Stuck in the grip of the three-game losing skid that followed the perfect 5-0 start, the Michigan Wolverines (5-3, 1-3 Big Ten) are still seeking their sixth win of the season to become bowl eligible. The chances to do that are beginning to dwindle. The number of winnable games left on the schedule — shoot, the number of games period — is going down quickly. With only one home game left after Saturday — and that against Wisconsin — it's becoming imperative that the Wolverines take care of business in this week's game against Illinois.

Join me for a live chat from Saturday's showdown for state supremacy, as No. 17 Michigan State (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten) visits No. 18 Michigan (5-0, 1-0), featuring the one-man gang, Denny (Denard Robinson) and his jets, against the ground green rushing attack of Edwin Baker, Le'Veon Bell and Larry Caper. If you don't want to listen to former Lions president/GM Matt Millen call the game on ABC, and aren't partisan enough to enjoy either radio broadcast — MSU's Jim Miller and George Blaha on WJR-AM (760), or U-M's Jim Brandstatter and Frank Beckmann on WOMC-FM (104.3) — then feel free to log on here for unbiased analysis. Or if you're a bit more partisan, and want to stop by with some trash talking, feel free to do that, as well.

Join me for a live chat from Michigan Stadium, as the Minutemen of the University of Massachusetts visit the Big House to play the No. 20-ranked Wolverines and quarterback sensation Denard Robinson.

ANN ARBOR — This offseason, Mike Martin has been asked countless times who’s going to shoulder the load on the defensive line, now that Big Ten and two-time team MVP Brandon Graham has moved on to the NFL.

Every time, the junior nose tackle from Novi Detroit Catholic Central gives a very politically savvy answer, ascribing the unit’s ongoing success to group effort and improved depth.

Privately, though, it’s clear that Martin is just happy that he’ll personally be able to shoulder anything comfortably this fall.

The junior-to-be had offseason surgery on a shoulder that had bothered him since his freshman season, and is now finally pain-free.

“My freshman year, I hurt it initially, and the trainers just thought that if I rehabbed it, got strong, stayed in the weight room, it’d be fine. But every game, it would bother me,” said Martin, who still started all 12 games for the Wolverines a year ago.

“It was to the point where it would affect my tackling ability. If you can’t tackle playing defensive tackle, you know, what are you gonna do? So I was just trying to stick through the pain. I was probably playing at 80 percent some games.”

Something had to be done.

“It was something after the season that we talked about with my family and the trainers, and I took account of what (team physician) Dr. (Bruce) Miller had to say, and he kind of laid it out for me. Pretty much said it’s up to me in the end,” Martin said. “So I felt like it would be good for me to do it, since I felt that it did affect me a great amount last year.”

The surgery cost him all of spring practice, but has paid huge dividends now.

“This year, I feel great — 100 percent ... 110 percent. I feel great, so I’m really excited about this year,” said Martin, admitting he was a bit hesitant when he first stepped back on the field. “It was kind of weird. The first few days of camp, I was kind of like ... not afraid, but kind of like ‘Ah, man, I hope this holds up.’ Because you don’t know. First day of hitting, I was like ‘I haven’t felt it all day yet.’ I was expecting to feel something, but I went to the trainers, and was like, ‘Man, I didn’t feel anything. Woooo. It feels good to play healthy.’ ”

It’s a feeling he really hasn’t had since high school.

A three-sport all-stater in high school at Catholic Central — winning state titles in shot put and wrestling, and the 2007 Gatorade Player of the Year award for Michigan in football — Martin made an immediate impact for U-M, earning freshman All-American honors, leading all U-M freshmen with 20 tackles, adding a pair of sacks.

He contributed 51 tackles, 8.5 for loss, and two sacks last year, as well, but — with the exception of the Wisconsin game — didn’t dominate like his ridiculous weight room numbers would dictate. (Martin was one of the players singled out in the ESPN.com survey of the Big Ten’s top workout warriors, along with center David Molk, for his 505-pound bench press and 700-pound squat.)

Much of that was because he was playing one-armed for the entirety of his sophomore season.

That’ll change, now that the shoulder’s fixed.

Head coach Rich Rodriguez called Martin the team’s most consistent defensive player in camp, and strength and conditioning coach Mike Barwis has called him “most impressive physical specimens” he’s ever seen.

“I take pride with coach Barwis, of being in great shape. We ran five 50s after our Beanie Bowl, and the defensive line was making them 15 seconds before our time. We’re in great shape, and I think we’ll be able to go for the long run, during the games,” Martin said. “I’m definitely ready. Last year, I think Brandon Graham played just under 700 plays on the season, and I played six plays less than him. So, you know, I was out there pretty much any time he was out there, and I was used to be out there 60 plays out of a game. So I’m ready for that workload. But I have (backups in) Adam Patterson and Will Campbell that I have great confidence in, that if I need a blow — a breather, they’re going to come in and step up.”

While Martin is plenty gregarious, that’s more how he’ll lead — by example, rather than with his mouth.

“I’m not much of a talker, a who-rah guy. I just go out there and play hard. Every now and then, (I) just talk to guys on the sideline, stuff like that,” said Martin, noting the youngsters on defense — particularly in the secondary — won’t need a pep-talk about how critical their play will be in Saturday’s opener against UConn.

“I think they know that, but I think if I was to say something to them before the game, it would be to calm them down a little bit, because I remember how I was my first game ever here. Emotions are running, and this is a big game, there’s gonna be a lot of people here,” Martin said. “Just get them calmed down a bit. Playing secondary you can’t play as riled up as playing D-line. You’ve gotta calm down a little bit back there.”

Matthew B. Mowery covers colleges for The Oakland Press. E-mail him at

matt.mowery@oakpress.com and follow him on Twitter

@matthewbmowery.

 

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."

In his third year as the head coach of the storied University of Michigan men's swimming and diving program, Mike Bottom continues to remake the Wolverines' roster in his own image, but the image isn't really all that unfamiliar.

Despite all the new faces he's brought in with the last two recruiting classes — 14 last year and 20 more this year, in a class that was ranked the nation's best by CollegeSwimming.com — a lot of those faces are very familiar around here, as nearly half of this year's class are from the state, and a handful of those are from right here in Oakland County.

And the results are just as familiar. Led by two-time national champion Tyler Clay (400 IM), last year's eight-man senior class led the Wolverines — who've lost just one dual meet in two seasons under Bottom — to a runner-up finish at the Big Ten Championships and a seventh-place finish at the NCAA meet, extending the program's streak of top-10 finishes to a full decade.

Bottom wasn't simply trying to replace quality with quantity, though, as he nabbed the No. 3-ranked recruit in the nation (Indiana's Kyle Whitaker, the national high school record-holder in the 200 IM), along with the top recruit in Arizona (John Wojciechowski) and the No. 2 recruit in both Washington (D'Voreaux Cann) and Michigan (Grandville's Eric Wynalda).

In all, the nine Michiganders in the class combined to win six MHSAA state titles in individual or relay events this spring, including one apiece by South Lyon's Adam Oxner (100 breaststroke in D-1) and Walled Lake Northern's Riley Cole (100 butterfly in D-2).

Bottom's yet-to-be-hired diving coach will have six new divers to work with, four of them from this state. Lake Orion's Chris Fraga took ninth at the MHSAA D-1 meet this spring, while NISCA All-American Chris Ervasti of Madison Heights Lamphere — the county dive champ in 2008 and '09 — was third at the MHSAA D-3 meet.

Jonathon Ekleberry, a Rochester Adams grad who swam for Auburn Hills Avondale as a freshman and sophomore before concentrating solely on club swimming with the Oakland Live Y'ers, signed on with the class in the fall. He was ranked the No. 6 recruit in the state by CollegeSwimming.com, giving the recruiting class five of the state's top 20 recruits, according to the website.

"We are really happy with the additions to the Michigan swimming and diving program with this group of men," Bottom said in a press release announcing the class in May. "We added more depth to both our swimming and diving teams while keeping the top talent in the state of Michigan from leaving."

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.

ANN ARBOR — Considering how infrequently Super Regional underdogs have been able to pull upsets in the NCAA softball tournament, historically speaking, most considered it just a matter of time before No. 2 seed Michigan sent 15th-seeded Tennessee packing.

The Wolverines did send the Volunteers packing, indeed — packing for an unexpected trip to the Women’s College World Series, after the Vols pulled off a stunning, two-game sweep of host U-M, clinching it with Friday’s 4-3 win.

After the game, the young Volunteers even joked about buying a new set of footwear for co-coach Ralph Weekly to pack: a pair of slippers.

“People were saying when we came up here, we were a Cinderella team, you know, and I told our kids today, if we’re a Cinderella team, let’s put on that gold slipper, or silver slipper, and let’s go to the dance,” said Weekly, whose team put Michigan on the edge of elimination with a 5-0 win in Game 1 of the best-of-three series on Thursday.

Now, the Volunteers (47-13) are the first of eight teams to punch their tickets for Oklahoma City, while the Wolverines (49-8) are just packing for home.



For the rest of the story, click here.

ANN ARBOR — A 35-game home winning streak came to a crashing end for the No. 2-ranked University of Michigan softball team, as Tennessee freshman Ivy Renfroe nearly no-hit the Wolverines in Thursday’s NCAA Super Regional opener.

The Wolverines (49-7) didn’t crack the hit column until the seventh inning, and were shut out for the first time all year, falling 5-0 to the Volunteers (45-13), who now control the best-of-three series.
Tennessee can get a knockout in Game 2 today at 4:30 p.m. (ESPNU), while Michigan would have to win two straight today to make its 10th appearance in the Women’s College World Series.

The Vols got three unearned runs in the top of the third, as an error on a grounder to Maggie Viefhaus at third opened the floodgates. U-M junior Jordan Taylor allowed just four hits and struck out 10, but was stuck with four unearned runs.

Dorian Shaw’s single down the left-field line broke up the no-hitter in the seventh. Amanda Chidester beat out an infield hit to put a pair of runners on, but Renfroe got a foul fly and a groundout to wrap up the shutout.

Michigan’s last loss at Wilpon Softball Complex was to Virginia Tech on the second day of the 2008 Super Regional.

Even with the other game going to extra innings, No. 2-ranked Michigan (49-6) only had to wait mere minutes after its regional-clinching win over Notre Dame to find out who it would face in next weekend's Super Regional. No. 15 Tennessee (42-13) finished off Louisville in eight innings Sunday, earning a trip to Ann Arbor for the best-of-three series to contest one of eight spots in the Women's College World Series.

(For the full story of the Wolverines winning their seventh straight regional title, click here.)

In a rematch of the 2006 Super Regional — and in somewhat of a makeup for the rained out opener from this season — Michigan and Tennessee will play at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (televised on ESPN) and at 4:30 p.m. on Friday (ESPNU), with the third game later Friday, if necessary.

Tickets go on sale at the U-M ticket office on Tuesday for season ticket holders and Wednesday for the general public.

After a questionable start to play Friday at its own NCAA Division I softball regional, No. 2-ranked Michigan left no questions about anything when play resumed Saturday, closing out a pair of dominant wins that put the Wolverines (48-6) into today’s regional title game.

Michigan will face Notre Dame, the winner of Saturday’s finale in the loser’s bracket, again at 1 p.m., needing just one win to advance to the super regional round. A rematch would be played at 3:30 p.m., should U-M lose the first game.

The way the Wolverines played on Friday — when Wright State took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third — it might be possible. The way the Wolverines play from there on out, it appears unlikely that game will be necessary.

Michigan battered the Raiders for eight runs in the bottom of the third — sandwiched around a pair of weather delays — then finished off the win in just six innings, by tacking on three runs in the resumption on Saturday. Nikki Nemitz (21-3) finished what she’d started, not allowing a hit in three innings Saturday morning.

Jordan Taylor (25-3) picked up where Nemitz left off, striking out 11 in a three-hit, five-inning shutout of a Notre Dame squad that came into the tournament leading the nation in batting average. Nemitz and Maggie Viefhaus both had three-run home runs in the win.

Tournament bracket
Division I softball regional at Ann Arbor
Friday’s games
G1: Notre Dame 1, Illinois St. 0 (8 inn.)
G2: Michigan vs. Wright State (suspended, rain)
Saturday’s games
G2: Michigan 11, Wright State 2 (6 inn.)
G3: Michigan 8, Notre Dame 0 (5 inn.)
G4: Wright State 10, Illinois State 8
G5: Notre Dame 6, Wright State 5
Sunday’s games
G6: Michigan vs. Notre Dame, 1 p.m.
G7: G6 winner vs. G6 loser, 3:30 p.m.*
* — if necessary

In an attempt to beat the rain predicted for Friday evening, organizers at the NCAA softball regional in Ann Arbor (hosted by the University of Michigan) decided to move up Friday's game schedule by two hours.

The top-seeded Wolverines will now play Wright State at 5 p.m., following the regional opener between second-seeded Notre Dame and Illinois State at 2:30 p.m.

Follow all the results from the double-elimination tournament here and at www.TheOaklandPress.com.

The NCAA gave the Michigan 90 days to respond to its notice of allegations against its football program sent out in late February and, with that time rapidly running out, new athletic director David Brandon said the school will send in its response next Monday (May 24), outlining its plan for self-imposed sanctions.


"We want there to be total transparency," Brandon told ESPN.com Monday at the Big Ten spring meetings of coaches and ADs. "Within 24 hours after the material has been delivered to the [Committee on Infractions], we're going to make them available to the general public. You'll have the responses, you'll have the self-imposed penalties, sanctions, that we believe are appropriate."


The NCAA alleged that the U-M program exceeded limits on practice time, as well as stipulations on coaches involved in workouts. 


Tuesday's public revelation of the school's answer to those allegations will just be the next step in the process, but isn't necessarily the end of the road for U-M. Officials will have to appear in front of the Committee on Infractions in August, where further sanctions could be laid down.

It's never too early to start recruiting for next season — and a little over three weeks after National Signing Day for 2010 had concluded, Michigan already has three commitments for 2011, the latest coming from Birmingham Seaholm's Shawn Conway.

The 6-foot-4 junior wideout was offered a scholarship at Michigan's Junior Day Saturday, and he accepted, joining a recruiting class that already includes Cass Tech's Delonte Hollowell and Greg Brown of Ross, Ohio — both defensive backs.

For more on Conway's decision to commit to the Wolverines, read Scott Burnstein's prep notebook in Monday's edition of The Oakland Press, and check back on his Burney's Bytes blog on TheOaklandPress.com for updates.

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.

There's no mistaking the weird little love-hate triangle between the football programs at Michigan State, Cincinnati and Central Michigan.

It started with Mark Dantonio leaving Cincy to coach at MSU. Spurned by MSU in its coaching search, Brian Kelly went from CMU to replace Dantonio at Cincinnati. When Kelly left Cincy for Notre Dame before the Bearcats' bowl game this year, the Cincinnati hierarchy again robbed CMU, grabbing Butch Jones as Kelly's replacement. CMU, in turn, took Dan Enos — who'd been a Dantonio assistant at Cincy, then MSU — as its new head coach.

And it hasn't stopped with just coaches.

First there was the whole tiff about Trevor Anderson's transfer from Cincy to MSU, to follow Dantonio, when Kelly showed his stubborn side, to get even with MSU.

Now defensive end Jibreel Black, a Cincinnati native, has started the triangle spinning again. He initially committed to his hometown Bearcats, then re-opened his recruitment when Kelly left to coach in South Bend. Black took a recruiting visit to MSU two weekends ago, appeared to recommit to UC, then took a visit to Ann Arbor this past weekend, giving a verbal to the Wolverines after the weekend. Since Black had initially given a verbal to Indiana, then switched to Cincinnati, and now U-M, it's fair to say it's probably not a done deal until he actually inks a National Letter of Intent on Feb. 3.

While the numbers for U-M's class went up with the addition of the three-star recruit, CMU's went down over the weekend, when one of its key commits — Montague QB Cody Kater — decided to renege on his earlier statements that he'd stick with CMU. Instead, he chose to follow Jones to Cincinnati, giving the Bearcats a verbal commitment on Sunday.

He'll hardly be the lone Michigander on the Bearcats' roster next year. After leaving CMU, Kelly kept the pipelines open to Southeast Michigan (much to the chagrin of Cincinnati-area prep coaches), nabbing players like Marine City QB Brendon Kay by continuing to work the contacts he'd made over the years as he built Grand Valley and then Central.

Last year's roster had a dozen players from Michigan on it, including a slew from suburban Detroit. Safety Aaron Webster (Birmingham Groves) was the lone returning starter on defense to start the historic season, while Southfield-Lathrup grad Chris Jurek was the starting center. A year earlier, John Goebel (Milford/Birmingham Brother Rice) led the Bearcats in rushing TDs. It's almost a given that Jones will continue to pillage Michigan to supplement to the fertile recruiting ground he now finds himself in.

Outside the drama, Michigan State also added to its strong recruiting class, nabbing three-star DT Anthony White from Fort Scott, Kan., while Western Michigan continued to add Florida players, with West Palm Beach safety Johnnie Simon.

It's not uncommon for two teams to come out of a single game with a huge win at this point in January.

With big-time football recruits often sitting court-side, key basketball match-ups take on double importance as the Feb. 3 signing day gets closer.

Both U-M and MSU walked off the court with huge weekend hoops wins — MSU won a first-place showdown with Illinois Saturday, while U-M got a non-conference upset by knocking off No. 15 UConn on Sunday — but the two schools' football teams didn't leave the first recruiting weekend of the year empty, either.

• Mark Dantonio and the Spartans hosted a baker's dozen recruits for the weekend, and landed a verbal commitment from three-star linebacker Justin Wilson from Western High School in Davie, Fla.

Six more of the visitors were players who had already committed to MSU, which has the 34th-ranked class so far, according to Rivals.com. The Spartans lost out on two more of their weekend visitors — three-star Cinncinnati Wyoming DE Jibreel Black chose to stay in town, committing to the Bearcats, while Warren, Ohio, DB Mike Dorsey gave a verbal to West Virginia — MSU is still in the running for the final three players who came to East Lansing. Still uncommitted are a trio of three-star players: OL Alex Lewis, from Phoenix (offers from Air Force, Colorado, MSU and UNLV), OL Eric Franklin, of Youngstown, Ohio, Cardinal Mooney (Pitt, MSU, Purdue) and Chicago St. Rita DT Bruce Gaston Jr. (Purdue, MSU, Wisconsin).

Three more players are slated to come to East Lansing this weekend, including: Westland John Glenn ATH Jeremy Langford (already a verbal commit to MSU), Buford, Ga., DT Jerome Davis and DE Rashad Frazier of Middletown, Ohio.

• U-M had 10 players in for official visits this past weekend, and came away with a verbal commitment from Davion Rogers, a three-star linebacker from Warren (Ohio) Harding, who changed his choice Sunday from West Virginia to U-M. He joins high school teammate D.J. Williamson in the 2010 class for the Wolverines, which is ranked No. 19 by Rivals.com.

A day later, another weekend visitor — three-star linebacker Jake Ryan of Westlake (Ohio) St. Ignatius — gave his verbal to the Wolverines.

Bigger than those two grabs — which gives U-M four incoming linebackers and 13 of 26 commits (not counting those listed as athletes) on defense — was the news that the jewel of Rich Rodriguez's recruiting class, Inkster QB Devin Gardner was set to start classes on Tuesday as an early enrollee. Along with six other early enrollees, Gardner will have a leg up on the rest of the recruiting class, giving the nation's top dual-threat QB recruit a shot to truly compete for playing time, come the fall. While that's key at a position that's been in turmoil since Rodriguez hit Ann Arbor, it's just as important for another reason. It finally puts to rest all the rumors that Gardner, who committed last April, might be wavering on his choice, after another shaky U-M season on the field in the fall.

“I start on Tuesday,” Gardner told AnnArbor.com's David Birkett after the Michigan-UConn basketball game. “I don’t know what the holdup was, but it finally got done.”

• Western Michigan was the only one of the state's other three Division I schools to land a commitment after the weekend's visits. The Broncos added three-star RB Dareyon Chance of Ft. Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons to their class (No. 95-ranked class by Rivals) of 18. Coming off a disappointing, third-place finish in the Mid-American Conference's West Division, the Broncos have continued to depend on a haul of out-state recruits. Only four of WMU's 18 commits are from Michigan, headlined by Grand Rapids Junior College OT Marcus Cann.

• Eastern Michigan's winless season in its first year under former U-M defensive coordinator Ron English hasn't done anything to help recruiting, as the Eagles only had six known commits entering the weekend, according to Rivals. EMU did get some good news Monday, when Bellwood (Ill.) Proviso West WR Julius Shelby gave the Eagles a seventh commit on Rivals' list. Line coach Kurt Anderson has been the primary recruiter for more than half the Eagles' recruits so far, the former U-M lineman drawing on his ties in Illinois to bring in four players from his home state.

• On the job as CMU's head coach for just a little over a week, Dan Enos likely hasn't had time to do anything other than select his staff and try to hold onto CMU's current class. The most important of those committed players — QB Cody Kater, who led Montague to back-to-back MHSAA Division 6 titles — has initially said he's staying put. If the three-star QB — who will be in the running to replace record-setting Dan LeFevour — does sign with CMU, it'll be a testament to the continuing work of Enos and Max Glowacki, who was retained as the Chippewas' recruiting coordinator.

CMU's most recent additions were a pair of two-star teammates from Miami Southridge, ATH Jermaine Kelson and WR Lavaughn Whigham, giving No. 23-ranked CMU a class of 19, which is ranked No. 90 by Rivals. More important to CMU, however, is the fact that 12 of those players are in-state recruits. Like Butch Jones before him, it was expected that Enos' contract would have an incentive clause that pays a bonus every year that more than 60 percent of the CMU roster is from Michigan.