Today’s weekly press conference seemed a little too dramatic from the start.

More TV cameras than usual lined the back of the room.

Unrecognizable media members sat in the audience wearing suits and ties, eager to latch onto the newest installment of the Michigan football soap opera.

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez read his opening statement, teared up while talking about how the accusations of NCAA violations raised this weekend by the Detroit Free Press were “disheartening" — and the cameras started clicking.

And my immediate reaction to the media fuss was, Give me a break.

This weekend’s expose from the Free Press (conveniently printed on the Sunday before Michigan’s first regular-season game) might be accurate.

But until there’s concrete proof that Michigan has violated NCAA rules, it really isn’t a story.

The bigger issues behind this weekend’s media frenzy have been apparent since Rodriguez took over, and none of them have changed, besides how they were framed in the Free Press article in order to make a so-called shocking point.

The attrition on the team has been massive. Change is hard, and those who couldn’t handle the new regime have clearly had an axe to grind on their way out. Hordes of players have transferred or left the program since former coach Lloyd Carr retired in January 2007, complaining about the spread offense and Rodriguez’s purported lack of “family values”. Before last year’s Ohio State game, David Moosman and Terrance Taylor both said some of their teammates didn’t understand that playing hard was important.

"Some people in the shadows that maybe have different agendas, we're weeding those people out," Moosman said then.

And much of that weeding out was due to Mike Barwis’s strength and conditioning program. The horror stories started circulating during last year’s spring practice. Out-of-shape players throwing up during practice. Players unable to finish sprints. The most intense workouts the players had ever had.

And those were the same workouts which led to players gaining muscle mass, running faster and, as multiple players have claimed this season, getting into the best shape of their lives? No way!

“They all know what they gotta do,” Barwis said at Michigan Media Day on Aug. 23. “Training becomes contagious. When you start feeling good, you start feeling like you’re driving a Ferrari every day. You don’t want to get back in a damn Yugo.

“Once they go home, they’re much more likely to understand, ‘Hey, look, this is what I have to do to stay in.’ ”
So those who could take the heat stayed – and those current players have had nothing but praise for the strength and conditioning program, which makes this recent fallout seem even more ludicrous.

Mark Ortmann, who was instructed by the Athletic Department today not to talk about the allegations, opened his press conference with a riled-up statement defending Rodriguez’s program.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a laughing matter, but almost, because I don’t see the big aspect of this,” Ortmann said. “I guess personally and talking to the other players on the team, we don’t fully understand the allegations. I mean, they’re saying that we’re working too much, and personally, I don’t think we’re working hard enough. We can always improve, and so I mean it’s not necessarily a laughing matter because I know how seriously Coach Rod is taking these allegations. But from a player aspect, I know what we do on and off the field and I see none of that as illegal.”

Ortmann’s sentiments were echoed by players at Michigan Media Day and by the team’s leaders - yes, those guys who are still in Ann Arbor. And that’s because the thought of any truly dedicated player who would complain about Barwis’s strength program, widely regarded as one of the most demanding but best in the nation, is just laughable.

Most of these players are getting full rides. They have the opportunity to play Division-I football for one of the most storied programs in the nation.