The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/402034
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL and win that one game at Utah," Ray said. "You get your two rivals at home, Notre Dame is off your sched- ule." That doesn't mean climbing back to championship caliber will be easy, he cautioned. "Ohio State has been doing it for 10 years," Ray said. "It hasn't been coaching, to me, when you talk about Ohio State-Michigan. It's been that guy under center, from Troy Smith to [Terrelle] Pryor to [Braxton] Miller, now to [J.T.] Barrett. It's not going to stop. "They've got the formula to win in this conference. [Mark] Dantonio, [Jim] Tressel's disciple, he's got it fig- ured out. They're playing the same game. He's running this decade, so far, the way his mentor did the last decade. "But two years from now, I think Michigan can be right back in the mix. Let that offensive line grow up and be fourth-year, fifth-year seniors, and these running backs be seniors, defense reloads and gets some guys in there …" It's not quick, and it's not easy, Ray noted. But sometimes patience pays off in a big way. BRANDON: MICHIGAN'S FOCUS BROADER THAN MANY Late in his tenure as Michigan head coach, Lloyd Carr expressed concerns over two of what he felt were becoming major issues in col- lege football. One involved player procurement, and the inequities in- herent in the methods of doing so within (or without) the NCAA rules. A second involved what Carr per- ceived as the growing use of human growth hormone among some col- lege programs. Michigan athletics director David Brandon insists the NCAA indeed has many issues on its hands, but said the problems some- times involve emphasis, rather than outright cheating. "The NCAA has got big chal- lenges with enforcement, how they approach enforcement, and which rules they should be focusing on," Brandon said. "They've obviously gone through a number of reforms, and that continues. "Some of it, to me, isn't necessarily breaches in specific rules. It's differ- ences in philosophy. What are your entrance requirements to take a kid and put him on scholarship? What is your policy and philosophy as it relates to greyshirting? What is your policy and philosophy regarding over-signing? What is your policy and philosophy as it relates to the number of medical scholarships you will grant? What is your phi- losophy as it relates to the academic rigors you put your student-athletes through? "Those things aren't so much NCAA rule driven, as much as they are, what is the philosophy and what are the priorities of the institutions, and the conferences the institutions are a part of? What do they think is most important?" Another involves emphasis regard- ing athletic programs overall, he noted. Some conferences see football