From the September issue of the Ann Arbor Observer. In the article titled ‘WVU versus Rodriguez’, author James Militzer discussed the buy-out and Rodriguez’s pursuit of a settlement. Militzer contacted West Virginia legal counsel Thomas Flaherty who claims that that Rich Rod, Bill Martin and perhaps even Mary Sue Coleman negotiated a cap on Rodriguez’s exposure to the WVU buy-out during their meeting in Toledo last December. The terms: Michigan would cover up to the $2.5 million (which of course U-M eventually ended up paying). And Flaherty claims the the school and administration have tried to hide the deal. It’s not available online so I requested and was granted permission to publish an excerpt. As an aside, I was interviewed for the article that’s how I knew it was coming out, I don’t get The Observer at home: ..Thomas Flaherty, lead counsel for WVU, says the U-M appears to have cut a deal with Rodriguez at the time he was hired. “We’ve seen an email that went from [Rodriguez’s] financial advisor, Mike Wilcox, to athletic director Martin on December fifteenth, 2007, confirming a conversation they’d had earlier that day,” he says. “I believe it was cc’ed to Mary Sue Coleman. It said that the liquidated damages clause with West Virginia was a huge issue, and that the U of M…

Thanks to Biggie (whose Spartans have a biggy this weekend in East Lansing- I’ll be there with bells on) for passing this along. Check out Detroit News Michigan beat writer Angelique Chengelis’s latest conference power rankings: Hello, Angelique! That’s tough medicine for the Blue there. I’m more inclined to slot the Wolverines around 8th in the conference (ninth if including Notre Dame) per the current MVictors Power Index. Elsewhere: Chengelis dialed up Stoney and Wojo on WDFN this afternoon. After you get passed the chummy banter in the beginning, she talks a little about the Notre Dame aftermath and more. She observes that many Michigan fans aren’t too bent out of shape after that game (which is of course out of character):

Great piece on Zoltan Mesko on mgoblue.com, check it out. A slice: Zoltan’s grandparents walked five miles through the snowy streets of Timisoara to deliver presents and the family enjoyed a tense Christmas Day. That night, they watched television together and witnessed the end of Romanian communism. Nicolae Ceausescu had been tried and executed and the aftermath was broadcast across the country. “I remember them showing the bodies of Ceausescu and his wife on television,” said Zoltan. “They showed a lot on TV in Romania, not like here.”

Ann Arbor News columnist Jim Carty called in to the morning show yesterday with his thoughts on Notre Dame. He talked about an incident which made it in his column Sunday (which was run on the front page of the paper), a post-game shouting match between coach Tony Dews and an Irish fan: Michigan assistant coach Tony Dews getting into a verbal confrontation with a fan en route to the team bus. “You’re a Division I coach, act like it,” the 20-something fan shouted at Dews. Indeed, but Dews only shouted back, seemingly insistent on getting the last word in. Carty was asked to talk about what he saw during this incident, and he explained. I don’t think Dews should be getting into it with any fan, but we still don’t know what was said and I question whether Carty should have mentioned the exchange in his column. Here’s the full audio (the Dews discussion starts around 3:33): [display_podcast]