Gotta feel great for the kid... leaves Michigan where, according to Michigan fans, it was either because he was too lazy for Barwis's conditioning program or because he was mad his brother Zach wasn't going to be offered a scholarship by Rich Rod. They can't seem to make up their minds about which one it is.
Well Justin comes to Ohio State and while he was too lazy for Michigan's conditioning program, he was good enough for Ohio State's conditioning program. He could have stayed at Michigan and been part of two teams that weren't bowl eligible and would never win a Big Ten championship or a Rose Bowl. Instead he came to Ohio State where he was part of 3 Big Ten Championship teams, beat his former team three times (playing in two of those games), and won a Rose Bowl.
His brother Zach who certainly wasn't good enough to be offered a scholarship to play on Rich Rod's team was good enough to play and start for Ohio State and be part of 2 Big Ten championship teams, beat Michigan twice, and win a Rose Bowl. I'm glad he wasn't good enough to be offered a scholarship from Michigan because he's turning out to be the best fullback in the Big Ten.
Thanks for seeing the light Justin and coming to Ohio State. It's been great rooting for you! Kick ass in the bowl game and represent Ohio State well in the NFL!l
Amen. Looks like we'll soon have another Boren in the fold as well.
What once was a proud Michigan family will forever be a Buckeye clan. Gotta love that!
As Justin Boren's story comes to a close, let's try to get it right just once, okay? We'll do 10 Questions on All Things Boren.
1. Why did Justin leave Michigan? Because his parents pulled him out in a rage, when Zach was not given a Michigan scholarship offer.
2. That's a weird story; how does anybody know that? What we do know is that Mike Boren had done the same thing with Zach himself, pulling him out of Pickerington North and enrolling him at Pickerington Central. We also have the clear timing -- in the middle of winter, Justin is pulled out of school in Michigan, issues a "press release," and it all happens with days of the 2009 recruiting class getting ther formal offer letters per NCAA rules. AND, Mike Boren let slip with the weird statement that he would not have his two sons playing for different universities.
3. What about "family values"? Yeah, that weird press release. Crafted, by all accounts, by the Borens. The Borens have never said what they meant. All kinds of critics of Rich Rodriguez jumped on it, imagining all kinds of "anti-family" abuse at the hands of the Rodriguez coaching staff. Not one credible story emerged. Nothing.
4. But Rodriguez is known for tough practices and firm operational control; was that it? Might it have been abusive language or something like that? That's the biggest joke of all. The Borens are all a bunch of barely-controlled brawlers. From Justin's recalling that he thought "somebody might call the cops" given the way that his dad yelled at him, to the reports of Justin's rough play and late-hits in Buckeye practices, to a bunch of other reports about the Borens having short fuses (Zach spitting in the face of the Dublin QB, etc., etc., etc.); this is not a group who might be startled by rough language. And nobody has even made that claim with respect to Rich Rodriguez. The story that Rodriguez lacked family values in some vague personal way was concocted, because nobody could even imagine what "family values" meant.
5. Some Michigan fans claim that Justin was too lazy to do all the hurry-up running that Rodriguez's offense demands. And they would be wrong to make those claims. By all insider accounts, Justin was a good player, and a good worker in the wieght room and in practice. It IS true, that Justin wanted to go home, to Pickerington, every chance he could. He is a kid who just seems to like being at his parents' home, and liked working in his dad's snowplowing and landscaping business. OSU teammates confirm it even now.
6. Why the big controversy over Zach? He turned into a good football player. Why didn't Michigan offer him? That's a relatively easy answer. Zach wanted a Michigan offer. He worked for it. He came to every Michigan camp he could. He wore his brother's Michigan shirts, jackets, etc. Word is that his camp numbers stunk. He isn't a good shuttle-runner, or 40-runner. OSU hadn't offered Zach, until Justin left Michigan. Zach was basically being recruited by Kent State. But more than anything, Zach had no spot at Michigan under any circumstances. The Rodriguez offense doesn't use a Fullback! And nobody, not even OSU, was seriously considering Zach at LB; the other position he played in high school.
7. Why do Michigan people care so much about Boren? Is it just a "traitor" kind of thing? It may be for some, but the real problem with Boren is not that he left. (Boren left a gaping hole at first, on Michigan's '08 and '09 lines. But Michigan's line is solid now with the underclassmen who got playing time they might not have if Boren remained.) No; the real problem is HOW Boren left. It was the "family values" meme, that did great harm, for no conceivable reason, to Rich Rodriguez's reputation. The stupid "family values" comment, which was never specifically linked to Rodriguez in the original press release, has stuck to Rodriguez like super-glue. It's nonsensical, and it is incredibly unfair.
8. So Zach has now turned into a fine football player in schemes where OSU uses a FB; and he's now an accomplished special-teams player too. Right? Right. It's all true. Zach is getting the last laugh in that sense. But he'd have no real place to play at Michigan; unless he wanted to try to play as the slowest linebacker on the team. The whole thing has worked out very well for the Borens.
9. What about Mike Boren? This story seems to be quite a slam on him. It is. And Mike has mostly said nothing. He's never denied any of this. He's never made any specific claims against the Rodriguez staff. Presumably, he has no claims. Mike Boren has never explained "family values," and he has never explained his comments about not wanting his "two sons playing at two different universities."
10. Why hasn't anybody written this story? You'd have to ask the sportswriters. The adulatory Columbus writers don't do stories like this, do they? Some of them are definitely aware of the general story. As for the Detroit writers, they all seem obsessed with running Rodriguez out of town. To the extent that the untold Boren story helps them as long as it remains untold, they probably like it that way.
Wow M Man! You are obviously an intelligent person who puts his thought coherently onto paper. (Err blog) Here is the but, but you have to let this Boren drama go. Did the dude beat you up on campus or sleep with your girl? Most replies or comments from you, that I see on here are regarding Justin and his family. Its rather comical seeing your dedicated responses. Anyhow, I am just trying to help you find peace man. Were happy to have the kid for whatever the reasons he left Michigan. Were happy to take his brother in as well, especially if he plays as hard as his older siblings.
I don't always take names when I kick ass but when I do, they most often belong to a Wolverine.
Aren't we a little testy today.
I don't buy the fact for one second that Justin Boren left because his little brother didn't have a scholarship offer. Yes we've heard the stories of Pickerington North and Pickerington Central and Mike Boren but what you're forgetting is that Justin was no longer a minor and could make his own decisions in life - Mike Boren has no final say whatsoever in Justin's life, just offered him advice. Justin had spent two years at Michigan already and I'm guessing had friendships he'd value on all. If you hear Justin talk about his time at Michigan, he says something along the lines of he loved it and glad he was there.
If Justin Boren was the only player to leave after Rich Rod came in then I would believe this maybe a little. However with the mass exodus of players, it was apparent. Rich Rod probably is a real jerk and players didn't like him. Boren just let his emotions get the best of him and tell the media. Boren, who was born a die-hard Michigan fan, saw how Rich Rod was running the program after seeing how Lloyd Carr ran the once proud program and heard the stories about Bo from his father and just let the emotion take over. But that can't be it!! These players left because they felt they didn't fit in! That had to be it. Come on.... where's there is smoke, there is fire.
Even if Boren left without throwing Rich Rod under the bus (and its been too long since this happened and if he doesn't specifically call out RR, I know how to read in between the lines) Michigan fans would still hate him as much as they do just because he went to Ohio State.
And to Zach Boren. Coaches should have a system to fit their talent... not coming destroy a program to get talent to fit their system. If Rich Rod was worth a damn, he should have tossed Ryan Mallet's salad enough to convince him to stay and have a competent offense for his first two season. Zach Boren would have fit nicely in that type of offense.
And you're calling out Zach as being a slow linebacker. Zach would probably be a better linebacker than the shitty excuse of linebackers Michigan fields now.
The reason why the Dispatch doesn't do your story/Mgoblog's side of the story is the real possibility it's pure speculation. The Dispatch also doesn't intentionally try to ruin the athletic programs at Ohio State whereas Rich Rod pissed off the journalist at Freep/DetNews and they're looking for blood.
J.MO -
I didn't gripe about the game, or about what the Borens did on the field.
Unlike Mallett, Boren did get along with his teammates. But according to Justin himself, he had always felt pressured to go to Michigan. His dad and Bo pressed him on it. Justin says that; not some blogger.
But there wasn't any "mass exodus." Boren left for the reasons I've stated, which had little to do with Rich Rodriguez, apart from the offensive scheme. And Ryan Mallett left, as I've said before, because his mentor and position coach left. As did the mostly-inconsequential Toney Clemons, who wanted more playing time. MGoBlog analyzed the departures and all of the numbers. The departures in the Carr-Rodriguez transition were about the same as other collegiate coaching transitions.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. And I'm grateful to you for your sourcing; "Rich Rod is probably a real jerk," and the old trusted source, "where there's smoke there's fire."
Of course there will always be some of that. And that is why I never have any hesitation in correcting Michigan fans who baseelessly accuse Justin of being "too lazy to run," etc. The cross-rivalry hatred is inevitable. I haven't included anything like that in any of what I've written.
And here we have the essential dispute. Should Rich Rodriguez have stuck to his guns to build his offense? That's a question that doesn't involve personal attacks on Rodriguez, or any of his current or former players. And on the general subject of "offense," Rodriguez has a very strong argument in his favor.
I've thought about that; it's hard for anyone to say, but I don't think that Zach would have a chance to fit as a 3-3-5 LB, and let's remember that no one in the Big Ten gave Zach much thought as a LB. Not even OSU.
Let me just say that if there is any evidence of anything that Rich Rodriguez did to "piss off" the Detroit media, I'd love to know about it. The crazy thing in the Rodriguez story is that he has been more open to the press, giving them more access to the team, and Rodriguez has been more forthcoming in his statements, than any Michigan football coach since Bump Elliott. "Fort Schembechler" was the term commonly applied to the lineage of Bo, Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr, and they mostly gave the press, with a very few notable exceptions, nothing. One of the exceptions seems to have been a couple of columnists at the Detroit Free Press. And a very popular theory, to counter yours (again, I don't know and it's clear that you don't either) is that Michael Rosenberg of the Free Press never liked Rodriguez because he didn't enjoy the kind of privileged access to Rodriguez that he had with Carr.
Note well; Rosenberg is now cultivating the same kind of special access with Jim Harbaugh that he had with Carr -- witness Rosenberg's admiring profile of Jim and John Harbaugh in Sports Illustrated:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1175724/index.htm
Who cares why he left and how he left. Michigan fans obviously didn't like him since he was lazy and a bad team mate. He's been great here, Win win. Michigan lost a guy they didn't want and Ohio State gained a great player. Also don't care what the reasoning for not offering Zack was. He's going to be an NFL fullback, and since Ohio State uses a Full back, he's in a better situation anyway. They are good players for the Buckeyes, and Michigan missed out.
No, I'm going to go try to find DickRod so we can sing Kumbaya together.
whoa! check out the big brain on m-man!! michigan sucks.
“There’s one thing I have learned through all my adventures and conquests - it’s that some people are just wired for success. I had no choice when it came to being great - I just am great.” – Kenny Powers
J.MO...I have to admit I disagree with pretty much everything you said. I love Zach Boren and agree he deserves some love from others, but I'd side with M Man on the reasoning. It makes sense Zach would be mad that he wasn't offered a scholarship, but it also makes sense why Michigan wouldn't offer in the first place. They run the spread and don't need fullbacks, Zach wasn't talented enough to play much else.
"And to Zach Boren. Coaches should have a system to fit their talent... not coming destroy a program to get talent to fit their system. If Rich Rod was worth a damn, he should have tossed Ryan Mallet's salad enough to convince him to stay and have a competent offense for his first two season. Zach Boren would have fit nicely in that type of offense."
This is probably one of the dumbest things I have read. Sure he lost potential talent, but coaches come in and employ their own systems and schemes, that's why a majority get hired in the first place, because the administration wants a big change. So Rich Rod's system didn't utilize the players he got coming in and wouldn't utilize Zach or Ryan Mallett because he is a big slow pocket passer. It happens all the time. Jim Tressel is a coach who does build a system around his talent, but you have to realize how unique Tressel is in doing so. There aren't many coaches smart enough to do this, but they still know how to win with a certain system...
I think the stuff you said has a much better likelihood of being speculation and rumor than this.
Colin, a coach's job is to win games - not to implement their systems ASAP. By coming in and changing everything - thats why they went 3-9 his first year. Rich Rod could have slowly implemented his system while keeping a strong Michigan team. Instead he killed a great football program and they won't recover for several years. When Tressel retires and we bring in a different style coach, I want this coach to slowly implement his system and not ruin the program Tress created in 1 season.
I'm not sure that there's anything DickRod could have done to keep Mallett. Guy was on his way out, and there's no way Rodriguez was still going to be running a half pro-style offense three years into the program. Robinson would still have been on track to replace him this year, and no way Mallett would trade his current status as likely first round draft pick for that.
That said, his system seems to be *incredibly* qb-dependent. If you gave Tressel the combination of Threet and Sheridan, he would have closed up the playbook and run the simplest to execute runs ever, try to minimize turnovers, and go 6-6 off of decent defense and the field position battle. He would try to take the game out of the hands of his incompetent qb's as much as possible. But RR's offense is so based around the do-everything athlete at quarterback that instead you ended up with yackety sax and 3-9.
All that being said... their current issues have nothing to do with Ryan Mallett and everything to do with two *horrible* hires at defensive coordinator.
hahahaha - awesome.
+1 for M Man