Michigan Looking to Sure up the Kicking Game

As a regular follower of this blog, I'm sure you have seen that Michigan has been very active in signing walk on kickers and punters for 2009. In fact, Michigan just added another preferred walk-on punter from outside Indy just this week to the class of 2009.

Not using a scholarship on Punters and Kickers right out of high school is a pretty regular practice in college football. Most programs try to get a number of them to enroll in school and join the team as a walk-on. Recently, Rich Rod and staff have been offering scholarships to some of the top kickers and punters in the country. Zoltan Mesko got a scholarship right out of high school (Carr Era) and soon to be Freshman Kicker Brendan Gibbons is also on scholarship.

The next scholarship kicker/punter candidate is Will Hagerup who is one of the best punters in the country with an average of 41.2 yards per punt as a Junior.

“Michigan offered me,” he reported, adding, “It definitely has a football tradition that is hard to beat and the school itself is in the top two or three in the Big Ten probably. It makes my decision harder.”

Will is sporting 11 scholarship offers from across the Big Ten and from schools like Florida, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

• CAL and Michigan were in talks to play each other but CAL wanted a home and home series. Michigan won't do a home and home so they can maximize revenue with one more home game. Michigan also has a terrible record going to the West Coast to play. So not a good idea at all. HT: MSC
  


• Lane Kiffin has fired his S&C Coach after 6 months: Don't you just love Lane Kiffin? He has a news story every week. Sources told ESPN.com that Kiffin and his strength and conditioning coach, Mark Smith, met on Thursday and agreed to part ways. The details of Smith's departure as strength coach were still being finalized, and Tennessee athletic department officials declined to comment.
  
  Smith, who was previously the strength coach at South Carolina under Steve Spurrier, was one of the first hires Kiffin made after being named the Vols' coach on Dec. 1. Smith was given a $50,000 raise to come to Tennessee, bumping his annual salary up to $190,000.
  


• Bill Martin, Michigan's AD wants one more Big Ten football game during the season so he doesn't have the headache of scheduling nonconference opponents like Utah or App. State (that end up being good): "We talk about that at every meeting," said Michigan athletic director Bill Martin, who added that the drive for nine is getting more support. "As the guarantees [for nonconference games] go up and up and up and the fans want to play our sister institutions in the conference, to me it's a nobrainer. Play 'em." Martin ideally would want to play a true round robin in the Big Ten, but he admits it's "not realistic" because of the revenue from home games that league members need to sustain their athletic programs. The Michigan AD said he has even tried to schedule the two teams Michigan doesn't play during the Big Ten schedule as nonconference opponents.