Demar Dorsey Dramatics: Depressing Comment Count

Brian

OR: O LET NOT DO IT

bear-shotgun demar-dorsey-ua-game

OR: LET'S ALL BLAME THE SHOTGUN-WIELDING BEAR FOR KILLING OUR SECONDARY.

This story is still rapidly developing, but in a nutshell this is it:

"Demar is an NCAA qualifier with a 2.5 or 2.6 GPA and an 18 score on the ACT," said [Boyd Anderson head coach Mark] James. "But he hasn't yet been granted at Michigan."

In one swoop, ESPN's Corey Long clarifies the bizarre split between optimism and pessimism on the "controversial" recruit who could just save the Michigan secondary. The optimism was about his ability to qualify. The pessimism was about whether it would matter. Sam Webb's assertions on the radio that it would be interesting to see where Dorsey ends up if it's not Michigan suggested that the problem was something other than a test score, but James's coach would like to take the thunder out of that:

"Right now I think the plan would be to re-open his recruitment and see what's out there," James said. "If he can't find something he likes he'll probably go to a juco for a year and try it again."

James says the coaches "continue to work on it," and Dorsey gets to twist in the wind longer. At least he's used to it by now.

There are two ways to be qualified. One is to be qualified. The other is to be Michael Oher or Derrick Rose, in which case you are "qualified" via a string of correspondence classes and/or a sketchy test score. Michigan takes qualified guys, but when scare quotes get involved Michigan tends to go the other way. Ask new Bearcat Adrian Witty. Is Dorsey qualified or "qualified"? We don't know until he enrolls somewhere, whether it's Michigan or Florida State or a JUCO. Available evidence suggests the latter, in which case it's better if Michigan doesn't enroll him. But still…

This situation is the Draper/Labadie/compliance dysfunction all over again, with miscommunication between Rodriguez—who went to bat for Dorsey with a provost before signing day and got a signoff on him—and admissions replacing the lack of communication between the football administration and compliance. It's a different sclerotic artery, but the root cause is the same.

Unfortunately—wait. No. Fortunately, in this case we don't have a meticulously documented report to the NCAA featuring 18 months worth of emails between the main parties, so it's hard to tell who's at fault. The proverbial reliable sources have reported that Rodriguez is recruiting with an eye towards NCAA minimums that most programs claim to be above until push comes to shove, while admissions is looking at a larger-than-usual number of players near the borderline and having a little freakout. We've finally gotten some clarification on exactly how Michigan hamstrings itself in recruiting: they'll take kids who scrape by the NCAA minimums (hello Marques Slocum) but only so many.

So here we are, with a kid who said he'd come to Michigan having held up his end of the bargain only to get stiffarmed by some bureaucrats hell-bent on being a hooker who won't do that. If there was a time to shoot Dorsey down it was before he signed a letter of intent, kicked off a media firestorm, and got everyone all excited about having someone in the secondary approximately as fast as Denard Robinson. Saying "we didn't mean it" and kicking the guy to Florida State or a JUCO or somewhere else validates the firestorm, makes other high-caliber guys worried that they will be cast aside when admissions turns him down, and, most importantly, is totally unfair to Dorsey.

Admissions should feel free to say "not again, except maybe a few kids," but after someone in the university greenlighted an offer you can't take it back because you made a mistake. If Dorsey is qualified sans scare quotes and doesn't end up at Michigan, everyone gets hurt for no benefit whatsoever. If he's legal in an extremely technical sense only, well… I'd prefer it if Michigan avoided another investigation, but I would like it even better if people in Michigan's athletic department had a clue what other people were doing.

Comments

Erik_in_Dayton

June 8th, 2010 at 1:38 PM ^

Is Dorsey qualified or "qualified"? We don't know until he enrolls somewhere, whether it's Michigan or Florida State or a JUCO. Available evidence suggests the latter, in which case it's better if Michigan doesn't enroll him.

What is the evidence that it's the latter?  Just that Michigan hasn't admitted him yet? 

Jebus

June 8th, 2010 at 1:41 PM ^

Can we please stop shooting ourselves in the dick? 

Either he was academically of the offer, in which case, please take the helmet and start killing people, or he wasn't, in which case, don't make the offer.

Let him in, and then if you want to toughen the standards, ok, but don't hang the kid out to dry.

mcfors

June 8th, 2010 at 3:06 PM ^

Right, I would think they would announce it if it were.  If Rich Rod knew he had no chance of getting him in, I think he would do whatever he could to help DD find another school (unless that school is in Columbus).  He seemed supportive of Witty when this was happening to him.

His Dudeness

June 8th, 2010 at 1:45 PM ^

Complete guess on the situation that may not even be true:

Dorsey, who has never been a good student, says he will get the grades needed to get into Michigan. He then pulls a miraculous 4.0 in every class for the final full year of his high school career. He has made the grades. Michigan academic office looks at the grades and says "no way in hell did he get those grades" and says no.

Dorsey goes to FSU.

4 years down the road there is no investigation into the Shady McShade grades of one Demar Dorsey... thus saving the university yet another awesome media storm.

That is my weird, crazy and quite possibly dead wrong theory.

kruser

June 8th, 2010 at 1:46 PM ^

Brian:



Thanks for the post. Totatlly agree!

This will seriously hurt us with recruting elite level kids. High school coaches don't forget these types of stories. We already have enough problems with recruiting, we don't need admissions stabbing the program in the back.

speakeasy

June 8th, 2010 at 2:15 PM ^

 At the danger of sounding like random arrogant guy from Michigan, admissions serves a purpose. I am not advocating the entire football team be National Merit Scholars or have a 4.0 and a charity they founded that saves kittens, but there is a line somewhere, and it is not carte blanche admission to all NCAA qualifiers.

 

Edit: Demar Dorsey may be the exception or several a year that are enrolled with questionable academics, but I do not believe that admissions denying enrollment to someone that has cleared the NCAA necessarily qualifies as backstabbing the football team.

Hail-Storm

June 8th, 2010 at 1:51 PM ^

Demar Dorsey get in, prove all the haters wrong, and become the next in line in the long lineage of great CB's.

Also, I'm new to posting (been reading for a while, but just made my profile) and I don't know how to make a new post. Anyway, I love the Blog as it has kept me sane during these dark times (note:dark times = off-season only) and I need a starter pic for my icon.  Anyone want to help a newbie with a cool pic to start out with and a tutorial on how to create a post. Thanks. (by the way, sorry to Brian and the other posters for getting off topic)

MGoDC

June 8th, 2010 at 2:07 PM ^

To create a thread first you need 20 points, then go to the upper left hand corner under Navigation and click create content then the new menu has diary or forum topic. Occasionally you will need something like 500 points to create a new topic after particularly bad losses like 2009 Illinois to cut down on forum spammers.

In terms of a picture.... take my approach and roll with no picture. All the cool kids (meaning me, myself, and I) are doing it.

Or just choose a random hot girl and reap the benefits of many undeserved +1s from the many MGoUpVoteAnythingHot users on here.

Hail-Storm

June 8th, 2010 at 4:41 PM ^

I had a Bo quote to start, but noticed another poster had the same (which seemed like a major breach in etiquitte) so I put in a quote I liked that fit Michigan.  I'll work on getting either a Michigan Man quote, or something that is Michigan. Maybe I should change it to "O let do it!" cause from my perspective, DD is a Michigan Man until official word tells me otherwise.

MGrad

June 8th, 2010 at 1:53 PM ^

I wish that somebody at Michigan that does know the facts, or timetable for a decision will just go on the record and provide a "this is the way it's going to be" (I don't even need a "and here's why") and stop this ridiculous speculation that the defeaning silence from those in the know has generated. 

Demar, the only one truly affected, deserves much better treatment than this.

SportiVoreDan

June 8th, 2010 at 1:55 PM ^

Honestly, for UF to dump him (and they did) and Michigan to pursue and now any other D1 school to pursue with the amount of baggage he's accumulated over the past year or so, is pretty remarkable. It's obvious that he's going to be a real difference maker.

Secondly, I've never had the chance to speak to Dorsey, but I've spoken with guys who played with him at the Under Armour All-American Game and he seems like a riot. Adrian Hubbard (album commit) said he was constantly cutting up. Told one story in particular about the ESPN staff taking Dorsey's pads to "mic him up" for the game. Dorsey got back to his locker and the pads were gone. So he started going crazy, stole a lineman's pads and ran around the lockerroom screaming about how that guy wouldn't get his pads back until they gave him back his own. A few minutes later the ESPN people showed up with his pads and microphone. He's quite the clown, apparently...

MGoPHILLY

June 9th, 2010 at 12:16 AM ^

they just found out about those issues two weeks before signing day?  It took the FREEP all of 10 mins to dig up this kids entire life.  Plus, Urban has never been one to shy away from an at-risk student-athlete (doesn't he have something like 30 player arrests over the past 3 years?).

Robbie Moore

June 8th, 2010 at 1:57 PM ^

that David Brandon provides a needed kick in the ass to the athletic department bureaucracy.  It is plainly apparent that a corps of fat, dumb and happy administrators has flourished in a self satisfied department.  It truly is an unpleasant legacy of the Bill Martin regime and it needs to end. Ritual firings must proceed.  It will be cleansing and it will focus the remaining staff members on what is truly important.

MGoDC

June 8th, 2010 at 2:17 PM ^

Technically you're correct, but this is a lot like the separation of Church and State in US Politics. It's technically separate, but there's a lot of behind-the-scenes finagling that none of the common public sees.

MCalibur

June 8th, 2010 at 2:29 PM ^

No, but the President does. Coleman, Brandon, and whoever the Honcho of Admissions is need to get in a room and hash out a workable standard for athletic admissions so that extremely limited resources aren't wasted on landing a kid that is going to get turned down.

It's one thing to see yakety-sax execution on the football field, those are amateur athletes trying to figure things out, but seeing it in the administration of the University is so much worse. These are professional people at a preeminent institution of higher learning. This is very much a preventable fiasco...they all have been. WTF.

tjyoung

June 8th, 2010 at 3:32 PM ^

Have struck gold. 

...so that extremely limited resources aren't wasted on landing a kid that is going to get turned down.

Going with the hypothetical, if RR and Co. had known that admissions wasn't going to take this kid, then they might have pursued other secondary prospects with those two remaining weeks before signing day (read: Rashad Knight, Sean Parker).

Suavdaddy

June 8th, 2010 at 4:12 PM ^

but this is a straw man argument.  It is based on a completely incorrect assumption.  The kid was cleared in January by admissions and then admissions changed their mind.  Two weeks ago.  So completely inappropriate argument.