Transformation effort at University of Michigan is going nowhere fast. Dave Miller
I initially sat down at my desk to write a plea to University of Michigan athletic director Bill Martin to just admit his mistake for the good of the university, its alumni and fans. I have always held onto the belief that any new coaching staff should have at least three years to build a program and have a chance to see progress. But what transpired Saturday afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin, led me to believe that sometimes change—in this case, the philosophical change in playing style resulting in chaos for Michigan football—isn’t always for the best.
Then, I stopped. And I wondered if maybe dismissing Greg Robinson, in his first year as defensive coordinator, could be the answer to the Wolverines’ woes. The defense may be capable of a big play here and there, but the second-half collapses have been inexcusable.
I reassessed the situation because there could be no way that Rodriguez could not yet have made an impact as he’s done in his second season at every other stop.
So I thought, and I thought. But I ultimately have come to the realization that last year’s disaster may in fact not be a fluke. Robinson had nothing to do with 2008, so I’m confident he isn’t the problem in Ann Arbor.
Methinks the problem is head coach Rich Rodriguez.
After a 3-9 campaign to open his tenure, Rodriguez had the Wolverines off to a 4-0 start to begin 2009—including a win over Notre Dame that many thought could be a springboard to an unexpected very successful season.
But as the leaves began to turn, the losses started to accrue.
Back-to-back losses to Michigan State and Iowa on the road dropped the team to 4-2—but certainly the Wolverines didn’t shame themselves with the performances. Those losses were forgivable.
After a walk in the park scrimmage against Delaware State, the red flags began to get raised.
Blowout losses to Penn State and Illinois (yes, Illinois) dropped them to 1-4 in the Big Ten, and an inexcusable loss to Purdue at home followed. Sitting at 5-5 overall, the team had a chance to at least show some fight on the road against Wisconsin.
But the team reached its lowest point on Saturday in Madison, falling 45-21 to drop to 1-6 in the Big Ten. One win in the Big Ten in seven tries? Can even a win over Ohio State do enough damage control in a year that went terribly wrong so fast?
The last time Michigan suffered back-to-back losing seasons occurred in 1962-63. Without a win over the Buckeyes, the Wolverines will close the season with one win in their last eight contests.
There’s no question that Rodriguez is a quality head football coach—that can’t be denied when you look at his resume. After successful offensive coordinating stints at Tulane and Clemson, his stock rapidly rose as head coach of West Virginia.
After his three-win first season at West Virginia, Rodriguez never won less than eight games and finished with at least 10 wins his final three seasons.
That’s the perplexing aspect of this tenure in Ann Arbor.
Rich Rodriguez at Michigan:
2008: 3-9 (2-6)
2009: 5-6 (1-6)
Total: 8-15 (3-12)
Is it a spread option issue? It was successful when Shaun King, Woody Dantzler and Pat White ran it for Rich Rod. Perhaps Denard Robinson will fully wrest the job away from Tate Forcier when he is declared ready. But can it work in the Big Ten? Many experts thought Paul Johnson’s triple-option attack wouldn’t work in the ACC, yet the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have proved two years in a row that it indeed can be successful at a big school.
I understand that the full implementation of the spread offense takes time. But how come Johnson was so successful in year one with a quarterback, Josh Nesbitt, who was recruited to run former coach Chan Gailey’s pro-style offense? And how come we see revivals taking place in Year One of rebuilding projects across the country but not in Ann Arbor?
Is it a personality issue? The team dealt with player transfers, some of whom criticized the new staff. However, as we all know, there are always three sides to a story: yours, mine and the truth. Transfers occur often when new regimes take over programs.
There were then the alleged NCAA violations prior to this season, when anonymous players expressed to the Detroit Free Press that Rich Rod and his staff violated NCAA rules, including scheduling scrimmages and having the players put in more offseason hours than the NCAA allows. Late this past October, it was announced that the investigation would continue.
Up until Rodriguez’ arrival, violations of these kind never occurred within the Michigan football team.
Finally, this past week Forcier and Rodriguez had an apparent disagreement over Forcier’s missed study session, leading Forcier to believe that Robinson would in fact be the starting QB in Madison. That wasn’t the case, as Robinson was in at running back instead. Forcier says his relationship with the staff is fine, but it’s clear that Rodriguez isn’t happy, especially after already threatening to bench him earlier in the season.
Even though it was less than seven weeks ago, it seems like an eternity since Michigan was 4-0 in late September.
Sometimes, Bill Martin, things just don’t work out—for whatever reason.
Dave Miller is the Web Manager of the National Football Post. He enjoys coffee at any time of the day, CW teen dramas and has an appreciation for girls in boots. You can follow him on Twitter at Miller_Dave, where he constantly chronicles every moment of his mundane life.
nesbitt was not recruited to run the pro offense. he is a spread qb, check your facts. GT also had a solid offensive line and the previous coaching staff had an excellent d coordinator. UM has been dying the previous 3 years before RR. the o line recruiting was horrendous.
the RR haters are afraid if he is given 2 more years they/you will eat your words.
if bo was still alive he would be cussing out everyone one of the RR haters. if you managed to speak with him face to face with this crap, i would expect a legendary brow beating.
a true UM fan
First, Rich Rod's offense has performed well enough to win 3 more of the games we lost this season, so the second year improvement stat is correct in that sense. The defense has been admittedly terrible, but UM has had 3 defensive coordinators in three years, and an unbelievable amount of attrition of defensive players since 2005.
Second, to SuckeyeHater, Bo loved this offense and stated several times before his death that if he were still coaching, he would be running Rich Rod's offense.
Three years is fair to expect success, four is more likely given our dearth of defensive experience, but if RR is given the full five years of his contract, UM will be back with a vengeance IMO.
Actually, I'm afraid that if he's given two more years, Michigan will fall off the college football map of relevancy. Right now, Michigan can be bad and people will talk about it every week because they're shocked by it and because beating Michigan is still considered a big deal. Next year is the year everyone will watch RR and see if he can be successful at Michigan, and if Michigan is 6-6 or worse, maybe even at 7-5, the majority of those people will go ahead and drop all this "give him time"/"he'll get it done"/"the players are the only problem" crap and give up on Michigan.
Speaking of the players being the excuse right now...I get tired of people saying the players are young and inexperience or not talented enough like that's an acceptable reason for royal failure. Michigan has played young, inexperienced players before and been successful. Other programs do it, as well. As for lacking talent, why should Michigan ever lack talent? Even if RR isn't a problem and Greg Robinson isn't a problem...we need to question why Michigan has so many players who aren't Michigan caliber. I totally agree, Michigan's problems started with Carr. But Michigan is going to entirely new lows under RR.
I'd rather they keep the coaching through all 5 years. I don't want them to have to go through another transition time this soon.
We've had really bad coaches who've had "so called" good records. This kind of thing is where the saying "it's better to be lucky than good" came about.
Benny Oosterban was the coach when I was attending and graduating from Michigan. He was a terrible coach, but he had some great players, and they lucked out to reasonable records. Sort of like the Lloyd Carr years.
Everyone is missing the point. RichRod should go, but not because of his coaching shortfalls.
He is not a Michigan caliber coach on character issues. That was a fatal flaw from day one, and the fact that he is losing and breaking rules will make it easier to get rid of him now and replace him with someone who won't tarnish our reputation and will rebuild the legacy of "Michigan Men".
Jim Harbaugh should have been our guy two years ago. Maybe if we ask nicely, he'll come home.
The guy who wrote this article is an idiot. Had he done his homework instead of looking at wins and losses he would see that Lloyd did not leave RR much to work with and that is the reason we have so many sophomores and freshman starting. If you can fault RR for anything it would be putting all his eggs in one basket hoping Pryor would come to Michigan. That first year under RR was impossible without the proper QB in place. This year is where the program should of been last year had we had a QB that ran the spread but we did not. Change takes time and you need the players to make it happen. They will only get better with time and Michigan will rule again. I can see this team in the next few years not only become a force in the Big Ten but on the national stage as well. I wasn't expecting much this year with a freshman QB or with a young defense and if you thought different you do not know much about college football. Kind of like the guy who wrote this article.
It remains to be seen what RR will do next year, but I think any reasonable Wolverine fan would expect 8-4 or better, especially considering how Bill Martin has dumbed down the schedule the past few years (another FCS/1-AA school -UMass- is coming to AA next year), and the Big Ten has been very weak for 3 years now. If you cannot pull 8 wins out of the kind of mediocre competition they will face, something is definitely wrong. Rich Rod has a personality that is particularly grating (he is arrogant and defensive, and got rid of the Coach's Show, where he could have bonded with the fan base), and when you combine that with pathetic performances, the fans are going to get restless. He should be glad he is in a place like Ann Arbor and not in Columbus, Baton Rouge, or one of the other places where they REALLY take their football seriously. Lloyd had terrible years in 2 of his last 3 (5 losses in '05 that a good coach would have had in the national title hunt, and the horrible loss to App. State and the home blowout to Oregon in '07, along with another 4-loss season, which Lloyd gave us too many of!), so a change was needed. When Les Miles decided to stay @ LSU (and why not? . . . since he has better weather, better in-state talent, a much better conference, more enthusiastic and intimidating fans, and does not have to deal with the off-the-field bureaucratic nonsense like UM, since we still think we have student-athletes here, though the past 2 decades cast serious doubt on that fact, especially for most of the skill positions in football and basketball), we had to look elsewhere. Brian Kelly would likely have been a better fit for the near term, but it remains to be seen if he could consistently put Michigan in the national title hunt, and Harbaugh (I would love to have him, considering what he has done with Stanford - a place that could care less about football, and generally is under the radar) was probably too inexperienced for UM to gamble on 2 years ago. I think any coach has to have at least 3 years (provided there is improvement) and I surely do not want to see any hate mail or personal threats. This is football, after all, and not life or death concerns. The offense is markedly superior to the slop we had in '08, but the defense has gotten worse, and I am particularly appalled at the way the team QUIT at Illinois, after they could not get a TD after 4 attempts from the 1, since the Illini are woeful . . . and the way they just collapsed after a 14-pt. lead to Purdue, a team that has not won in AA since Bob Griese's days in the mid-60's. They cupboard was not bare (even if it was more slanted to youth), and why has the recruiting been so weak? A losing season or two is not the end of the world, but becoming a laughing stock (and UM is exactly that NOW) is totally unacceptable. The coaches seat is very, very, HOT, Mr. Rodriguez!
I reiterate, If Bo were still alive Rich Rod would not be coaching at Michigan. He's not a Michigan guy. His character is not that of a proud UM program. Sure, Bo may have said he would run RR's offense but he never said he would hire him as head coach. Oregon runs the spread and it IS effective with the right personnel in place. The difference is Oregon also plays defense. Sure we have young players on the field (not just a few) but you still have to coach those young players up.
My disappointment with RR and his staff is the lack of improvement from game to game. No, I never expected us to be Big Ten champs in just two years and I don't expect us to win it next year. I just don't see improvement from game to game and that is the issue I have with this coaching staff.
I live in Columbus and have coached here for 8 years. We've had young players on the field for the first time and went 0-10 our first year but we got better in every game and the kids could see themselves improving. That gave them the desire to work hard in the offseason and the next year we went 6-4. We lost the championship the next year.
If you ever expect to have a successful football program it has to be all about your players. They need to bond as a team, spend time together in the offseason, go to the movies together, hand out together, trust each other, love each other as brothers. You get that type of bonding and they will go to war for each other. This only comes from creating a culture that encourages unity, trust and brotherhood. I don't see that at UM and it bothers me that RR and staff is not creating such a culture.
Bo Schmo, He was the most boring coach in college football history and he had a hard time winning a rose bowl. People act like the guy was a god and he was far from it. Hater nice to see that you are a coach and I congratulate you for that. But just read this article and tell me RR has had nothing but an uphill battle ever since he came to MI. Ignorant people making comments to stir the pot. Who gives a rip if Bo would hire this guy? Come on dude you can do better then that. What difference does it make what you think Bo would do. The guy is no longer with us and he sucked out side the big ten. Hardly a measuring stick by any stretch of the imagination.
What is wrong with the press and all you goofballs out there attacking RR? Lloyd left nothing at MI when he retired. RR is changing the culture at MI give the guy a chance. His first year he had nothing to work with not even a QB to run his offense and this year he has a freshman. Again if you were expecting more, then it is your fault for being that naive. If things do not improve to at least an 8-4 record next year then lets all get together and hang him by the short hairs but until then stop already with the silly comments!!
"Up until Rodriguez’ arrival, violations of these kind never occurred within the Michigan football team." What's wrong with you? How much do you hate Michigan? Is Alleged not part of your vocabulary. The third side, the truth, is as far away from you as it can get. What we need is some meaningful half-time adjustments while we wait for some guys that can really play defense, all the time. I'm tired of watching Forrest Gump defense. "Stupid is as stupid does." It really does "hurt too much to watch."
Most of you have no Idea what you are talking about. Bo admired RR, and said he would be his first pick. Second LLoydhad 3 classes2005,06, 07 where he had a total of 5 decent D players. The whole roster is 75% freshman and sophs. The offense was just fine, it scored and average of 32 a game. G Rob will get things in order next year . we still have some great recruits coming in next year. We have some Freshman and redshirts who will be good next year. RR has not been shown to have violatyed anyhting. There are some missing sheets fromlast year, that will be found, and everything checks out for this year which is what the Freep was trying to start crap about . The Freep isn't even worth reading. They want RR out like this guy and some of you. If you got rid of RR now, you would lose half of the recruits we have now and some of this years commits and have to start all over beinging indifferent types of players. It would take at least three years to get a 500 team . In the next two yeats Michigan will be back in the elite. They have some great young lineman, slots, corners, safties, D line and LB's there now and coming in this year. Next year you will see Cullen Christian(#3 corner in the country this year) and JT Turner who was one of the 3 best last year, who is redshirted. Plus Marvin Robinson at saftey. and a good chance at a top D lineman from Texas, who has us ahead of Florida, and Oklahoma. Learn what you are talking about before you call for a dumb mistake like firing RR!
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Nov 16, 2009
01:19 PM
I don't like Rich Rod anymore than anyone else. It was a bad move bringing him to Michigan. If Bo were still alive and running the program Rich Rod would have never been selected as head coach. That being said, give the guy a chance.
Name another division 1 team that starts as many Freshman and Sophomore as Michigan does. If they have to start majority Freshman and Sophomore, what shape did Lloyd leave the program in? I don't like it but it is what it is. There is not enough talent at UM to be competitive in the Big Ten. What's even more painful is seeing UM with the number 15 rated recruiting class and not much incentive for a stud athlete to come to UM.
I think with a stellar recruiting class (especially defensive players) we could finish in the middle of the Big Ten next year and move forward from there. If we can't beat weak teams like Illinois and Purdue next year, it may be a good idea to start looking at former Michigan guys to get the program back on track.