U of M thread (in the Lions Forum) :)

[nhwbrooklyn]

And more money makes ND more likely too.

[chemiclord]

At this point, I think the Big Ten has finally said "we don't need you, South Bend."

They aren't going to want to expand to 15 teams and create the exact same problem they already have with imbalanced scheduling. I dare say that ship has sailed for good.

[nhwbrooklyn]

There are plenty of schools out there that would do anything to make it 16 and let them divide into two 8 team sub conferences.

Yeah they never needed ND, but they would take ND in a heart beat. That door will never close. It's free prestige and money for everyone.

[chemiclord]

If Notre Dame makes any conference commitments in the near future, it's going to be with the Big East, where they already have allegiances in every sport save football.

I really think people need to put away their dreams of a Big 10 with Notre Dame. I simply don't see it happening anytime soon, if at all.

[nhwbrooklyn]

If Notre Dame makes any conference commitments in the near future, it's going to be with the Big East, where they already have allegiances in every sport save football.

I really think people need to put away their dreams of a Big 10 with Notre Dame. I simply don't see it happening anytime soon, if at all.

ND football doesn't belong playing big east teams.

They have been playing big ten teams for like a 100 years or something. That's what makes sense.

[chemiclord]

I think you're living in a fantasy world here, my friend.

ND has made no overtures and has expressly denied any interest in joining the Big Ten, especially considering the sweetheart deal they already have all to themselves.

[Deuce]

Is Kansas like a shit academic school? They would be a huge addition to the BB side of things.

[nhwbrooklyn]

I'm not saying it will happen. I'm saying it could happen.

Tell me.. weeks ago before rumors of big ten expansion happened would you have thought Texas would be more likely to join the Big Ten than ND?

It could happen.

[nhwbrooklyn]

Is Kansas like a shit academic school? They would be a huge addition to the BB side of things.

Only in the East do the make choices based on the basketball teams

It's all about the pig skin.

[Newbomb Turk]

Ace from the Wolverine Blog has some gory details up about Demar Dorsey's transcripts and how they turned into his current GPA. I won't get into the exact numbers if only because I have the strong sense that doing that is a one of the few things you can actually do on a sports blog that could actually get you sued, but suffice it to say the reparations job done by LifeSkills is beyond the realm of the plausible.
I can confirm from a couple independent sources the broad outline of what Ace describes: Dorsey's application remains incomplete. As of the beginning of his senior year his path to qualification was so grim that making it automatically raises red flags about the validity of the new grades. Not that anyone was caught cheating, just that the alternative curriculum must necessarily have been less than rigorous, and the amount of improvement raises eyebrows when it's accomplished in a potentially unsupervised environment outside of a traditional high school. The facts in the post are, to my knowledge, accurate.
The decision not to admit him had nothing to do with tinfoil hat theories and everything to do with the fact that he shouldn't have been offered in the first place. In the parlance of an earlier post…

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.

…Dorsey is "qualified." Michigan basically can't take him in good faith because they can't expect he will be able to keep up with the work.
Admissions is not the problem here. They are just doing what they have always been doing, except now they're dealing with some kids that previous Michigan coaches would not have tried to recruit. I did imply that in the UV and maybe by not fully rewriting a couple of sentences in the alliterative Dorsey post, which originally took a much more OUTRAGED position before I edited it, and that was incorrect. The problem here lies in more Michigan-Rodriguez culture clash stuff that would be a minor annoyance if the team had, you know, won any games.
Provost note. Ace spends a section of his post debunking the idea that Rodriguez got a sign-off on offering Dorsey from the "provost" mentioned. I think there's been a miscommunication due to an awkward sentence. The original paragraph:

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.

This has been taken to imply that Rodriguez had gotten some sort of sign off from admissions; unfortunately I was trying to express the opposite. When Rodriguez was clearing Dorsey with part of the university—something that did indeed happen, though it might not have been a "provost"—it was about his checkered past and not his checkered transcript. It was the failure of both parties not to explore the kid's academic background sufficiently, or of Rodriguez not to understand that Michigan is not West Virginia in these matters*, that left Dorsey and Michigan in the position they are today, where Michigan looks stupid coming and going and Dorsey's left to find a new home in the middle of June. That is essentially identical to the CARA form fiasco.
Everything in that post remains accurate except for the aforementioned shot at admissions, which basically had no choice when it came to their decision. Michigan should not have offered Dorsey, what happened to him was unfair, and it's another symptom of an athletic department that needs to operationalize some processes stat.
But who do we blame? As per usual, many people can take the hit. Rodriguez is one. Without knowledge of what he's been told is kosher and what he's been told is not—and how strenuously—how much is a guy working from assumptions built up after ten years at Clemson and WVU and how much is pure stubbornness from a guy who should know better isn't clear. If there is someone on the staff who is supposed to be in contact with admissions and know which guys are borderline and which are no way—and I honestly don't know if there is one—then it falls on that person. If there isn't then there should be, and I expect that there will be.
Even if it is all Rodriguez's fault, I don't think this is a major issue if Dorsey isn't a critically needed recruit who created a media circus. He's just another Quinton Woods, albeit one that Michigan should have known better than to take.
*(No moral superiority implied.)

[CGVT]

I think Texas goes to the PAC 10

[SeattleLionsFan]

NSFMF! KCTV out of Kansas City says Texas and Texas A&M are going to the Big Ten, with Oklahoma to the SEC.

http://www.kctv5.com/sports/23860558/detail.html

[Dan V]

Big ten

Conference one / Conference Two


Ohio St / Texas

Michigan / Nebraska

Mich st / Texas A&M

Notre Dame / Purdue

Northwestern / Indiana

Iowa / Penn. St

Illinois / Wisconsin

Minnesota / Pittsburgh

Makes a lot of sense!

Rivalries--Purdue-Indiana, OSU- Mich, Mich--Mich St., Texas --T. A&m, Pitt- Penn St.

Notredame--Anyone


Two conferences winner plays in chqampionship game in a revolving site (preferably over 100,000 seating capacity.

[chemiclord]

I'm not saying it will happen. I'm saying it could happen.

Tell me.. weeks ago before rumors of big ten expansion happened would you have thought Texas would be more likely to join the Big Ten than ND?

It could happen.

I would have, yes.

Texas had talked about joining the Big 10 once before. The desire has been there.

Notre Dame has shown no such desire at any point.

It could happen. A Brinks truck could drive up into my driveway and empty a load of gold coins there.

But I doubt either is going to happen anytime soon.

[chemiclord]

NSFMF! KCTV out of Kansas City says Texas and Texas A&M are going to the Big Ten, with Oklahoma to the SEC.

http://www.kctv5.com/sports/23860558/detail.html

Man, if only I had posted that link a page or two before...