The Wolverine

December 2011

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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FROM OUR READERS From Our Web Site Editor's Note: We not only have interesting submissions in our mailbag, we also get daily input on our Web site, TheWolverine. com. These comments can come from average fans, former play- ers and even parents of present players. From time to time, we'll include a sampling from the Web site to supplement the letters section. • Here's a story from after The Game on Saturday. So I am taking my kids (5 & 4) for a walk to the beach a few hours after the Michigan-Ohio game, wearing my Michigan shirt. We pick up some food on the way, and in the span of an hour, about five different people at different times talked to us about the Michigan game or gave us a "Go Michigan" or something like that. This pretty much has never happened to me since mov- ing to San Diego almost eight years ago. When I got home, my 5-year-old boy runs to his room and puts on his #1 Michigan jersey (the first time that this ever happened without being asked). He is now a true Michigan fan and not just because of dad. We went back out wearing our Michigan swag with pride. Go Blue. Beat Ohio. That moment was something that I felt I had to share with the Fort. — asonkin • MSU is definitely not little brother. I don't get why people call them that. I don't want Michigan to be even a distant cousin to MSU. They thought beating us a few times would make us wish we were like them. I would rather never win than to be like MSU. — ummarshall • [Urban] Meyer is at 33 percent approval rating from my diehard Buckeye buds. Only 3 out of 9 are jacked. Thought this would be a "Jim Harbaugh To Michigan"-type celebration, but I'm getting from the rest a "Meh, his health isn't the best, he's only good if he's loaded with 5-stars, hope he doesn't get us right back into the same mess again" reaction. I'm surprised. Even pleasantly surprised. (It must be men- tioned, however, that these are all Buckeye fans each with a full set of teeth. May not be representative of the larger Buckeye fan base.) Oosterbaan • Potential Explanation [on Urban Meyer]: OSU WAS advised by [Jim] Tressel about the Tats as he was supposed to do during the season of 2010. Gene Smith and company therefore had early knowledge that Tressel and the "Tats" issue is going to blow up in fall of 2010 despite their indication to the NCAA that it came as a surprise that Tressel withheld info and that they knew nothing until early winter of 2011. [Gene] Smith and company know that they will be needing a new coach as early as the 2010 fall football season. that think their ticket is a "right" that they can take or leave. Second, it would allow the athletics department to charge regular price for a portion of that section. This additional revenue might make it possible to NOT CHARGE former players that come back for reunions, something that has been rumored to have started. Former players made They advise Urban Meyer that the job would be coming open. Meyer very abruptly leaves Florida leaving the world stunned at the move. Meyer offers reasons in December of 2010 that seemed very confusing at the time. He suggested that he was compelled to leave the career that he loved to be a better father. I understand the feeling as I have been an executive that spent entirely too much time away from the family each day for decades. That said, for someone as driven as Urban to leave a premier head coaching job in the top recruiting state of Florida, it just seemed very odd to me at the time. Yesterday, Gene Smith spent too much time at the press conference trying to convince folks that they first discussed the job with Urban on Sunday, Nov. 20th of this year. If they had spoken to him about it BEFORE Urban left Florida, then it would prove that OSU KNEW ABOUT the infraction and did nothing. Also, Urban spent great deal of time trying to explain why leaving a premier Florida job very abruptly to spend time with the family was so important only 11 months earlier but that it was not as important today. I just wonder whether this was orchestrated. — BlueBlood Down Under • I'm so glad Darryl Stonum is back next year. Because I'm sure he wants to torch Meyer and Ohio. Let's never forget: "He [Meyer] told me that he talked to Coach [Lloyd] Carr and Coach Soup [Campbell] and that they told him that I would be a much better fit in the Florida offense than I would be in the one at Michigan," Stonum recalled. "I thought, wow, my coaches are selling me out? I con- fronted them about it. I asked Coach Carr and Coach Soup about it, and they said they never talked to that guy and that there was no way they ever said anything like that and that they think I should be a Wolverine. I believed them. Right then, I knew just how Florida rolled." — mpitts • On an LSU-Alabama rematch: I was in Iraq in 2006 so I didn't have the media coverage that most of you had but if I remember correctly Florida's coach was spearheading the media charge for Michigan/Ohio to not have a rematch. Some of the excuses I remember was that they had their chance and they didn't win their conference. Where was all the two best teams talk back then? The game in 2006 was an exciting game. I'm not just saying that be- cause I'm a Michigan fan and I do understand defense wins championships but I would say based off of the last game, the college football fan who doesn't have a vested interest in the teams would rather have seen that rematch in 2006 than this rematch. I'm not saying one line of thinking is wrong but it needs to be consistent. — hunting380 "The Brand" as Dave Brandon has ref- erenced. We currently have a great group of players that hung in there when the college football world said they were finished. They continue to build "The Brand" with their relentless determina- tion. That determination deserves fans that arrive on time. That determination does not deserve to be embarrassed by its student section the way it was against Nebraska. Bart Jackson Marysville, Ohio It didn't get any better against Ohio State, Bart, and many others have noticed, including Brandon. Check out his com- ments in the "Inside Michigan Athletics" section of this magazine. DECEMBER 2011 THE WOLVERINE 11

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