Michigan Wolverine head coach Rich Rodriquez doesn't make sense.  

The A.P. is reporting that Rich Rodriguez didn’t know about Justin Feagin's previous run-ins with the law, namely the drug dealing.  According to this news story which just posted almost 2 hours ago, "as soon as [Rodriguez] found out quarterback Justin Feagin was getting into trouble off the field he was dismissed from the team."

However, Feagin was kicked off the team last month for off-field trouble but Rodriguez insists that he didn't know about was reported in the Detroit Free Press yesterday:

"The Free Press reported — first on freep.com Sunday night and then in today’s print editions — that coach Rich Rodriguez dismissed Feagin after he admitted to U-M police his role in a botched cocaine deal. Feagin also admitted to police that he sold drugs and had been arrested twice (for battery and trespass) while in high school in Florida. The coke deal ended with a U-M dorm room on fire, another student headed for jail and Feagin back home in Deerfield, Fla."

So what did Rodriguez kick him off the team for?  What am I missing?

This Rodriquez person doesn't know what he's doing, and like himself the team will be inconsisten

A follow-up

When Rich Rodriguez dismissed the sophomore receiver Justin Feagin from the team in July, it did not make much news nationally. But that was before it was reported that a cocaine deal was the reason that Feagin is no longer with the Wolverines. In the wake of that, Athletic Director Bill Martin has said that he will take a “very serious look” at the Wolverines’ recruiting process.

Rodriguez said that as soon as it was found out that Feagin was involved in a cocaine deal, he was dismissed from the team. (”That very instant,” Rodriguez said.) But Michael Rosenberg of The Detroit Free Press wonders if Rodriguez should have knownthat Feagin might have meant trouble for the Wolverines before that. He also mentions the case of Pat Lezear, whom Rodriguez signed to a letter of intent while at West Virginia, despite Lezear having been accused of being involved in an armed robbery while in high school.

Rosenberg writes:

No coach knows everything. But it is part of the coach’s job to know as much as he possibly can. And after the Lazear and Feagin incidents, people are going to ask questions.

Rodriguez said something else Monday that I found interesting:

“Trust me, no coach in America is going to want to take a guy that has baggage or that they think he is bad guy.”

Sorry, but that is laughably untrue. If you have followed college sports at all, you know that plenty of coaches will take guys with baggage if they think it will help them win.

Rich Rodriguez says he isn’t one of them. In time, we’ll find out if that’s true.

The Michigan-focused MGoBlog.com takes a different view of the situation, pointing out that Michigan had some players under Lloyd Carr who had trouble with the law. It also mentions that Lazear is on the academic honor roll at West Virginia and has not been in further trouble.

Michigan is coming off a 3-9 season in Rodriguez’s first year in Ann Arbor, and the pressure is certainly on to turn the program around. Has Rodriguez hurt himself by recruiting a player with the kind of off-the-field problems that Feagin had? Or is it merely a blip that will be forgotten, especially if the Wolverines start winning again?

Most guys with off the field issues never pan out, Lawrence Phillips, Maurice Clarett, etc. The only guy who did something wrong in college and really straightened himself out is Lavernius Coles, and the guy is a damn good receiver too. I don't know of too many other guys who went good after being bad.