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Tuesday Quick Hits: Many Offensive Players Suffering from Injuries
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Leave a Comment- You can add a bruised shoulder to the lengthy list of injuries Brandon Minor has suffered this season. He also aggravated his high ankle sprain in the Purdue game, an injury that just doesn’t seem to want to go away.
- Carlos Brown barely played against Purdue because he was absent from practice last week due to knee tendinitis.
- Martavious Odoms is still listed as day-to-day, but his injury isn’t healing as quickly as originally anticipated.
- A bruised back kept Junior Hemingway limited against Purdue.
- Tate Forcier twisted his knee on Saturday.
- Rich Rodriguez took issue with Purdue coach Danny Hope’s actions after Saturday’s game. Hope shook Rodriguez’s hand and then introduced him to Zack Reckman, the player who was suspended earlier this season for throwing a punch against Northern Illinois. Hope said something along the lines of, “Thanks, Coach. Really appreciate what you did.” Hope was insinuating that Rodriguez was responsible for getting Reckman suspended, because after the Eastern Michigan game Rodriguez said this, referring to the fact that Jonas Mouton was suspended for punching a Notre Dame player:
“As a coach you say, ‘OK, the precedent will be set,’ and that’s why I say we’ll look at every act,” Rodriguez said at the time. “And, in fact, it’s funny you say that, I saw a Big Ten game, in the locker room as we were leaving, highlights, and it was the end of the game and a guy jumped on someone on the last play of the game and did a little of this right here (gave an opponent a forearm). Now is that a non-football act? It probably is, so that may be turned in and see what happens.”
I find it very comical that Hope felt Rodriguez was responsible for the suspension. News flash: Reckman, who punched an opponent, was responsible for getting suspended, not Rodriguez. Considering there was so much made over Jonas Mouton getting suspended the week before, you can bet that Reckman would have been suspended regardless of whether or not Rodriguez said anything. And what’s even more comical is that Rodriguez didn’t even mention a specific player, a specific team, or a specific game when he made his comments about the precedent being set. Hope’s need to bitch about it in the postgame handshake the way he did just comes off as a really childish thing to do. Regardless of what was said, Reckman still punched an opposing player. It seems like Hope was trying to shift responsibility from his player to someone that had nothing to do with what happened.
In the grand scheme of things this whole incident was no big deal, but you can bet that everybody will be watching future postgame handshakes between Rodriguez and Hope.
- Rodriguez’s explanation for going for it on fourth down instead of kicking a field goal in the final quarter of the Purdue game was that he was concerned that the defense wasn’t going to make a stop.
- Here is an interesting stat from the game notes section on MGoBlue:
With his 55-yard kick return in the first quarter, sophomore receiver Darryl Stonum broke the U-M single-season record for kick returns and return yardage. He wrapped the game with 30 returns on the season for 803 yards, passing Steve Breaston in both categories. In 2004, Breaston tallied 689 yards on 28 returns.
The fact that Stonum has already had 30 returns in only 10 games says an awful lot about how bad the defense is, but he has definitely been a bright spot this year on special teams. Stonum is currently averaging about 2.1 yards a return more than Breaston, which is pretty amazing considering how great of a returner Breaston was.
- Wisconsin running back John Clay should play on Saturday. He left the Indiana game on Saturday at halftime with “signs of having a concussion.”
- In a recent interview on WJR, Dave Brandon was asked about the Michigan athletic director job, and his answer was basically that he likes the job he currently has with Domino’s, but he would be willing to listen if Michigan came calling.
- Another picture of the uniform Ohio State is going to wear against Michigan later this month has leaked out, and boy is it ugly. What’s even worse is the fact that the uniform is supposed to honor OSU’s 1954 team, yet it doesn’t even accurately represent the uniforms worn back then. That’s mainly because it is part of Nike’s “Pro Combat Uniforms” series, which is just one big combination of stupid-looking jerseys, pants, and helmets. This is exactly why I’m glad Michigan switched to adidas.
- Miami’s sweep of Michigan in hockey this past weekend was the first time the Wolverines were swept at Yost since 2001.
- Zack Novak is the first Michigan basketball player in the Ross School of Business since Chris Hunter.
