Uh-oh. #27 is taken??

Submitted by Decatur Jack on

There seems to be a slight problem in the Michigan roster.

Derrick Green wore #27 in high school and cites Eddie George (who also wore #27) as his favorite player. When Green committed, he had a #27 jersey on the wall behind the projector screen.

Slight problem: walk-on wide receiver Jonathan Keizer has a claim to #27, according to mgoblue.com.

So, what number does Derrick Green wear? I hope this doesn't become a big problem. We were able to get Pipkins to wear #56 like he wanted. Hopefully we can do the same here.

Any thoughts?

UPDATE!:

After doing some research, I've found that you can have duplicate numbers on a roster, but not on the same side of the ball. This is why #27 LB Mike Jones (who is a scholarship athlete) would not have to forfeit his number and is irrelevant to this discussion.

If you look at Michigan's roster, there are no duplicate numbers on offense. There is no evidence to suggest that, as some posited, two players can have the same numbers on offense as long as one stays off the field. I don't where you guys found that rule, but I'd be curious to see it.

I also found that, despite Hoke's statement that he treats all the players equally ("our 115 sons"), scholarship athletes always get preference to walk-ons. The most likely scenario here is that Keizer would be reassigned a number and Green would wear #27.

I had hoped that this thread would become a discussion about what numbers Green could possibly wear instead of #27 in the event that Hoke decides to let Keizer keep the number (a definite possibility, and don't be surprised if you see it happen).

Instead, this largely became a ridiculing of the original post's premise, whether or not player numbers need to be discussed on the board, and the implication that Green might transfer if not granted #27 (which is fine, mea culpa on that last one).

Perkis-Size Me

February 16th, 2013 at 11:58 PM ^

Come on, man. Is this seriously a thread? If he ditches because of a jersey number, he should never have committed here.



But if he doesn't get 27, there's plenty of other great options. Taking 20 for Mike Hart, 23 for Chris Perry, or 32 for the A-Train would be good starting points.

WolverineFanatic6

February 17th, 2013 at 1:27 AM ^

Wow this thread is worthy of a worst thread of the year nominee. It's got to at least win the monthly award. Surely it wins the daily award...



Seriously, there should be awards for this level of awful.

mGrowOld

February 17th, 2013 at 7:51 AM ^

Seth really needs to start a new Friday feature "worst of the worst" as measured by down votes. The amazing thing to me is that the OP seriously worried this might be a reason to transfer. How anyone could spend almost two years here and still believe that is almost unbelievable but as evidenced by his responses in the thread he tried to DEFEND it.

There would be a lot to choose from this week but this one would be hard to beat.

Mmmm Hmmm

February 17th, 2013 at 10:00 AM ^

You hear all the time about players buying their preferred number from the incumbent --usually when a star comes in through free agency. Probably does not happen like that in college, although perhaps at a school down the road that appears to use tattoos as currency it might very well work the same way...

ckersh74

February 17th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^

This just in from the "Cool Story, Bro" Department:

My brother-in-law played at Mt. Union. He was telling me that their roster was so large that at one point, they had 3-4 guys wearing the same number, for most of the numbers.

This is a non-issue. 

Avant's Hands

February 17th, 2013 at 11:57 AM ^

I'm not usually one to pick on a thread, but a walk-on wears the same number as a starter all the time. IIRC a walk-on receiver had the same number as Guitierrez back in 04. Ee might have been called on at any time (including garbage time) and also was the holder for field goals. It was never a problem. I can't even imagine a scenario in which a walk-on receiver sees the field at the same time as a starting (?) RB. We're good there.

Seth

February 21st, 2013 at 1:11 PM ^

Dammit you made edits before I can ridicule. Suffice to say guys on the scout team change their numbers all the damn time. You'll note that 11 is not the 2nd, not the 3rd, not the 4th, but the 5th number Kovacs has worn in his Michigan career, according to him. I don't have all of them in front of me but there was one number he wore when trying out in 2008, one number when trying out in 2009, and then he was wearing 22 going into the 2009 season. He switched to 32 after his first game, and because of this his coaches got him confused with another walk-on who'd been wearing that number.