Big House Thursday: Volunteers to Forfeit a game

Question: How would the Michigan football team help North Carolina A&T get a win next season?

Answer: No this is not a trick question and the answers aren't: 1) By playing them or 2) having something to do with Lary Raper.

The real answer is: Delaware State can't agree with North Carolina A&T on a reschedule date for October 17th when Delaware State plays Michigan in Ann Arbor. So basically, Delaware State is taking the money for hopefully two loses (for those keeping score at home - One to Michigan and one to NC A&T).

• Charlie Weis Tweets about preparing for Michigan: "Today is Day 3 of Michigan week. While the assistant coaches cover the nation recruiting, I’m now on our second opponent...This preparation is different than preparation for Nevada for two reasons. Offensively, Michigan is in year two of a new system. ... Defensively, a new defensive coordinator causes you to study Michigan’s personnel from last year, but Syracuse’s scheme ...This is far less predictable. One big difference between Nevada & Michigan is that Michigan will have played 1 game prior to ours.

• Greg Paulus picks Syracuse - and no it wasn't over Michigan. That possibility died a month ago. His two final choices were Nebraska or Syracuse.

• Brian Griese is expected to be cut by Tampa Bay this week. I'm sure the 34 year old Griese will find another back up job with another NFL team.

• Tennessee Transfer to play at Grand Valley State University: Darris Sawtelle a 6"6, 320 lbs. Offensive Tackle has left the Volunteers and will head back to Michigan to play at GVSU. Darris was a top 15 recruit in the state of Michigan two years ago. Darris recalls his conversation with Lane Kiffin: "He pretty much told me I didn't fit into the offense," Sawtelle said. Sawtelle, a Birmingham Brother Rice graduate, is the second high-profile transfer since last football season to choose Grand Valley. James Stallons, a quarterback from Macomb, left Wisconsin and will join the Lakers in the fall.

Paulus Continuing to use the Michigan Brand Name

So much that Bill Martin should send him a bill for brand infringement.

It was clear from the Michigan camp last weekend that Michigan was no longer interested in Greg Paulus joining the Wolverines. End of story right? Nope! Now ESPN, is reporting that Greg is picking Syracuse over Michigan. Wait a minute? How could Greg be picking Syracuse over Michigan when Michigan is no longer an option for him?

The key is the media is in "love" with Greg Paulus and he is eating up all of his 15 minutes, which is more like 2 weeks now. To even further muddy the waters, Greg is saying that he has not decided on Syracuse yet and is still taking other visits. I guess he must really love all this media coverage. BTW: It's sad that even the local Detroit media don't know that Michigan has stopped their recruitment of him.

I guess with very little college football news to report, The Greg Paulus Drama is the best thing going. Can't someone check in with Tim Tebow and his new NFL ready throwing motion?

• Sparty has it's Spring Game on Saturday and many State of Michigan recruits will be there taking in the scrimmage. Including some Wolverine prospects like: Detroit Renaissance defensive back Mylan Hicks, Livonia Stevenson running back Austin White, and "out of state" Cincinnati Wyoming defensive end Jibreel Black. U of M is actively recruiting all of these players.
  


• Big Ten - ACC Shoot Out: Will have Michigan playing BC in Crisler Arena next year. Should be a good game.

• OL Brent Benedict (6-6 290) of Jacksonville, FL is one of the top offensive lineman prospects in the country. Tax day was the first day coaches could call recruits and he had calls as early at 6:30 from familiar names like David Cutcliffe, Lane Kiffen, Pete Carroll, Mark Richt and Urban Meyer. With that said, Brent plans to visit Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State this summer.
  


• SI ranks RR #11 for all colleges coaches: Not only has he won big, RichRod has helped change the sport with his offense. Many people are starting to believe that "The Vest" is getting to much like Lloyd Carr and respectable services are starting to rank him lower and lower. A guy with a national championship should not be ranked #13 behind guys like Brian Kelly, Jim Grobe, and Kirk Ferentz.

BHB Tuesday Recruiting Tidbits

• RB Darion Hall (6-0, 200) of Naples, Fla is sporting a Michigan offer for 2010. In 2009, Darion rushed for 1,800 yards and 26 touchdowns.

• Phil Kornbult had this to say about Michigan QB recruit Cornelius Jones (6-2, 185) of Spartanburg: favors Michigan at this point. He has offers from the Wolverines, Duke, Wake Forest and Stanford. He's also hearing from North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Virginia. Jones went to junior day at USC and Clemson but hasn't heard from them since. Jones would be Michigan's second and final QB recruit of 2010.

• Ever wonder if the lower tier bowl games are a good thing financially for your school? Of course, these numbers don't include the exposure you get for your program being on nationally TV and what it does for recruiting purposes; but here are Central Michigan's 2008 Motor City Bowl budget:
  
  Expenses: $362,632
  
  Revenues: $295,405
  
  That makes a total bowl deficit of $67,227. Those numbers are not so great for a program the size of CMU. Let's hope these Bowls can find a way to make it a win-win for a program the size of CMU to attend. I'm betting Augusta J (regular BHB reader) will pick up the difference for his proud "CHIPS" program.

• For those that are keeping score at home for 2010: Michigan has 9 verbal commits, Minnesota 5, OSU 4, PSU 2, Illinois 2, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan State all have just 1 commit for 2010. Purdue, IU, and Northwestern are getting shut out at this point. You could easily say that Michigan is out to a fast start in the recruiting race.

• ESPN Cover Boy Greg Paulus is planning a Syracuse Visit. Good luck with that! The bright side is, you could get to practice against Scott Shafer's defense. Nebraska maybe interested as well.

• Steve Threet maybe considering Arizona State. ACC, Big Ten, and now PAC 10? Throw in the SEC in there and he could play for teams in all the major conferences.

• Corey Nelson, from Dallas: Rivals 5th LB in the nation and #24 player overall has long been considered an OU or Texas lock, now considers Michigan his top school. Cory also happens to be the current teammate of Michigan verbal for 2010 Tony Drake. We all know that RR likes to offer teammates from high school. Texas is rumored to be Jordan Hicks (#3 LB in the nation from West Chester, Ohio) top school but "the Vest" is rumored to be making a hard push for Jordan's services.
  

Paulus Drama Over

ESPN who seems to love Greg Paulus like Entertainment Tonight loves Madonna, will have to find another story to chase after Sam Web from GBW reported this on Friday:

Sources indicated late Friday afternoon that the Michigan football program is no longer exploring the possibility of adding former Duke PG Greg Paulus to its fall roster.

Maybe Greg can now try acting and become an "other" on Lost. Hold you head up Greg, Syracuse is still interested.

Has Paulus been Offered a Scholarship by Michigan?

The answer is no, he has been offered a chance to join the team as a walk on at this point. Even Tate Forcier weighed in on this: "I've been talking to coaches all morning, and my position coach, Coach (Rod) Smith, he told me specifically that they have not offered him — they don't know why he would lie," Forcier said Thursday afternoon. "They said, 'We'll let you'll know what's up,' because right now, their specific words were, they haven't offered."

"I'm not worried about it," Forcier said. "A kid like that was good in high school, but it's nearly impossible to come back to this level and play. It might be possible, but not in the quarterback position. You have to know too much, you have to know the speed of the game."

Greg would have to get a special waiver from the NCAA to join the Wolverines or any other college football program. Here is what the NCAA had to say on the topic (which is surprisingly fast for the NCAA):


"Mr. Paulus has expressed an interest in competing in a second sport at another Division I school after earning an undergraduate degree at Duke University and competing on the men's basketball team. The NCAA encourages and applauds academic achievement and realizes this is an unique situation and opportunity for Mr. Paulus. Student-athletes seldom have the opportunity to transfer late in their college careers and compete in a second sport after four seasons of competition. The NCAA established a "students first" waiver process to address unique situations and extenuating circumstances such as this that are not outlined in our rules.

If a student-athlete wants to transfer and immediately compete as a graduate student, the college or university they are transferring to would need to seek a waiver, because in most cases they would have to sit out a year before competing under NCAA transfer rules and would not have any remaining eligibility. One of the factors our members have determined is appropriate for a graduate student waiver is if the transfer is academically motivated."


It also seems that Greg understands this rule and during his PTI interview on ESPN last night he mentioned looking into the different academic programs that U of M and other places offered. Michigan does have 3 scholarships left and if Greg in Michigan wanted to jump through all the hoops below, I'm sure RR would give him one of the 3 remaining but this still seems like a long shot for Greg to end up in Ann Arbor. Let's hope this old statement rings true, "there is no such thing as bad press" because Michigan and Paulus sure are getting a lot of it.


Bottom Line on the Paulus to Michigan Situation: Only 1 year of eligibility left + NCAA Special Waiver + not playing football for 4 years + trying to learn RR's system in a couple of months + wanting to start+ not having Tate get the experience he needs = Not worth it for the Wolverines.

• We all know Scott Shafer's defense played poorly last year. We also know that the rumors were that Scott didn't get along with the other Michigan coaches. This week he spoke to a Syracuse newspaper to give us some insight: "I took the job for all the wrong reasons," Shafer said. "I took it because it was Michigan, it was the Big House, the tradition. All great reasons. But at the end of the day, it's got to be a good fit for you as a coach, and the guys you're working with on a daily basis." BTW: The paper calls Shafer a "journeyman" since he has had 3 DC jobs in 3 years.
  


• 2010 DE prospect Darryl Baldwin (6"6, 250 lbs.) has cut his list down to 4 schools. ND, Michigan, OSU, and MSU. He plans to make a decision this summer.
  


• Add Syracuse to a team on Paulus list. He should go there and try to start IMO.

Michigan Football Greg Paulus Update

Since Spring Practice is over, I thought I would have a hard time find interesting information here on BigHouse Blog, so first I would like to thank Greg Paulus for keeping the Internet burning for Michigan Football information.

One side note: Kelvin Grady would love to work a trade between Duke Basketball and Michigan Football and Terrance Taylor would like to play Center for UCLA next year. Ok, jokes aside here are the latest updates on GP:

• Greg is holding a 10:00 press conference to announce something or give people insight into his plans.
• Greg's father confirmed he does hold a Michigan offer.
• Greg's father also confirmed that other NFL teams have expressed interest in a tryout.
• Duke will give him a tryout at Wide Receiver if he wants. "He's a quarterback at heart, but there was no way he was going to be able to compete and play quarterback for us," Cutcliffe said. "I think that was the deciding factor.
• The Free Press was duped into believing the Paulus transfer story was an April fools day joke on April 15th. Maybe it was a tax day joke?

Again, IMO I don't see a lot of upside for Greg coming to Ann Arbor. He at best would be the 2nd or 3rd string QB and may never see the field. There is no way he would transplant Tate Forcier who as been working with a QB coach for years and has been knee deep in Rich Rod's offense for 4 months. Here is what Tate's brother had to say about Greg being at practice: "He mentioned Greg Paulus being at the practice and thought it was pretty funny," Jason Forcier wrote in an e-mail to ESPN.com. "Tate is not worried about it all. Colt McCoy can be transferring into Michigan and it wouldn't faze Tate one bit. He is one of the most competitive kids I know."

So to net it out. It would give Michigan depth for one year at QB but that's about it. I'm not sure Greg coming to Michigan would give him a better shot at the NFL then he has right now, but Michigan isn't in any position to turn down All American QB's that want to play for them. Maybe he has dreamed about running out of the tunnel and touching the banner on game days?

________

• Looks like Michigan will only play one night game next year at Iowa after the Big Ten released it's prime time games for 2009.

• Seantrel Henderson a 6-foot-8, 301-pound offensive tackle and the #1 recruit in the Nation has both Michigan and MSU in his top 10. He currently has 30+ offers.

• Here is what one of those Newspaper PSU "Blogs" called Blog, Sweat, and Tears and to say about Michigan's QB situation: If Michigan woke up tomorrow with Penn State's problems, they'd be overturning cars and lighting garbage cans on fire in downtown Ann Arbor. Either way, what a horrible spot to be in if you're Michigan. Last season was a disaster, and this one doesn't look much better for Rich Rodriguez. For the record Blog, Sweat, and Tears: Michigan has two young dynamic QB's (one on campus and one will be there in two months) and another highly rated QB coming in 2010 (maybe as early as January), so don't worry about Michigan, worry about Kevin Newsome and his throwing ability. You also have Ann Arbor confused with East Lansing. Nice work Blog, Sweat, and Tears.