The Free Press strikes again

http://www.freep.com/article/20090829/SPORTS06/90829021/1318/Michigan-football-program-broke-rules--players-say

I have no doubt that most of this is true. And to it, I say, "so what"? They practice too much? This is not news, its been going on for years in every major college sport, and quite a few of the non-major ones. To think that this is shocking, unique, or somehow makes Rich Rod an outlaw coach is silly.

Could their be penalties for Michigan? Perhaps, but I would be surprised if the NCAA took any action. While if the Free Press's account of hours is true it would constitute technical violations, the NCAA has looked past more blatant violations from other schools. Recently Alabama and Florida State were found to have committed violations for improper benefits and academic fraud, respectively, and were force to forfeit past games, but not given a bowl ban or lost scholarships. The NCAA has a history of not punishing the big guys too much, like the old Jerry Tarkanian joke about Kentucky committing a violation so Eastern Kentucky goes on probation.

So what does worry me? The article implied that players weren't allowed to go to class because of practice, but it didn't have anything to back it up. If this were the case I would be troubled. If players were prevented from taking challenging courses, I would be bothered.

But what worries me the most about this is that there are writers , or editors at the Free Press who either have an agenda against Rich Rod, or feel that writing articles about how wrong he is for Michigan is the best way to sell papers. The companion article about how MSU plays by the rules is the dead give away. The article on Michigan appears to have taken some time, and a significant amount of work to compile. They appear to have spent maybe 15 minutes on the MSU article, getting a throw away quote off a leading question ("Does Dantonio cheat?) just to appear fair and balanced. The practice schedule for the Spartans is no different than it is for Michigan.

If, as some have suggested, there are still some in the administration or athletic department that don't like Rich Rod and would have preferred someone that represented less of a change, these continual negative stories, however true or untrue they might be, could be used to run him out of town if he is not wildly successful this year or next.

While you were gone

Our annual look at the off season just passed for our readers who aren't as obsessive about following Michigan football as we are.

Bo used to say that only three things could happen when you passed the ball, and two of them are bad. In the last couple of years, it seems like you could say the same thing about our off seasons.

In mid December, it was announced that Defensive coordinator Scott Shafer would be leaving. In January, Greg Robinson was hired to take his place. All indications seemed to suggest the Shafer ust didn't mesh with Rich Rod and the rest of the staff. The Purdue game, where Rich Rod supposedly took over control of the defense from Shafer, was seen as a sign that the relationship could not be repaired. Robinson appears to be an upgrade. Despite his dismal record as a head coach at Syracuse, he was defensive coordinator for Texas when the won the national championship, and for the Denver Broncos when they went to the Super Bowl.

The early part of any off season is dominated by recruiting news from January until signing day in early February. This year was no exception, as Michigan pulled in a class ranked between 8 and 14 in the country, depending on who you asked. The class was headlined by a block-out-the-sun defensive tackle from Detroit, a quaterback prodigy from California whose family has a history with Michigan, a top cornerback from Ohio, and lots and lots of speed, some small, some not so small. Of particular interest was the fact that several members of the class, graduated from high early and enrolled in January so they could go through spring practice.

Despite this successful class, much of the news during the season was about decommitments from Michigan. No less than nine players decommitted at some point. Some decommitted to take visits to other schools and then later recommitted. Some chose to decommit after Michigan recruited other players at their positions. And some decommitted because they are no different than most 18 year olds, and aren't completely sure what they want to do with their lives. More than anything, this trend illustrated a changing dynamic is the way recruiting works. With the growth of social media and recruiting websites, more and more information is out there about recruits, and more recruits are committing early. But some local sources, many of whom criticized Rich Rod for taking kids last year who decommitted from other schools, chose to use the decommitments as evidence of his lack of fitness to be coach here at Michigan. And of course, those up the road in East Lansing jumped all over that and used as part of their recruiting pitch, in and out of the media.

The other major source of news during the off-season involved player departures. About a dozen players left the team since the end of the last season. Some left early for the NFL. Most were backups unlikely to play a significant role this year even if they had stayed. But there were two that played significant roles last year that left, QB Steven Threet and RB Sam McGuffie. Both likely would have seen playing time this year, but its not clear if they would have started, or for how long. Threet had the most experience of any QB, but he clearly doesn't fit the spread option as well as the two freshman, Forcier and Denard Robinson. McGuffie started the year strong at RB, but faded as the year went on and he suffered some concussions and Brandon Minor came on strong.

Most of the players departing transferred to other schools quietly, praising the coaching staff, or simply saying they were moving on. Two players made a bigger splash. OL Kurt Wermers left, saying that "the kids on the team now weren't his kind of crowd" and the team was less like a family now. It later turned out that Wermers was academically ineligible when he left. I guess not his kind of crowd meant kids that actually went to class.

The other player who made a splash was WR / former QB Justin Feagin. In late July, he was dismissed from the team for violations of team rules. It would be revealed later that his violation could have included some criminal activity. In short, Feagin was approached by a friend last spring who was short on cash and agreed to broker a drug deal for him with a friend of his down in Florida. Feagin took money from him, and then never followed through on the drug deal. The friend responded by trying to set Feagin's dorm room on fire, but he got the wrong room. Feagin was questioned by police in late July. Later that day he was dismissed from the team. Of course our friends at the Free Press responded by declaring Michigan a win at all costs team and blamed Rich Rod for not doing proper research on Feagin. Of course the Free Press missed an obvious parallel with a team up the road that had a player convicted of felony assault after the last season, serve almost six months in jail, and then let out early so that he wouldn't miss practice time. The double standard, and other obvious problems with the Free Press article were pointed out by bloggers more accomplished than I.

After the worst season of Michigan that any of us can remember, we were treated to a horrible off-season, despite a decent recruiting class with some exciting players (more on this later) and the continued construction on the big house. So you see, the season can't get here fast enough.

Journalism Ethics

I have a friend who works as a copy editor for the Detroit News. Given all the shakeup the last few weeks at the News and the industry as a whole, we've had a number of conversations about the future of the newspaper business, and how the papers can change to make themselves viable in the digital age.The conclusion that both of have come to is that the online versions of the newspapers need to be more like the most popular blogs, willing to link to stuff from other sites, and producing content and analysis several times a day.

But the holdup, from his perspective has been that the management at the paper is holding on to the ideal of a "Journalistic Integrity" that sets the newspaper industry above the blogs, recruiting websites, and other online media. In their minds, the popularity of the traditional media comes from the trust of the public knowing that news is gathered the "right way". For that reason, many in the mainstream media look down on the blogging community. They look at the new media as undercutting the traditional business model.

There is some truth to that view. Certainly the newspaper looses a lot of effectiveness when the "current" information it is telling us is out of date by the time it is printed because it has been posted hours earlier. And there are certainly many blogs out there (this one included) that offer opinions and "analysis" that does not come with the same amount of research and verified sources as a traditional newspaper column.

But what the newspaper management fails to see is that the pleas to journalism ethics or the credibility of the traditional media vis-a-vee the blogs goes out the window when you employ columnists whose sole reason for writing certain things is to sell papers.

Take the recent dustup with Detroit News columnist Rob Parker and Lions head coach Rod Marinelli. At the end of a string of questions where Parker was trying to get Marinelli to say anything that wasn't a cliche about the abysmal Lions defense and the DC, Jon Barry, who is Marinelli's son-in-law, Parker asked Marinelli if he wished his daughter had married a better defensive coordinator. Now at 0-15, Marinelli deserves all the criticism he gets. Barry, who was the only one interviewed two years ago, and has presided over two of the worst defenses in NFL history, deserves all the criticism he gets. And it is fair to question Marinelli about nepotism when the only appearant qualification of his DC is his relationship to the head coach. But clearly Parker's comment went over the line, and he should be reprimanded or suspended. Criticize the coach, leave the family out of it.

What I think this illustrates, and the reason I bring this issue up today, is the hypocrisy of the print media, the thing that my friend has been banging his head against. On one hand, the newspaper elite claim superiority over the non-traditional media because of journalistic ethics. Yet, on the other hand, they employ hacks like Parker, who don't have a problem violating those ethics, or at least skirting them, to sell more papers or create more traffic at the newspaper websites. We've seen it time and time again when it comes to the treatment of Rich Rodriguez and coverage of the team over the last year. We see it almost every major media market, where each paper has at least one sports columnist whose job it is to increase readership by writing stuff that is so outrageous that it pisses everyone off.

The bottom line, in my mind, is that the best sports blogs are successful because of their outstanding writing, excellent analysis, and humerous takes on the world of sports. Until the newspaper industry realizes that there is no tenure anymore, that the best player will play regardless of class, and that they will only be successful if they employ excellent writers and commentaters who can provide real analysis on a consistent basis irregardless of what their degree or background, they will continue on their path towards the scrapheap of history.