Michigan Football, the 2020 Abbreviated COVID Season

[lineygoblue]

They've hired coaches who have worked at OSU, and with OSU backgrounds. That doesn't disqualify a good coach from working at Michigan.

Agreed he has no interest in coaching at Michigan. Money would not be an object if there was interest on both sides.

I'd love to see Meyer take the Cowboys job. Watching him work for Jerry Jones would be classic football opera. I doubt that will happen, but it would be good entertainment if nothing else.

It doesn't look like the ND job is coming open soon, and USC is keeping their guy, so Urbs is going to have to wait for another high profile job to open up.

Perhaps Alabama. Nick just turned 68 so maybe if Nick scratches the retirement itch, he could go there..

[iam416]

[lineygoblue]

Yeah, I agree with that. I'm a bit surprised that Urbs isn't there, but maybe he has other plans. I doubt those plans include talking about football on Fox for the long term. He'll coach again somewhere.

[iam416]

[Jeff Buchanan]

It may seem easy to point fingers at outside institutions when it comes to the mishandling of sexual assault........This timeline effectively determines that the University protected an accused sexual predator from any consequences for over four years, leaving his victim in the dark.

Uh, no. Look, this is a complex situation for Michigan involving Brandon Gibbon's alleged rape of another University student. Gibbons was expelled for violating the student conduct policy of the U. He was never criminally charged and that is not an excuse for his conduct ..... determined through due process by administrative authorities within the U. That determination was made long after the alleged rape. The reason for the delay involved the idiocy of Title IX and the history of this generally recognized by legal scholars as a nightmare for schools that have to comply with it's sexual misconduct provisions. I'm not going to discuss the complexity. Do your own research if you want to understand Title IX wrt to sexual misconduct and the very difficult criminal and civil law situation that Universities are placed in trying to comply with it.

Yes, Gibbons acted inappropriately with regard to the U's sexual misconduct policy. Yes, there was an indication that the victim was intimidated by Lewan. At the time of the incident, the M Athletic Department under the idiocy of Dave Brandon made some really stupid calls and got caught up in that by the press among other university activists and watchdog groups. By in large, although it was framed as a cover-up, that wasn't the case. Trying to figure out how to honestly comply with Title IX and it's flaky due process requirements while at the same time protecting the privacy and interest of the accused and the victim along with the U's interests in protecting itself from liability under claims of negligence was the predominant reason for the lengthy delay in expelling Gibbons. No, it should not have taken 4 years to expel him but it wasn't a cover-up that caused the delay.

The Gibbons example is very different from the cases of the 3 MSU football players who were actually charged with and individually arraigned for sexual assault and then convicted of that crime in a court of law. Dantonio did dismiss the players from the team after they were formally charged but controversy surrounded Dantonio's role in recruiting talented football players with questionable character. If I recall correctly, someone made statements that Dantonio had been told not to sign one of these three. As well, there was a nexus between the Nassar crimes, and the rash of felonious sexual assault charges involving football and basketball players. Legitimate or not, The entire MSU administration, all the way up to President Lou Anna Simon (and we don't need to talk about her act and subsequent resignation over the Nassar case and probably this too) came under intense scrutiny. None of that sort of thing played in the Gibbons case. None.

So, while it looks good to post about the Gibbon's case as a parry to my assertion that there are examples of programs that do cover-shit up, MSU among them, there's only a weak correlation between the two cases. Parrying with that argument as if to say, don't point fingers, certainly does not change the strength of the argument that at Michigan there appears to be a culture of trying to do the right thing, not present elsewhere involving the administration of CFB programs, that produces the self flagellation and groveling that in the end has the capacity to blunt a win at all costs mentality.

[hack]

Froot, if you want to prove that Michigan is imperfect and run by fallible humans who don't get it right every time, go on. If you want to establish a pattern, good luck. If you want to argue that that instance counts for more than the many, many other arrows all pointing in the opposition direction, go ahead and give that a shot.

I think it's 100% accurate that Michigan would have wanted Meyer in '09 had he been available, and probably even would have paid him what he wanted. And if he were available in '11 they would have done the same. But I don't think that Meyer would have accepted the standards and come here anyways. What kind of amounted to your average Saturday night in Gainesville for Aaron Hernandez is enough to get you kicked out of the program here, with C'sonte York a good example of that. Meyer knows what he needs to do his thing, and would have sussed that out early in any courtship.

It would have been really interesting if Meyer were the coach at Michigan when the Aaron Hernandez story fully broke, if he'd managed to get along in this culture for that long. Pressure to fire him would have been immense, regardless of whether it would open up the university to a wrongful-dismissal suit. And I shudder to think of how stupid the ensuing coaching search would have been, and the purity tests candidates would have been subject to.

[UMStan White]

"Yes, Gibbons acted inappropriately with regard to the U's sexual misconduct policy. " Yes, there was an indication that the victim was intimidated by Lewan."

Acted inappropriately? Intimidated by Lewan? Gibbons fucking raped a fellow student! And Lewan told the victim he would rape her again if she reported it!

[hack]

When it comes to this university and its culture, this shit is scandalous. But what stands out as an anomaly at Michigan, and serves as a token for whataboutism for years to come, is normal and systematic at other places. It should never happen, and at Michigan we don't want the wins enough to do what the powers that be in EL or Columbus are willing to do to their institutional cultures. We know that it all blows over in time, and we've seen schools like MSU and OSU and PSU and people like Meyer, Dantonio and Izzo survive their time in the barrel, and once everybody's on to the next scandal they then continue to pretend to be something they are not, and most outsiders just find it easier to play along. We in Ann Arbor don't give a fuck if it's possible to get away with that stuff and survive. We expect coaches to meet a standard and refrain from doing shitty things just because it's possible to weather the PR storm. Nobody's perfect and not everybody lives up to the high standards set, but they exist, are exceptionally high, and if it's a pattern that you fail to meet them you won't be here much longer.

Which goes right back to the coaching argument, where talent would prefer the discussion to remain, permanently, without relevant context. Of course it's a lot easier to hire an elite coach and rack up wins when you don't care about that stuff.

[AlabamAlum]

lmao

[Jeff Buchanan]

Per mgo, Tariq Black enters the transfer portal.

[lineygoblue]

Per mgo, Tariq Black enters the transfer portal.

I'm sad to hear that. He's had a lot of injury time, but I think what may have pushed him into the decision was the development of Ronnie Bell. He's the future at WR.

[hack]

Least surprising name

[THE_WIZARD_]

HARBAUGH!!!

[WM Wolverine]

He generally caught when thrown too but usually didn't see him getting separation with his routes. Be nice to have one of Nico, DPJ stay.

[hack]

Sure would like to interpret this as a playing-time transfer, but I don't know.

One knows one is on the right track with the Michigan/ethics argument when the responses you get are just one word or acronym.