Mark Snyder just reported on Freep.com that Mary Sue Coleman and Bill Martin did indeed speak with Les Miles last week. He doesn’t cite any direct sources. Two quotes from the article of interest: Miles had a phone conversation Friday morning with Michigan athletic director Bill Martin and school president Mary Sue Coleman, according to several people with knowledge of the call. …. While the call between the two sides did not identify Miles as the leading candidate for the coaching vacancy, it did give them a chance to interact formally for the first time and to discuss a number of issues previously handled through intermediaries. He did get one slightly interesting quote from one of Coleman’s people: “We’re not going to be discussing anything about recruiting (a new coach) until after the announcement is made,” Coleman’s spokesperson, Kelly Cunningham, said today. While we didn’t see what the question or comment was that prompted this comment from Cunningham, what does she mean by “the announcement”? What announcement? The phrasing is peculiar here because it’s not like anyone is aware of any type of pending decision in this process, thus, an announcement. If this is true, apparently Martin and Coleman didn’t have the LSU AD’s blessing who said today: “I’d be under the assumption that the permission to speak to Les…
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Factoid: Recent History with Heisman Winners
With Tim Tebow winning this year’s Heisman, it’ll mark the fourth straight winner of the top college prize will have played against the Wolverines at some point in their career. And over the past 14 seasons, eight of the winners have played either with (Woodson) or against Michigan, most of them in the same season. Here’s the breakdown: During this span Michigan is 2-2 against the team fielding the Heisman winner of that season. The Wolverines defeated Eddie George’s Buckeyes and Ron Dayne’s Badgers and lost on ‘The Catch’ to Rashaan Salaam’s Buffs and of course last year to Troy Smith. The rubber match will be at the Capital One bowl this year.
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Appalachian State Face Familiar looking Foe
Despite losing a couple of times this season those App State Mountaineers have found their way into the FCS Championship where they’ll face the Delaware Blue Hens. Two quick takes: Winged Hens. When they step on the field against the Blue Hens they’ll certainly get a dose of deja vu. While the setting for the game won’t quite be the same, the opponent looks like some team you know. Yes, it’s that other team that dons Crisler’s creation. Turns out it wasn’t over. Just after Michigan lost that brutal game to the Mountaineers, the common thinking was that this awful loss knocked Michigan out of national championship contention. We learned quickly that that loss was not a fluke as the whole 2007 season was a struggle, but that loss did not knock Michigan out. Had the Wolverines won the next 11 games they’d be a lock for the BCS Championship. You could even argue that they’d have an outside shot at the title game had they simply won every game after the Oregon loss. Good luck to the Mountaineers, whose fans were unbelievably cool before and after the game. Here’s to you Shaggy:
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Anthony Carter is #2 all time: YouTube
Check out this clip from a CSTV feature on the greatest college receivers of all time. They placed AC #2. Footage includes interviews from Wangler and Steve Smith:
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Hail Jon Gruden, Your Next Coach
Death March Madness Finals! Six thousand votes later you’ve picked your man. In a bit of a surprise the winner of the 2007 Death March Madness tournament to determine Michigan’s next head football coach is Jon Gruden of the Tampa Bay Bucs. You can see all the final results in the bracket here. The Tampa Bay coach took an interesting path to get here, facing many of the men that have been directly engaged by Michigan in the search. Gruden started with a bye as the #2 seed in the Yost Region and easily defeat current defensive coordinator Ron English in the second round with 67% of the vote. Next he faced the odds-on favorite Les Miles on the day after word got out that Miles was staying at LSU. Popular Wolverine opinion at that time was that Miles manipulated Michigan to get more money from LSU. That, I believe, was enough to push Chucky past Miles and into the Final Four. If you replayed that match-up today, just a week later, my guess is that Miles would beat Gruden in a landslide. Gruden’s biggest challenge came in the semis when he just squeaked by Rutgers coach Greg Schiano who earlier this week rejected Michigan’s interest. Chucky took the title by tallying 56% over from CMU and current Cincinnati coach…
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Shand v. Martin update
As if Bill Martin didn’t have enough on his plate, he’s still in the midst of working through the suit filed by former WTKA morning host Dave Shand, who claims Martin had him fired. Per Shand’s attorney Nick Roumel, Martin’s motion to dismiss the case that was originally scheduled for late November has moved to January 23rd. For all the posts related to Shand, click here.
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The Best of the Les Petition
There’s no doubt the online petition to Save the Miles is making an impact on State street. The cleverly titled the ‘Les Go Blue’ effort to organize fans to convince Bill Martin to get LSU coach Les Miles in Ann Arbor has gathered over 800 legitimate signatures so far. Forget unreturned phone calls, I’ll got out on a limb and predict that this could be the difference in this whole mess. The petition asks for name, email and a pledge amount to the athletic department if Les Miles is hired (default is $10). A quick scan of the signatures to date yielded a few beauties: * #659 Joel Jackson – Pledged $10,000. Hey big spender! * #607 Edward Martin – The posthumous funding source of the Fab 5 gave no specific amount but offered “money and cakes if Les is hired”. * #231 CCBIV -tied some conditions “$100 if it’s Miles, $0 if it’s ferentz, debord, grobe, pinkel” We’ll let the accountants sort that out once this is over. * #472 Dave Paton indicated some bitterness in his offer: “$10 in pennies–and they won’t be rolled”. That’s old school retribution, baby. Nice work. * #277 Stacey guaranteed she give “Whatever is left of my will”. How generous! * Mike Hunt. This name shows up on many petitions for some reason…
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Did Martin have permission to speak with Schiano?
This keeps getting better. Yes, it looks like the administration is keeping tabs on Death March Madness and took notice when Greg Schiano made it by Urban Meyer and into the Final Four. He interviewed with Martin in New York & looks like a deal is afoot. Jim Carty has a relationship with Greg Schiano from his previous job and recounted a story he told on the radio this week. And the gloves are cleary off for Carty. He couldn’t resist throwing this blow at our athletic director: It’s interesting to note that Martin, who insisted earlier this week that returning a phone call to Miles’ agent would have been a huge ethical breach of his obligations to LSU, didn’t ask Rutgers for permission to talk to Schiano. Turns out, Barnacle Bill can swim with the sharks when he wants to, huh? Ding! JC better watch out or Martin may try do him like he did Dave Shand earlier this year. UPDATE: Over before it started, various eports just after 9am that Schiano turned down the opportunity.