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Michigan Football Recruiting

January 22, 2011 by · Comments Off on Michigan Football Recruiting 

Michigan Football Recruiting, (AP) – Auburn coach Gene Chizik won the Paul “Bear” Bryant College Coach of the Year Tuesday night.

Chizik, whose Tigers won the national championship, beat six other finalists for the honor.

He said he has not had time to reflect on his perfect 14-0 season and the team’s primary school national title since 1957 because he was so busy with recruiting.

“You work so hard and you’re so demanding of yourself, it’s really hard to grasp everything there is a month or two goes by,” he said. “You really do not have time to sit. A month or two later, when he really slows down and you get a chance to step back is when you really realize it. ”

He said that recruitment also took too busy to think about next season.

“I’m not there yet,” he said. “We’ll get there. We went to the next stage and it really finishes this year strong recruitment. Next year will be here fast enough. We try to finish and finish this year and I ‘am sure we will come back soon. ”

Chizik was honored to win a prize named Bryant.

“As a football coach when you can have your name associated with a guy who does a lot for the sport, it’s a blessing,” he said.

Former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden was honored the other night; Bryant received the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the National sports commentators and sports journalists association.

Bowden, who won two national championships with the Seminoles, said he has always sought to Bryant. Bowden liked to make the short trip to Tuscaloosa to study coaching techniques Bryant at Alabama, while he was an assistant football coach at Howard College, now known as Samford in 1950.

“I lot to me,” he said of the award. “When I rode my idol was Bear Bryant. He was just 50 miles when I was at Howard and I could go there and visit and learn football. It really helped me to get kicked out of my career. ”

The awards were presented in collaboration with the American Heart Association; a fact has not escaped the state of Michigan and coach Mark Dantonio finalist, who suffered a mild heart attack in September.

“Because the American Heart Association’s involvement in it becomes a little more special,” Dantonio said. “If you asked me to be at the event-winner or loser. – I had ”

He said he learned a lot about heart disease in recent months while recovering from his heart attack.

“I was raised,” he said. ‘Never thought it would have happened to me and I was there. So it can happen to anyone, thank you and God I listened to my body and I’m OK now. There are several ways to return. That’s the only thing people should understand that you can be strong again. You can do many things again. ”

The other finalists were Nevada Chris Ault, Bobby Petrino of Arkansas, Texas AM & Mike Sherman, Chip Kelly, Oregon and former head coach Jim Harbaugh at Stanford.

Petrino and Harbaugh, the new coach of the San Francisco 49ers were the only finalists not to attend the event.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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