Rich Rodriguez, who we assume is renting and not buying in Ann Arbor, has slowly been learning why the legal system calls the research phase of a trial the “discovery process”: we’re all discovering how refreshing he would be as a women’s cleansing product.

Now the discovery process has unearthed that Rodriguez sent a go-between to University of Michigan officials to tell them how much he always liked them but couldn’t say so because he was with a girl at the time but now he thinks the two of them may not be compatible anymore because she wants more kids and he just needs time to work things out, y’know?

Now we’re getting that not-so-fresh feeling.

In the end, Rodriguez will have to give back the promise ring (worth $4m in buyout terms) anyway. At the very least, he’s arguing about fractions of that amount as he makes much more elsewhere.

His stubbornness about the broad that done him wrong is endearing only so far as an intransigent mule in the mud can be. We admire the effort but wonder when that old horse will just give up and move on already. (Also, we can’t figure out where the overinflated sense of pride came from. It’s a mule. If it’s trouble, toss it and get a new one. Someone will pay for it.)