How would you feel if you were in the Michigan fans' shoes?

It's very easy, from a distance, for fans of other Big Ten and NCAA schools to look at the controversy churning in University of Michigan football today and giggle or sneer.

Somebody else's troubles. Better them than us.

I may be jumping to a conclusion I shouldn't reach, but I'm guessing accusations against a football program are easier to believe when it's not your football program.

This story in Sunday's Detroit Free Press has set off a firestorm in Michigan. An excerpt:

The NCAA, which governs college athletics, has strict limits on how much time coaches can require players to spend on their sport. But (Michigan Coach Rich) Rodriguez's team has routinely broken the rules since he took over in January 2008, people inside the program told the Free Press.

Numerous players on the 2008 and 2009 teams said the program far exceeded limits intended to protect athletes from coaching excesses and to ensure fair competition.

The story details comments and charges made by those players. Included:

Players spent at least nine hours on football activities on Sundays after games last fall. NCAA rules mandate a daily 4-hour limit. The Wolverines also exceeded the weekly limit of 20 hours, the athletes said.

None of the sources were named. The story said the players (and parents)

agreed to talk only if they were not identified for fear of repercussions from the coaching staff.

That business of not having a name to the sources is a troublesome one. I've been in this racket a few years, and many is the time I virtually begged someone to let me attach his or her name to their words. If you can't put your name behind your words, how I can put my name behind them?

But this didn't come from just one or two disgruntled players and their "My son can do no wrong, so the coach must be at fault" parents. Those types exist, believe me. I've heard from a few (hundred) over the years.

As a typist/clerk in this business, I have no reason to believe the Free Press didn't have firm convictions that the amount of information and the number of people supporting those claims added up to a solid, factual story.

The Free Press knew it was going to get a firestorm of adverse reactions from not just Michigan Coach Rich Rodriguez, but some of Rodriguez's players and a whole lot of Wolverines fans.

Here is a Free Press story detailing some of the public response.

Here is some of Rodriguez's response from a Monday news conference:

Now, here are Free Press writers Michael Rosenberg and Mark Snyder on the story they wrote that set off this controversy:

Where's the proof, many have rightly asked. Is this simply a witch hunt?

Michigan, to its credit, has already announced it was considering having an independent investigator look into the matter. Michigan is one of the finest universities in the nation and world and prides itself on such. It is highly unlikely the school will make any effort to sweep this matter under the rug.

But let me ask you these things, and you people can take the ball and run with it.

1. How much more do you think Michigan fans are willing to buy into allegations against Rodriguez's program because the Wolverines are coming off a 3-9 season? Or is that simply a rhetorical question.

More seriously:

2. What if this were your school? Given what you've read and heard so far, if the same charges were being leveled against Iowa, for you Hawkeye fans, what would your reaction be today?

Would you see this as a witch-hunt against the Hawkeyes by a media entity trying to draw some cheap heat to itself?

Would you see this as a news organization convinced beyond a doubt that it had a legitimate story on its hands?

Would you say what some Michigan fans have said and written at various sites, which is that most schools do it - "it" being exceeding the number of practice hours per Sunday and per week as allowed by the NCAA, and having coaches at voluntary offseason workout sessions that are supposed to be unsupervised?

Maybe it's one of those deals where you can't really know how you'd feel until it happened to your school.

I want more substantiation before I'm convinced Rodriguez is running a rogue program in Ann Arbor. I also firmly believe the Free Press isn't on a witch-hunt.

UPDATE: A Free Press story quotes former Michigan receiver Toney Clemons, who backs up the unnamed players' accounts. Here's that story.

Now it's your turn. Comment away.