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

[Whitley]

Yaklich a good candidate to take over at least this year.

[Masspartan]

Best of luck to Coach Belein ... he was a rival coach that I respected and could root for.

[jaadam4]

Coach Belein was a great coach and seemed to be a better man. I was completely shocked to hear this news especially since he had a decent contract extension last season but I get it. At his age this will be his last shot at the pros and I'm sure recruiting is stressful.

I wish him the best.

[chemiclord]

Mr. Gores, think on this really, really hard.

Beilein looked at Cleveland, looked at your franchise, and picked Cleveland.

Now ask yourself why he would do that.

[jaadam4]

Mr. Gores, think on this really, really hard.

Beilein looked at Cleveland, looked at your franchise, and picked Cleveland.

Now ask yourself why he would do that.

Ha!

[Nick Pappageorgio]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was just an aging coach who decided that the current (and changing) recruiting process was just too much hassle.

If you've been following the college basketball scandal/trials......you can plainly see that basketball recruiting is a shady shady business. If you listen to what Christian Dawkins had to say at his trial....and he came off as a convincing witness.......College BB coaches have to break the rules. Actually, the rules are already broken into pieces before the recruiting even really starts.

You have to pay players.....the top HS players all have agents already....they already have mechanisms in place so they can get paid.

Only now.....it's not just the NCAA who's trying to catch you, the FBI is setting up wire taps and, apparently, trying to entrap coaches. Once you get the FBI and politicians/prosecutors looking for headlines on your back.....it's time to get out.

[jaadam4]

Agreed. The recruiting landscape and playing field for an honest coach is terrible. I have no idea how Beilein was so successful in that environment.

[Masspartan]

Izzo manages it pretty well.

[jaadam4]

Izzo manages it pretty well.

While I think Izzo is and has always been a great coach he's also an enabler and plays the game to make sure he gets recruits. If you're looking for a squeaky clean program Beilein has it. If you're looking for massive amounts of B1G championships and winning it all several times then Izzo has it.

And that's no slight to little brother. Michigan did it for years with the fab 5 and long after that so that's not the pot calling the kettle black. I think the NCAA can suck it. These kids need to be paid.

[froot loops]

Izzo doesn't really play the game, check out how many recruits he gets from Chicago. Just check out the Dawkins trial for evidence of that.

[jaadam4]

It doesn't mean he runs a clean program. You don't have to look very far on him helping cover up for his players indiscretions.

[chemiclord]

Eh, Izzo strikes me as a dude that, at the end of the day, will play by whatever rules are in front of him. If paying players over the table were to become acceptable, Izzo would probably meekly grumble about it for the sake of the oldtimers in the back, then happily start cutting checks.

[jaadam4]

Izzo plays the game. If you want bluechip players its what you have to do. Football you can get away with running a clean'ish football program and putting out winning teams. Basketball is a completely different story especially with the 1 and dones.

[froot loops]

He hasn't been cutting checks and that's why they are laughably always in the last few teams for a big star and then lose out. Check out the Dawkins trial and what was testified about in regards to Izzo. He doesn't play the game, if a player is using the AAU coach as an agent, they just don't recruit him. Its a long standing bitch among Spartan fans, because they really don't get the recruits you would expect for the success.

Beilein is clean, but it's comical if you want to portray him as the only clean college coach in America and that is why he was driven out. Holy crap is that some delusional thinking.

[Nick Pappageorgio]

Izzo doesn't really play the game, check out how many recruits he gets from Chicago. Just check out the Dawkins trial for evidence of that.

The Dawkins testimony indicates that everyone has to play the game....he may play with less veracity than some....but he's playing the game.

The part of the Dawkins testimony that was so compelling......was that he showed that the FBI had to entrap him, because the FBI didn't (doesn't) even realize how the scam really works. An undercover FBI agent wanted Dawkins to take money with the intention of bribing school officials (coaches) to push athletes towards certain agents.....Dawkins tried to explain to the FBI agent that the top recruits all have agents before they leave HS and that these bribes are too-little-too-late. The FBI agent would not listen....so Dawkins did what he said (or at least the FBI thought so).

The reason that this testimony was so compelling......Dawkins had records. The undercover agent would take bribe money from the company account (a shell CO was established by the undercover and Dawkins) and Dawkins would set up fake meetings with friends of his and the undercover would bribe the prospect (Dawkins' friend). After the meetings the friend would give the money back.....and Dawkins would put the bribe money back in the account the next day. It's safe to say the FBI came out looking really inept during Dawkins' testimony.

It might seem like this has little to do with Izzo.......but consider Dawkins (who was a recruiting/agent insider) repeatedly advised that starting to pay players once they'd gotten to college was bad business.......not because he was morally opposed but because waiting to pay players until college was simply too late.


At last my own experiences with college BB......I know 2 men who played D1 BB in the 90's (1 UoM- on the '89 team/1 ST. Johns), these were end of the bench sort of guys......both were paid. Both colleges ran eerily the same scam(s).

Everyone associated with D1 college BB is dirty. Even the squeaky clean ones