Former Michigan quarterback Rick Leach lambasted ex-Wolverine coach Lloyd Carr recently on an Ann Arbor radio show, claiming that Carr “flipped a huge middle finger right in our current coach’s face.�

Here are the details, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press:

“I saw an article that said Lloyd Carr was at the game in Iowa,â€� Leach told WTKA-AM (1050). “… No. 1, whose ticket did he go on? Whose private box was he sitting in, and whose university staff was in the box with him?

“As far as I’m concerned, as a former player that loves this program, I love our head coach, I love what they’re trying to do — our ex-coach flipped a huge middle finger right in our current coach’s face.�

Carr couldn’t be reached, and Michigan spokesman David Ablauf declined to comment on Leach’s comments.

If you read between the lines, Leach must be accusing Carr of getting a ticket to the game thanks to someone at Iowa. Seeing as how he and Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz are friends, it’s a possibility that Carr got the ticket through him.

That said, who gives a flying crap? Considering Bobby Petrino has negotiated multiple times with other programs (and one NFL team) behind his school’s back, I don’t think Carr attending the Michigan-Iowa game on Ferentz’s ticket is that big of a deal. And Petrino is just one example of a coach that has left his team high and dry: Nick Saban, Brian Kelly and Leach’s homeboy Rich Rodriguez have all done the same.

I think Leach is being a little too sensitive here. If he wants to preach loyalty, he shouldn’t be backing Rodriguez.

Several players on the Michigan football team claim that head coach Rich Rodriguez and the rest of the program regularly violates NCAA rules limiting how much time they can spend in training and practice sessions.

From ESPN.com:

One former player who started for Michigan last season told ESPN Saturday night that the report was accurate.

The player, who asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions from fans, said in-season Sundays at the football facility lasted from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., including a one-hour lunch. That would be an 11-hour day. The NCAA daily limit is four hours, the weekly limit 20.

The same player said required offseason workouts included three-hour lifts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and two hours of speed and agility on Tuesdays and Thursday. That’s a total of 13 hours; the NCAA limit is eight hours of required workouts.

This player said he would tell the Big Ten or NCAA what players were required to do and believes most of his former teammates would, as well.

A current member of the Michigan football team, who has started, also told ESPN his in-season Sundays at the football facility lasted from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., although he acknowledged the first two hours were spent in treatment, which is not counted against the restricted hours.

As expected, Rodriguez and the program are denying these allegations and have said that no rules have been violated. It’s unclear at this point if Michigan has a serious problem on its hands or if a couple of players are just trying to make things difficult for Rodriguez.

It stands to reason that most teams in college football violate NCAA regulations on a yearly basis. That said, it’s highly doubtful that they’re exceeding regulation times by over six hours like the report claims Michigan has. If these allegations are true, this is yet another black eye on Rich Rod’s short tenure at UM and will certainly hurt recruiting if the NCAA can somehow prove that the program is in violation.

What’s interesting is that even with all of those practices last year, Michigan suffered its worst season in the history of the program. Nice work, Rich.

Michigan quarterback Steven Threet has decided to transfer, although he’s uncertain at this point what school he’s transferring to.

Threet said in a statement Monday he does not yet know where he will continue his college career.

School spokesman David Ablauf declined to comment.

Threet enrolled early at Georgia Tech in 2007 but transferred to Michigan before fall camp. After sitting out the 2007 season under NCAA rules, Threet started eight games for the Wolverines in 2008.

The 6-foot-6, 230-pounder from Adrian completed 102 of 210 passes for 1,105 yards and nine touchdowns last season.

Michigan had a 3-9 record in coach Rich Rodriguez’s first season, losing the most games in school history.

Michigan finished last in the Big Ten in passing efficiency and averaged just 143.2 passing yards per game last year, so it’s not like losing Threet is devastating news. But it does put pressure on Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson (the Wolverines’ quarterback recruits in 2009) to develop quickly as underclassmen. Both are duo-threat quarterbacks, with Forcier being the better passer and Robinson the better running.

Rich Rodriguez better work some magic this year or else UM fans could very well see a repeat of ’08.

Fox Sports put together a good list of the top sports stories that didn’t happen in 2008.

The 10th-seeded Wildcats should have toppled Kansas in the Midwest Regional Final. Down by two points, Davidson had the final possession. It was a good three-point shooting team. All the Wildcats had to do was get somebody free to knock down the decisive trey. With one more bucket, they would have furthered the legend of March Madness.

Alas, Davidson guard Jason Richards took the last shot and clanked it. The Jayhawks escaped, 59-57, then went on to win the national title. Had Davidson done the right thing, North Carolina coach Roy Williams would not have attended the championship game as a KU fan. That was uncomfortable for everybody.

“You dream about that type of stuff when you’re a little kid, having the opportunity to win the game, take your team to the Final Four,” Richards said of his last shot. But this dream didn’t come true. “I had a great look,” he said. “Maybe you could say we could have gotten a better shot. At that point, it seemed like the best shot for us. My team had confidence in me. Unfortunately, I just missed the shot and fell short.”

Click here to see the rest of the list.

At the end of the year, it’s always interesting to look back at all that has happened in the world of sports over the last 12 months. 2008 brought us a host of compelling sports stories, including the culmination of the Patriots’ (unsuccessful) quest for perfection, a Bejing Olympics that featured incredible accomplishments by the likes of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and the Redeem Team, and, of course, Brett Favre’s unretirement, which managed to hold the sports news cycle hostage for a solid month or more.

As is our tradition, we’ve once again broken our Year End Sports Review into three sections. The first is “What We Learned,� a list that’s packed with a number of impressive feats. And when there are feats, inevitably there are also failures.

Don’t miss the other two parts: “What We Already Knewâ€� and “What We Think Might Happen.â€�

The New England Patriots weren’t so perfect after all.

After rolling through the 2007 regular season unscathed, the Patriots entered the 2008 Super Bowl as overwhelming favorites to roll over the pesky, but seemingly inferior New York Giants. The Pats were just one win away from staking their claim as the best football team in NFL history. But thanks to a dominating Giants’ defensive line, an improbable catch by David Tyree, and a virtually mistake-free performance by Eli Manning, the unbeatable New England Patriots were beat. It’ll go down as one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, and considering Tom Brady’s season-ending injury in 2008 cost the Pats a chance for redemption, it seems that many have forgotten how New England stood just one win away from perfection. – Anthony Stalter

Michael Phelps is part fish.

Eight gold medals in one Olympiad? No problem. Michael Phelps made the seemingly impossible look (relatively) easy en route to one of the most – if not the most – impressive Olympic performances ever. Phelps had to swim all four strokes, compete in both sprint and endurance races, and deal with the constant media attention and pressure that came along with his quest. Sure, NBC turned up the hype, but what Phelps accomplished is simply incredible. – John Paulsen

Usain Bolt is part cheetah.

First, Usain Bolt made Jamaica proud by setting a new world record (9.69) in the 100-meter sprint. Then, he broke the 12 year-old 200-meter world record with a time of 19.30 seconds. He showboated during the first race but cleaned up his act to win the second race in a professional manner. Some even say that Usain Bolt – not Michael Phelps – was the biggest story to come out of the Bejing Olympics. – JP

The Big 12 has the best quarterbacks in the nation.

The Big 12 housed some of the best quarterbacks in all of college football in 2008. Texas’s Colt McCoy, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford, Missouri’s Chase Daniel and Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell were all considered Heisman candidates at least at one point during the season, while McCoy and Bradford are still in the running. Amazingly, Bradford and McCoy aren’t done; both will return in 2008. And although they don’t receive as much attention as the top signal callers in the conference, Kansas’s Todd Reesing and Baylor’s Robert Griffin certainly turned heads this year as well. In fact, the highly versatile Griffin is only a freshman and could make the Bears a very dangerous team for years to come. – AS

Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press has two separate thoughts on Rich Rodriguez’s recent comments that Michigan fans should “Get a life.�

But I am of two minds on Rodriguez’s comments. On one level, he is absolutely correct. The venom that you find on blogs or on talk radio is beyond fandom. It comes from a darker place: Anger, frustration, jealousy spit out in almost murderous tones — all of it masked by a Web name so no one has to admit who he is or where you can find him.

After all, these are college kids. They don’t get paid; they are, in some cases, one year out of high school. Compared to real issues — the economy is just one — their losing games is minor. Rodriguez is right about that.

On the other hand, if things were going well, no amount of hype would be too much for Rodriguez. The bigger the hoopla, the higher the ratings, the more precious the tickets — the happier he would be. The same guy who is saying “look at the economy� wasn’t trying to keep football in perspective when he broke his contract with West Virginia and took a huge one in Ann Arbor, including millions the school had to pay to free him from his WVU obligations.

He came here fluffed with hype, a whiz kid set to turn around a solid but stodgy program and gun the motor to a national championship. Instead, he got a little drunk on his own reviews, took a few shots to the chin and the gut, and is staggering home as night falls. He says “get a life.� The fans say “get a team.� And all most people want is to get this season over with.

I think this season was good for Rich Rod. He got knocked on his ass for the first time in his career and now he realizes that he can’t plug just any player into his system and make it run like a corvette. And let’s be honest – he got what he deserved for leaving WVU in the lurch.

But all this will be moot in a couple of years. He still has plenty of recruiting power at Michigan and he’ll eventually land the quarterback he needs to run his spread option offense. The Wolverines will be relevant again, but it won’t be this weekend in Columbus.

Facing the prospect of losing nine games, including a possible fifth-straight loss to arch-rival Ohio State, Michigan fans are in a sour mood. Naturally, some of them having been taking out their frustrations on their new coach. Rich Rodriguez is feeling the heat.

Heading into his first Michigan-Ohio State game — where the Wolverines are expected to extend their dubious record with a ninth loss — he tried to deliver a message to fans who have lost touch.

“It’s amazing some of the things that people would say (on a message board) or yell at you of a personal nature,” Rodriguez said Monday. “You almost want to tell them, `Get a life.’

“There’s a whole lot bigger problems. Look at the economy.”

College football’s winningest team has tumbled like the stock market, losing a school-record eight games and getting beat a Michigan Stadium-record five times at home.

For the first time since 1974, the Wolverines will be relegated to watching bowl games.

The 10th-ranked Buckeyes are favored to beat their rivals on Saturday at home by 19 points, matching the largest spread in series history, and win at least a share of the Big Ten title for the fourth year in a row.

Hey Rich – welcome to big-time college football. What did you expect when you abandoned West Virginia and signed your huge contact?

To say Rich Rodriguez’s first year at Michigan has been a failure would be a gross understatement. In their 48-42 loss to Purdue on Saturday, Michigan is guaranteed its first losing season since 1967. It also ensured that the Wolverines’ 33-year bowl streak is now over, too.

There’s really no doubt that Rich Rod is going to turn things around at Michigan and get that program back on track soon. He’ll find a quarterback to run his spread option offense and things will start to quickly fall in place. He just needs time to get the right players to fight his scheme and everyone should be patient while he goes through the process.

But there’s no other way to cut it – this season was a total debacle. I realize these young men are learning an entirely new system and will need time to develop, but you can’t lose to Toledo at home. You can’t get beat by Purdue on a hook and ladder on the final play of the game. You can’t turn the ball over six times in an embarrassing loss to Notre Dame.

Rich Rodriguez will turn Michigan around. But they’ve been a total embarrassment this season and an absolute joke.

Michigan has gone to a bowl game the past 33 consecutive years. But with their 35-21 loss to instate rival Michigan State on Saturday, the Wolverines bowl streak – which is currently the longest in college football – is doomed.

Michigan would have to win its remaining four games to have a shot at a bowl, but that’s incredibly unrealistic considering they travel to Minnesota and Ohio State still.

To say the least, it’s been a long year for Rich Rodriguez. And if he doesn’t find a quarterback to run his spread option offense, things might get worse in Ann Arbor before they get better.