He tried to do his best but he could not.

Well, it wasn’t
supposed to go
down that way.
But they burned his brother,
you know,
And they left him lying
in the driveway.
They let him down with nothin’.

— Neil Young, “Tired Eyes”

I’ve been out of pocket most of the day, so I didn’t catch up to the Justin Feagin story until this afternoon, but, Holy Mother of Crap, it makes for one sordid tale.

Feagin’s downfall started with a cocaine deal, detailed in U-M Department of Public Safety police reports. The coke deal ended with a U-M dorm room on fire, a fellow student headed for jail and Feagin back home in Florida.

That’s a lot going on in a two-sentence paragraph.   And it’s hard to see how some of this mess doesn’t wind up sticking to the people who thought it was a good idea to admit Feagin to Ann Arbor in the first place.

… Feagin came to Michigan as part of Rodriguez’s first recruiting class. He has admitted to dealing drugs and being arrested twice (for battery and trespass) when he was in high school, according to police reports.

That’s one helluva job with the due diligence, Coach.  Stuff like that comes back to bite you in the ass if you don’t start winning big quickly enough.

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Monday morning buffet

Might be a two cups of coffee day out there…

• I love the smell of Penn State in the morning.
• Aaannd… a pony.
• This strikes me as much less of a story than people are making it out to be.
• Because things never really change with the OBC:  “We’re not afraid to demote them quickly.”
• Mack Brown’s decided he’s a bigger man than the BCS.
• Which makes complete sense after reflecting on the logic to this tweet.
• Over at Saurian Sagacity, Mergz takes a look at what it takes to be a BCS title winner, statistically speaking.

New, improved Mumme Poll – now, with more blogging action!

I promised to keep you abreast of  the tweaks and developments being made to the Mumme Poll for this season.  So here’s something new for everyone to chew on.

No, we’re not adding a preseason poll.

Instead, we’ll be adding several voices to the commentary once the ballots start flowing, for the purpose of spicing up the content for you.  That’s right, each week along with my keen insight that kept almost half of our voters engaged in the process last year, you’ll also be hearing from this motley crew of college football blogging gurus:

• Tidefan and Oskie, of 3rd Saturday in Blogtober
• Chris Brown, of Smart Football
• David Hale, of Bulldogs Blog
• Jerry Hinnen, of The Joe Cribbs Car Wash
• Michael Elkon, of Braves and Birds
• Jason, of Eleven Warriors
• Kevin HD, of Black Shoe Diaries
• Mergz, of Saurian Sagacity
• Ed Gunther, of The National Championship Issue
• Kevan Lee, of One Bronco Nation Under God

Seriously, that’s an impressive bunch who should give you a lot to look forward to.  There’s a good variety of allegiances and perspectives represented there.  Somebody’s bound to get under your skin sooner or later.

The plan is for the group to post their poll-inspired thoughts with each weekly ballot.  You’ll certainly be given the opportunity to respond.  All in all, it should lead to some lively debate on the subject, which is all we can ask.

There will be more news about the poll and the new site that I’ll post here as we get closer and closer to the launch point.  Rest assured that Tidefan will have the setup in place prior to the fifth week of the season, so that you’ll have plenty of time to register and we can go through one practice vote (as we did last year) to make sure the process functions properly.  Stay tuned.

GTP’s recruit of the year

This is one paragraph of awesomeness from Tennessee’s newest commitment, Westlake linebacker Michael Taylor:

“It’s a beautiful city,” he said. “It’s a college town but it has life. It’s not dead with cow pastures and horses all around it. It has a city; it has something I can do. It’s a great place. I’m from California. I’m not trying to go to the middle of nowhere. I’m used to the city life. So Knoxville is a great place for Michael Taylor to be.”

There’s nothing like a seventeen-year old referring to himself in the third person.  He’s got Volunteer written all over him.