Despite what anyone else wrote, said or thought, the order late last month for Team Rodriguez to submit unredacted drafts of the term sheet P-Rod signed with the University of Michigan was a critical moment in the lawsuit. If WVU could prove P-Rod and UM negotiated a way to handle the buyout, then Team Rodriguez couldn’t very well say he shouldn’t have to pay said buyout, could he?

How or why that escaped some people is beyond me.

Even then, one could reasonably assume the ruling by Monongalia County Ciruit Court Judge Robert Stone turned the screws on UM President Mary Sue Coleman and Athletic Director Bill Martin, who were previously dodging deposition requests because they said they didn’t know anything, though in truth they didn’t want their hands to get dirty. The unredacted copies would prove they knew something and today a Michigan judge was probably going to grant a WVU request to serve Coleman and Martin subpoenas and force depositions. It just so happens the copies were due by midnight last night.

Momentum was swelling for WVU. UM decided enough was enough and didn’t want to parade Coleman and Martin through the needless process of a deposition. If nothing else, we can thank the Wolverines for putting an end to this madness. With the midnight deadline in mind and knowing what was in the unredacted copies, Team Rodriguez reached out Monday — it’d done so once before weeks ago, though we hear the offer was disingenuous — and meetings late that night and again Tuesday, as well as constant communication between WVU attorneys and administrators, brought about our conclusion.

Still waiting on an official declaration as well as a comment by Marvelous Robon.