1, 2016.