xavier worthy

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The State of our NIL. Deeply ironic that Michael Rosenberg is the one to write a story on Michigan's NIL program after the whole Freep investigation thing—which portrayed a series of minor envelope-pushes from Rodriguez as a program that was violating NCAA regulations on countable hours by a factor of three—but since he did and it has some insight into the murkiest thing in college football, link grudgingly deployed. Sounds like whatever deficiencies led Hunter Dickinson to Kansas don't apply to football:

[Corum] bought two rental properties in his home state of Virginia and invested in an apartment complex in Michigan to “make sure I have that cash flow coming in on a regular basis.” As he points out: “A lot of kids leave college, and they don’t have any money. They just have debt.”

Corum did not give out an exact number but asserted he is "in the 1%." And since NIL cannot be used as a recruiting inducement you get a lot of up front promises that are not backed by binding contracts. The result:

“I have a lot of friends from different schools and different programs where they’re getting promised money up front, whether it’s the [transfer] portal or in recruiting, and when they get to the program, they’re just not getting what they were told,” Keegan says. “That’s causing a lot of problems in other locker rooms.”

Corum says he has friends at other schools who tell similar stories: “They’d never signed anything, so therefore, they didn’t get it.”

Keegan says he made 50-70k between the Big Ten championship game and TCU and expects to bring in low to mid six figures this year. As a guard! Who is the second best guard on the team!

Also in the Blake Corum, perfect human files:

[Edwards and Corum] have done joint autograph signings and have talked about building low-income housing together someday.

Blake Corum may have opinions about downtown FAR premiums.

[After THE JUMP: Mel Tucker items.]

Things discussed:

• Eli’s return and how it affects the rotation.
• Portal guys we might be looking at? Options have to be a cultural fit and be interested in a smaller role because unless it’s a star there isn’t 35 minutes to give away.
• Take a Chaundee if there is one but you can roll with what you’ve got. You’ve got 80 minutes at guard, 30 goes to Eli, which leaves you 50 to get out of Collins, Bufkin, Zeb, and maybe Barnes, or find a transfer.
• Sam: They might wait to see who doesn’t make it in the NBA. Brian: bench shooter.
• Maryland got their center and guard: are they good?
• Change at recruiting coordinator: Dudek to MissSt, Michigan gets Courtney Morgan. “Dudek certainly has a type and it’s weird as f—.”
• Courtney Morgan: great dude, gotta grab him if you can. Seth says Morgan’s like Hart/Bellamy in that he can survive a coaching change at the top.
• Strategy: load on on recruiting because the future’s going to be whatever comes after a rough year.
• Xavier Worthy: best friends on the team were Joe Milton and Giles Jackson, who aren’t saying great things about Michigan right now.

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]

You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream.

Segment two is available here. You can also watch the video here:

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Where else was he gonna go, prison?t

This one hurts badly:

Worthy intended to enroll early but could not for reasons that remain unclear. Rumor has it that Michigan, the institution, was a problem. Worthy then stuck it out but that didn't sit well, and now he's out the door. Whether it was coaching turnover or player departures that made the decision is unknown.

This is a major own-goal for the football program and a depressing way to lose a guy who may be the fastest dude in the country.

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