No doubt after leading Orchard Lake St. Mary's to the state title game twice in his high school career, Robert Bolden made the decision to sign with Penn State dreaming he'd go to Happy Valley, replace Daryll Clark and lead the Nittany Lions to a Big Ten title.

Forget the fact that the venerable Joe Paterno hasn't started a true freshman QB in nearly two decades.

No, literally — forget it.

Despite the fact that Bolden appeared the odd man out, experience-wise, in a four-man competition at QB for Penn State, his competition recently narrowed by one, as the PSU coaching staff informed U.S. Army All-American Paul Jones — the star of the spring game after enrolling early — that he'd be redshirted, reported the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

That leaves Bolden, sophomore Kevin Newsom and redshirt sophomore Matt McGloin in the battle. According the the Post-Gazette's Ron Musselman, Bolden has been the most impressive QB in camp, despite his relative inexperience, and currently has a better grasp of the offense than Jones.

There's just over three weeks left before the Nittany Lions open the season vs. Youngstown State, but the door has been cracked for a pair of true freshman from this state — Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez admitted it was still "possible" for Devin Gardner to be the other — to start the season under center.

Big Ten Network analysts Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith have already called the race, predicting Bolden to be the Week One starter.

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez thinks his Wolverines should be improved in his third year at the helm. Coming off back-to-back losing seasons, and having gone through an NCAA investigation that found the first major infractions in the history of the program, they had better be. Rodriguez says he doesn't feel any extra urgency, despite the hot seat he's on, and doesn't want any of the difficulties to affect his players. "All that other stuff, I told them 'Let me handle it,'" he said Monday. He also knows that there's one quick way to get rid of all the scrutiny. "Winning cures a lot of things," he said with a grin. "I've been told that a lot of times."

There wasn't a whole lot of shock when former University of Michigan head football coach Lloyd Carr announced Tuesday he was retiring from his emeritus position as an assistant athletic director at the school, effective in September.

I guess the only surprise in the situation was that he didn't outlast his successor as head coach, Rich Rodriguez.

And therein lies the problem.

Every time Carr's name came up in the last two and a half years, so did Rodriguez's. Every time Carr appeared at a U-M function, the questions were asked. How is RichRod doing? Do you like him? Is there a rift? What's happening to the program?

The two men became inextricably linked.

For Carr — who during his tenure as U-M's coach had a cautious relationship with the media (not 'strained,' by any means, nor 'rocky,' 'tenuous' or 'volatile' ... just 'cautious') — landing what essentially became a PR job, and a PR job doing spin-control for someone else, became an untenable situation. If not entirely open and candid with the media (like his fellow Northern Michigan University alumnus and coaching contemporary up the road in East Lansing, Tom Izzo, could be termed), Carr was always at the very least sincere in his dealings with the media. Lloyd wasn't going to overshare, but he also wasn't going to spin you. Always a man of integrity, you knew that Carr wasn't going to massage the truth in an answer he gave you. He'd be more likely just not to answer.

So when he landed the cushy assistant AD job after his retirement from coaching, a job that had no real, defined duties — other than shaking some hands, making a few appearances at golf outings and charity events — Carr was probably expecting to be able to fade into the sunset. At bare minimum, I'm sure he was expecting a break from the hounding.

Instead, it just got worse.

Never truly comfortable with the scrutiny and questioning while he was head coach, Carr seemed less comfortable when the questions he was bombarded with were about someone else's program.
And the thing that kept those questions coming was Carr's continued association with the school he'd given 30 years of service to.

It's no surprise that he got sick of the situation pretty quickly.

And it's no surprise that he took the high road, and simply decided to remove himself from the situation.

Hopefully this retirement will bring Carr more of the peace and quiet he was hoping for the first time around.

All spring long, University of Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez has noted how dedicated a student of the game that his early-enrollee freshman quarterback Devin Gardner has turned out to be.

Apparently the Oak Park youngster is a pretty good student of ... well, academics. Gardner posted on Twitter Friday that his GPA for his first college semester was a robust 3.7.

Solid spring practice performance has put the five-star prospect securely in the quarterback equation come fall camp, but continued hard work in the classroom — both for football and for his regular course load — could have Gardner breathing down the necks of sophomores Tate Forcier (who started every game last year) and Denard Robinson (who made tremendous progress this spring).

NOTE: This column first appeared in The Oakland Press' print edition on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010.

ANN ARBOR — However you want to look at it, the 2010 recruiting class for Michigan could go down as either the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end.

Amidst all the happiness of signing an enormous class of 27 players — one that coach Rich Rodriguez called the biggest he’d ever had — there was as much a note of caution coming out of Wednesday’s National Signing Day news conference.

Yes, the Wolverines’ haul earned them another consensus top 20 class nationally.

Yes, this group of athletic speedsters more fits the style that the Rodriguez’s Wolverines want to play on offense and NEED to play on defense.

Yes, the fact that nearly two-thirds of those recruits are on defense, allowing the U-M staff to replenish a badly-depleted corps that had allowed the second-most points in school history last year — then lost its two best players.

Yes, the early enrollment of seven of the players — including the nation’s best all-purpose quarterback in Inkster’s Devin Gardner — will give U-M another jump-start on building depth across the board before spring practice is even over.

And, yes, Rodriguez — whose voice was hoarse from weeks of non-stop phone calls — lived up to his reputation as a closer by keeping one key recruit who was wavering right up until Wednesday morning, then trumping that by adding a much-sought-after safety prospect shortly thereafter.

But no, not everything is hunky-dory ... not yet.

Coming off the worst two consecutive seasons since the 1960s — 3-9 and 5-7 — the Wolverines needed a strong recruiting effort, but it wasn’t easy, considering the lack of success they’ve had so far under Rodriguez. It’s been a rougher start than most people expected.

“It’s tougher than if you won a national championship, no question. I’ve been on both ends. If you’re on this end, you know, we’ve gotten a little bit better, so you can see progress, but I think you can also sell opportunity,” the embattled head coach admitted. “As I tell coaches, you’re not really selling. Sometimes it looks like salesmanship. I heard one time, you’re not really selling anything, you’re just giving people what they want. Maybe I sound like a salesman, to tell you that.”

What people want — at least people not named Bill Martin (the outgoing AD) and Mary Sue Coleman (U-M’s president) — is wins. If Rodriguez can use this recruiting class — truly just his second full class of his own — to get things righted on the field, there may be a chance that he outlives lame-duck status when incoming AD David Brandon takes over in the fall.

If not, Brandon likely won’t hesitate to change the recipe, like he did when he was still the CEO of Domino’s Pizza.

You’d think that a coach dangling in the wind as much as Rodriguez is wouldn’t take chances on kids with red-flag character issues, especially since he’s still got a pending NCAA investigation — you remember the whole practice fiasco from late last summer — hanging over his head. Nothing is an easier excuse to fire an underperforming coach than off-the-field issues.

Yet, here was Rodriguez on Wednesday, getting red in the face defending that late addition to his recruiting class, four-star Lauderdale Lakes (Fla.) safety Demar Dorsey, who had reported run-ins with the law as a prep star. And it’s not the first time Rodriguez has taken a leap of faith on a kid with a checkered past — either here or at West Virginia, where he had a penchant for recruiting kids like the much-vilified Pat Lazear and eventual NFL miscreant Pacman Jones.

“All I want to say is that, every guy we sign, we do our research on, as well. I think sometimes people are too quick to judge something they read on the Internet, and I think that’s dangerous to do that. I don’t think it’s fair to the young man and his family to pass judgment before you know the whole story,” Rodriguez said.

“I get a little upset when people have labeled ... ‘Aw, coach, you’ll bring this guy or that guy in.’ ... Unfortunately, you’ll have guys that disappoint you, make a mistake. We’ve had a couple that have come and make a mistake. God forbid they make a mistake, but unfortunately they did, and you have to have discipline, you have to enforce it. ... I think generally, for the most part, our guys have behaved pretty well. ...
“There’s nobody on this football team that we would sign that has a felony conviction, or there’s nobody on this football team that we would sign that has a misdemeanor conviction. So you have to look at the whole story, before you pass judgment. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”

The whole story isn’t written yet on Rodriguez’s tenure at Michigan. He’ll have the fall to prove — once and for all — that his system will work, if equipped with the right parts.

And members of this recruiting class will have to be a big part of that. Of the five defensive backs, it’s likely that at least two will have to start. The new defensive linemen will have to try to collectively fill the huge shoes of the graduated Brandon Graham, a likely first-round pick in April’s NFL draft.

Is this class good enough to do that?

Even Rodriguez was hesitant to say that.

“I’m a little a little bit reluctant, like most coaches are — everybody wants to rank a recruiting class, or put a stigma or something on guys coming in. Really — and this sounds like coachspeak — you really need to wait a couple years and then determine how good the class is,” he said. “I’ve had recruiting classes before that weren’t ranked anywhere in the top 25 or 30, and they end up leading the team to a top-five ranking in the country, and winning a BCS bowl, so I think you have to be careful about all that.”

Problem is, Rich, you may not HAVE a couple of years.

When asked at his introductory news conference if he'd bring along any Michigan State recruits — likely by an overzealous (or hopeful) Central Michigan fan — new Chippewa head coach Dan Enos ripped off a quick response: "I don't recruit other people's commits."

He did, however, qualify that he "had a good idea where all the uncommitted players were."

After only three full weeks on the job Enos has proven that to be more than true.

While coaches at programs like MSU, where Enos helped assemble a star-studded list of commitments, and U-M, where Rich Rodriguez is recruiting for his life, the last 48 hours before Signing Day are just for polishing a largely settled assemblage of talent, and maybe adding a cherry on top, it's different for a guy like Enos. Battling attrition the whole way — CMU's top-ranked recruit, Montague QB Cody Kater, decommitted, along with Southfield WR Montrel Robinson and Ohio ATH Dwight Macon — Enos has more than held the ship together for this year's recruiting. He's scrapped to find adequate replacements for those players who were headed there more for the coach than the school (and now are gone), plus added a few cherry pick-ups of his own.

Since taking the reins of the CMU program on Jan. 12, Enos has picked up five new commitments, three of them in the last five days. Novi Detroit Catholic Central ILB Michael Kinville — a tackling machine who anchored the Shamrocks' state-championship defense — signed on last Thursday, followed by speedy Grand Rapids JC cornerback Anthony Hollis on Sunday, and Lancaster (Pa.) Catholic QB Kyle Smith on Monday. While Kater led Montague to two state titles, the pro-style Smith hails from the cradle of QBs — Western Pennsylvania — and finished as the state's career record-holder for pass yards and TDs, ahead of the state's luminary alumni like Joe Montana. (Not a bad addition, when you're trying to replace a record-setting QB like Dan LeFevour, who's on his way to the NFL after finishing as the Offensive MVP in the Senior Bowl over the weekend).

Those three added to a pair of earlier commits brought in by Enos: Inkster WR Deon Butler (who joins teammate Johnathan Taylor in heading to Mount Pleasant) and safety Avery Cunningham of Winton Woods HS in Cincinnati.

The quintet of new additions gives CMU 20 potential signees, heading into Wednesday's Signing Day festivities.

Enos' old employer, Michigan State, had been stuck on 20 since adding two-star DB Darqueze Dennard from Georgia midweek last week, but tacked on one more Monday, getting a commitment from Kinville's Shamrock teammate Niko Palazeti, Catholic Central's battering-ram running back.

Michigan has been quiet for a week, as well, holding out hope of adding one or more of three four-star defensive backs to a class that already has 26 bodies in it. U-M is waiting for last-minute decisions from S Sean Parker, CB Rashad Knight and S Demar Dorsey to round out a class that started with skill-position players on offense, and has finished strong with defensive quality and quantity.

UPDATE: Knight chose Rutgers over Michigan early Tuesday morning.

Eastern Michigan added a third OL to its still-small class of reported commits, nabbing Lincoln Hansen from Cornhusker country in Omaha, Neb., on Monday.

For those interested in all things recruiting — and that's probably you, if you've gotten this far in this post — the Big Ten Network will be airing a 90-minute show, starting at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Check The Oakland Press print edition on Thursday for a full list of all the local signees, as well as who officially signed on with each of Michigan's five Division I-A programs, and check back on this blog for full analysis in the days to follow.

While some disgruntled Michigan fans might have hoped that college football coaching carousel might carry off a Wolverine coach or two, or that the recent hiring of a new AD-to-be in David Brandon might signal a housecleaning, no such luck just yet.

After Brandon gave a relatively solid endorsement to the Rich Rodriguez staff on his hiring, both Rodriguez and his longtime right-hand man, offensive coordinator Calvin Magee, have both been linked to job openings.

Magee interviewed (a fact confirmed by the Tampa Tribune) for the vacant position at South Florida, where his one-time boss, Jim Leavitt, was fired. Magee was on the initial staff at USF when it started football in 1997, but the odds-on candidate appears to be East Carolina head coach Skip Holtz, who admitted mutual interest from the school.

After Lane Kiffin's abrupt departure from Tennessee, Rodriguez himself was briefly linked to the opening as a possible target — then again, who HASN'T been? — but his agent, Mike Brown, denied the rumor when contacted by The Detroit News on Wednesday.

Unless something odd happens, it appears the RichRod era at U-M will get its third year.

There are a few arrivals to Ann Arbor, however.

The Wolverines got a head-start on preparations for the 2010 season when six commits enrolled early, and started class at the semester break. Ann Arbor wide receivers Jeremy Jackson (Huron) and Ricardo Miller (Pioneer) were among the players getting a jump-start, joined by Livonia Stevenson RB Austin White, RB Stephen Hopkins of Flower Mound, Texas; OL Christian Pace of Avon Lake, Ohio; and WR Jerald Robinson of Canton, Ohio.