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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.]

Mel Tucker updates. Suspended without pay, went private on twitter, waiting approximately one month for his hearing. Released a statement…

…through his lawyer that references Jim Harbaugh for some reason and asserts that the "'hearing scheduled for October 5-6 is ridiculously flawed and not designed to arrive at the truth." Certainly reads like posturing to get his buyout because not even Mel Tucker is delusional enough to believe he's ever coaching another college football game.

Even if he's innocent, his conduct in the aftermath of the complaint being filed is obviously disqualifying (he said, ignoring Art Briles being on the field at Oklahoma):

During the interview, Tucker also made an explosive new allegation: He said his associate had told him that renowned ESPN investigative reporter Paula Lavigne was investigating the veracity of the gang-rape story at the heart of Tracy’s public persona. The information, Tucker said, made him question how Tracy “goes about her business.”

Veidlinger did not address this allegation in her report, but Lavigne denied the allegation.

“Neither (Tracy's) organization nor Tracy is or has been the target of any investigative reporting,” Lavigne said in a statement to USA TODAY. “I’m perplexed that Mel Tucker would respond to a complaint of sexual harassment by involving me or ESPN.”

Welcome to an NFL quality control job.

Meanwhile Brenda Tracy asserted that she came forward to USA Today after someone on the Michigan State side of things leaked her name to the media. What motivation someone inside MSU would have to leak this now, two games into the season, instead of over the summer, is unclear. Post-leak seems worse for MSU than the previous situation by a lot, and it doesn't seem like leaking is going to help MSU as they try to get out of the buyout—seems like it would hurt, actually. Meanwhile Michigan State officials have asserted that they were aware there was a complaint but had no idea about the details of that complaint…

Title IX and sexual misconduct experts say this is the proper, trauma-informed protocol for how to handle this kind of complaint. Tucker's bosses should not have known the details during an open case.

— Dan Murphy (@DanMurphyESPN) September 11, 2023

…which seems to conflict with Tracy's assertion that someone from MSU leaked her name. I seriously doubt anyone in the Title IX office would do that.

The LSJ reports that it's unclear what steps MSU took to monitor Tucker's behavior after the complaint was filed, which has particular resonance since Larry Nassar was given several protocols to follow after a 2014 Title IX investigation:

Those protocols included having another person in the room during procedures of "anything close to a sensitive area" and modifying procedures to have "little to no" skin-to-skin contact, according to records.

At the time, the dean was William Strampel, who was later sentenced to a year in jail following a felony conviction for using his position to proposition and control female medical students.

Strampel only told one other person about the protocols. When the university fired Nassar in 2016, following an Indianapolis Star story that detailed sexual assault claims against him, the school discovered Nassar had not been following those protocols.

Even though it's deeply unlikely that Tucker was doing crimes that would have been stopped or uncovered by additional monitoring this should be the kind of thing MSU is hyper-vigilant about. It does not appear that is the case.

On the plus side for Tucker he's got Zach Smith and Clay Travis on his side, who I decline to link. If I ever have those two people on my side, I will voluntarily go to jail forever.

How the Worthy thing went down. From Xavier Worthy's perspective, anyway:

When he first picked Michigan, Worthy planned to be an early enrollee. His school district didn’t allow seniors to graduate early. Jones got creative. She got him enrolled in Apex Learning Virtual School, an online program, for the fall of 2020. It wasn’t easy to get that plan lined up without guidance counselors, but Jones ensured his class schedule met all graduation and NCAA initial eligibility requirements.

In early January 2021, two weeks before Worthy would move to Ann Arbor with J.J. McCarthy, Donovan Edwards and the Wolverines’ freshman enrollees, a problem emerged. Michigan has strict admissions standards for midyear enrollees, one former staffer said, and wasn’t able to get Worthy admitted into school. He was told that based on his academic profile, it would be better to enroll in June for U-M’s summer bridge program. His mother was stunned.

“For me, that didn’t fly,” she said. “I turned in all of his academic paperwork and applications in September. As far as I had been told, up until two weeks before, he was on track to enroll early. There was nothing missing, nothing short, they’d waived the SATs. It didn’t make sense. Something wasn’t right. What’s the problem and why am I finding out about this now?”

I can understand why Michigan isn't taking online high school courses, which the Bishop Sycamore wafts off of. For Michigan not to make it very clear to Worthy that Apex Learning wasn't going to cut it before it was time to enroll is not great. But then Worthy decommits and goes to Texas… where he enrolls after spring practice. So that didn't actually accelerate anything. Worthy and his mom cite broken trust between Michigan and themselves, which is fair. But frustrating.

Speaking of. Interesting film breakdown of Texas's bombs against Alabama by Dan Orlovsky:

Head coach @CoachSark is an absolute difference maker for @TexasFootball

Play design + play call separates offensive minds@LonghornNetwork @TexasLonghorns @billyliucci #texas pic.twitter.com/kNQImCh4qT

— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) September 10, 2023

As a resident of the state of Michigan I am obligated by law to mention that Orlovksy once ran out of his own endzone for a safety. Sorry, Dan, I don't make the law.

The Big Ten East needs a wealth tax. The inequality is out of control. Week 2 SP+:

The next-highest Big Ten East team is #34 Maryland, which SP+ would make a two-touchdown dog against anyone 2 through 4.

Etc.: Joe Milton arm hagiography. OSU makes McCord the starter. Sixth year Iowa DT Noah Shannon has a year-long suspension upheld for gambling on a different Iowa team. Now we are the hunted. Mike Elston thinks his DL is good.