It's Me! Mario!

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Da da da da-da da...do.

It's seems the country club was serving a little more than steak and lobster the past few seasons. Vicodin and Mary Jane were also on the menu for Super Mario. Hey, I'm all for a gentlemen experimenting with some illicit drugs during his college years...I just have no respect for someone that gets caught. Getting caught with weed in your system means you are stupid, and I have little patience for stupidity coming from someone living a charmed college life. Listen, if you think that they didn't know when the test was coming, you're kidding yourself. Therefore, he either flat out didn't care and knew he'd be given a pass...or he was so caught up in the stuff he couldn't stop for a couple weeks. Mix that in for a recreational use of vicodin (which UMTailgate.com helped break the story on) and what you have is a troubled kid that should have been sat for some games....maybe his 3 catch, 0 touchdown performance against Appy State would have been a good one.

Listen, far be it from me to take away some of the great things Mario did here. From thePenn State miracle as a Freshman, to the leaping circus catch last season against MSU, there's no doubt he brought excitement to Michigan Football, maybe even won a game or two. But his inconsistency...might that be attributed to Thursday night game week bong parties on S. Forest? Ya, that's the story I heard but failed to report that seems much more plausible now. Oh, and if that's true, mix in a couple other members of your receiving core in attendance at the same party. And folks, that was just one night. One night that even I heard about. How many similar stories can be found without digging too deep? My guess is more than MM would like to admit.

But it's all in the past now. Mario left early. Arrington too. The question isn't about what is going on now, but it certainly lends more credence to theories of what went on in the past. We always stood by that even if they weren't playing to their Scout.com star potential, at least they weren't getting themselves in trouble. The coaches were at least creating men of character. And now it seems we were really kidding ourselves. Three strikes? Seems like Mario had nine lives, and that, if nothing else, is a disappointing essay on a coaching staff who let the game pass them by.

"The Hell With Notre Dame"

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​Wow, I've got some catching up to do.

For now, get ready for a rivalry on ice...tonight at 7pm...ESPN2. (UPDATE: That's 7pm local...9pm for us in Ann Arbor) The Godfather, who does his grocery shopping in South Bend, will be using tonights game to get past the weekday drinking restrictions imposed by the Godmother.

More to come.

Carr's Country Club

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​If nothing else comes from the "transition" that has resulted in the unceremonious exit of Justin Boren, it's that whatever was going on before Rodriguez was not good. And by "not good" I mean bluntly that players over the last several years were not pushed to their potential. I've bared my soul about this before, and it's no secret that I was the number one supporter of the Michigan coaching staff under Carr. The elephant in the room on the field was that top 10 recruiting classes consistently made their way to Ann Arbor, but rarely did they produce near the level of expectation. I used every excuse in the book, often blaming the players, and going as far as to question the validity of the recruiting evaluators, remarking that sure, we had a top ten class...but who really knows how good these high school players are? My other favorite arguement: parity. I could recite the evidence of the scholarship limitations, and moreover the discerning college athletes that chose small schools over major programs for the sake of early playing time.

Well, I was wrong, and the naysayers...I think you were right. With my Maize and Blue blinders on, I couldn't see the forest for the trees, especially in the last 4-5 years, a time in Michigan Football history in which the underachievement level reached it's pinnacle.

The inspiration for my epiphany? An article by Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated who got to see the team practice...

It was similar to practices I've attended at USC, Florida State and numerous other football powers. Yet according to offensive linemanSteven Schilling, "The first couple weeks were a shock to the system. It's a different culture. It's a lot higher paced, it stresses sprinting everywhere. I can't really say which is better."

All of which makes you wonder: If this new approach is really as shocking as Boren, Schilling and others have expressed, what kind of country club was Carr running all those years? And is that why Michigan, for all its considerable talent, has largely underachieved in the decade since its 1997 national championship, including six losses in seven years against Ohio State?


And that's it, folks...that's the story. Of course, all smoke and mirrors until we see a finished product, but I for one am beginning to believe.

Weekend Roundup, Frozen Four Edition: March 31, 2008

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​What you missed this weekend while Michigan Against the World raised another banner...