Please let Jim McElwain know if you can find Michigan's roster
Please tell Florida coach Jim McElwain if you’re able to find Michigan’s football roster.
The Gators and Wolverines open the season vs. each other on Sep. 2. Michigan, in quirky and absolutely pointless fashion, is refusing to release a roster until Aug. 30. Why? If we could explain Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh’s thought process at times, we’d probably be pretty rich.
So anyway, there’s no list of players for McElwain and his staff to rely on at the moment for the game in 10 days.
“We’re still working against ourselves,” McElwain said at his press conference Wednesday. “We haven’t gone into Michigan true prep at all. When you guys get their roster, let me know. Maybe I can figure out who we’re playing.”
The Michigan secrecy has gotten to the point where New Jersey Advance Media attempted a Freedom of Information Act request to get the names of the players on the football team. Michigan told the group that it had “no responsive record.” NJAM now has made a further request for a list of scholarship football players — something that is readily and easily available — to the school.
This isn’t the first time Michigan has tried roster secrecy like this. You may remember in 2016 that the Wolverines played games with its depth charts during the season and Colorado released a fake depth chart of its own before the Buffaloes’ game vs. the Wolverines.
But this is absurd. There’s no real schematic advantage to be gained from this, and Harbaugh likely knows it. By not releasing a roster, Harbaugh’s program suddenly isn’t a bubble. Florida has ways of knowing who is on the team.
And heck, Florida can counter with a little deception of its own. McElwain said there’s a distinct possibility that QBs Malik Zaire, Feleipe Franks and Luke Del Rio will all play against the Wolverines because of the way they’ve practiced.
“I think there’s some things that they all bring to the table that are really good,” McElwain said. “Now the key to us is putting them in those positions, you know, that play to their strengths. Will all play? I don’t know yet. Will a couple of them play? I don’t know yet.”
The Florida coach also said he wasn’t playing mind games unlike his Michigan counterpart.
“There are no mind games … Definitively, that is a true statement,” McElwain said.
For more Florida news, visit InsideTheGators.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
