Three And Out Takes: Carr, Rodriguez, Martin Comment Count

Brian

imageSo. It's out.

I'm impressed with the large numbers of people who seem to have already blazed their way through Three and Out. It took me a while. I stopped for a few days after "Honeymoon from Hell" because it was too depressing; every chapter featuring a game I knew they'd lose spectacularly required a little bit of willpower to start.

But I'm done and a large number of you are done. It is time to talk the turkey.

We've got this document. What does it say about major players in the saga? I was planning one part here but this got long, so today we'll cover Carr, Rodriguez, and Bill Martin, with various players with less prominent roles in the story covered in a post tomorrow.

Lloyd Carr

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It says a few things about Lloyd Carr that are not nice, and implies more. Bacon's said he left a lot of things out that he could not get multiple sources on, which is both his responsibility as an actual journalist and horribly frustrating.

The main strikes:

  1. Informing his former players he would sign any transfer papers they wanted at his meeting with them after their bowl game, a marked contrast from the Bo-Bump transition.
  2. Telling Mallett he "needed to leave".
  3. Having zero control over his former players, or—worse—tacitly endorsing their behavior by not jumping down their throats.
  4. Offering something short of the fiery defense Bo would have launched once the program started taking fire.

That's aside from the state of the roster when Rodriguez took over, which wasn't specifically directed at the new man.

Those seem like major strikes. Screw it: those are major strikes, particularly #3. I find it inconceivable that Eric Mayes would made it thirty seconds into the embarrassing "we own this program" speech before Bo burst from his chest like a Xenomorph. Carr does nothing. Multiple former players trash Rodriguez in public. Carr does nothing. The 2009 golf outing that even guys like Chris Balas* come back from disgusted at, naming specific names of players (Marlin Jackson, Dhani Jones) who embarrassed themselves with their behavior. Is Carr even at it? It's worse if he is.

So, like, whatever. Carr doesn't owe anyone anything except the 400k a year he was pulling down as associate AD. But he's no program patriarch. He's just a guy who used to coach here. His loyalty is to an incredibly specific version of Michigan only. The difference between the Bo guys and the Carr guys is obvious. Bo guys organize a weird counterproductive rally for RR; Carr guys go on MNF and state they're from "Lloyd Carr's Michigan" or storm the AD's office to demand RR's firing after every loss**. There are exceptions, obviously. The trend is clear.

I have no sympathy for arguments the guy is being painted unfairly when he was offered the opportunity to tell his side a dozen times. If history is written by the losers here it's because the winners don't care what the public thinks. They can't be surprised when the public thinks they're not Bo.

Carr did a lot of things for the program but his legacy is significantly tarnished by the pit it found itself in immediately after his departure. It was his lack of a coaching tree, lack of serious coordinators, and lack of tolerance for Les Miles that caused Michigan to hire Rodriguez in the first place. It was his lack of a roster—seven scholarship OL!—and lack of support that provided Rodriguez with two strikes before he even coached a game. We can argue about how much is Carr's fault and how much is Rodriguez's, but figuring out the latter is pointless since RR is gone and everyone hates him. The former is "far too much."

*[By this I mean guys who work for publications for whom access is lifeblood. They're naturally more circumspect. The reaction on premium sites to this golf outing was unprecedented, with people moved to call actual former players out by name after years of dark mutterings.]

**[Not in the book; something I got from a good source.]

Rich Rodriguez

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via AnnArbor.com

If you left a goat in the locker room after a Michigan loss and then locked Rodriguez in it for five minutes, you would return to find the walls smeared with blood and feta. There would be no trace of the goat.

Rich Rodriguez was obviously not a stoic guy. His sideline tantrums proved that. The extent of his leg-gashing, table-throwing, goat-cheese-making post-loss hissies is probably the thing that Rodriguez is pissed about. They don't make him look like a stable dude. Neither does his descent into J. Edgar Hoover-esque paranoia, no matter how intent the university was on making that paranoia seems reasonable.

By the time I got through it, my reaction to Rodriguez's portrayal was different than that of the media reviewing the book. It doesn't paint Rodriguez as a guy I would want in charge of my football program. I can deal with one goat-annihilating postgame tantrum a year. Rodriguez seemed to have one after every loss.

So why do most neutral accounts play up the Rodriguez sympathy angle? They do not take the truth that the local media is dominated by agenda-laden twits to be self-evident. When Mike Rosenberg—who comes off as a real winner—bombed Rodriguez with a bunch of half-truths and misrepresentations I bombed back, stating that it was obvious the buyout kerfuffle was university-directed. Surprise: it was university-directed as they tried to get out of their 2.5 million dollar hook. Similarly, Free Press Jihad is re-exposed as a bunch of half-truths at best run by a couple of guys who "had countable hours in there at some point" but had it edited out, no doubt because that's not at all important in a discussion about whether Michigan was more than doubling their allotted time on Sundays.

If you go into the book knowing Rosenberg and Snyder published an embarrassing hack-job and that a large part of the media firestorm surrounding Rodriguez was a combination of University incompetence and the tiny lizard brains of certain folk in the local media*, the main takeaway from the book in re: RR is the sheer height of the plumes his emotional volcano shoots up. I mean, Bacon spends pages and pages on Rodriguez playing up the traditions of Michigan to his players. That's an obvious reaction to the Michigan Man business. I assumed Rodriguez was not an idiot when it came to firing up his troops, I guess, and that stuff shot by me. Beating a bleating ungulate against the wall of the Notre Dame locker room until it bursts into a kaleidoscope of viscera… that stays with you.

I feel bad for the guy. I'm glad he's gone.

*[The rest a combo of Rodriguez never winning any games and his remarkable ability to stick his leg into the press conference bear trap.]

Bill Martin

University of Michigan Athletic Director Bill Martin watches over Thursday afternoon, August 20th's football practice at the Michigan practice facility outside of Schembechler Hall.<br />
Lon Horwedel | Ann Arbor.com<br />

Good Lord, man. I find it hard to believe that a guy who dragged Michigan kicking and screaming into massive financial success and smoothly hired John Beilein (admittedly after making a questionable hire in Tommy Amaker) was really as incompetent as… uh… I believed he was after the sailboat incident. That's Yogi Berra right there but it's also true.

Here's the the story of the post-Carr coaching search from the perspective of this site:

  1. Kirk Ferentz is reached out to and either is or is not offered; if offered he may have been given an offer that was a paycut. Ferentz fades but it seems like there was truth to the rumors.
  2. Flailing. Miles heavily discussed. ESPN reports Michigan contacts him after Ferentz falls through. They agree to wait until the SEC championship game is over. LSU boards buzz that Les has told his team he's out. I would be "surprised if it was not" Miles.
  3. Infamous ESPN report.
  4. Sailboat. "Have a great day." Sailboat.
  5. Conclusion reached in the aftermath is that M "essentially passed on Miles."
  6. Tedford and Schiano now start getting thrown around along with odder names like Grobe and Pinkel. Also some guy named Hoke. So much Hoke.
  7. Kirk Ferentz momentarily back. Then gone.
  8. Schiano talked to, offered, accepts, changes mind, offered again, says no.
  9. Sean Payton!
  10. Miles again! Seriously!
  11. Miles out again.
  12. Jim Grobe. Jim Grobe does not get an exclamation point.
  13. KC Keeler! Lane Kiffin! Seriously!
  14. Rodriguez out of nowhere.
  15. Sigh… Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

It seemed like a clown show, and behind the scenes… clown show. Martin wants Dungy, has no idea if Dungy—who is a broadcaster and can be contacted by anyone at any time for any reason—will take the job. Wants Ferentz, has no idea that the president of the university will stab him if he hires Ferentz. Wants Miles, has no idea that Lloyd Carr will stab him if he hires Miles. Somehow misses on Schiano, then has Rodriguez fall into his lap and grabs him before anyone can think about it, which sets up the whole buyout fiasco the media will spin for six months. The sailboat incident is even worse since Bacon asserts one of the main problems was Martin had a new cell phone and didn't know how to use it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh /dies

Martin himself drops out of the story shortly thereafter, which is another indictment of the guy because what enters is a vast institutional incompetence that starts the Rodriguez media cockroach katamari rolling. Everything from the buyout to the Dorsey situation is mishandled not only by Rodriguez (sometimes not even by Rodriguez, as with the buyout) but by the people who should be telling him what is and is not possible. When Rodriguez went to bat for Dorsey with a guy in admissions the guy in admissions should have looked at the guy's transcript before saying yes, and then when he did look at the transcript he should have said no.

Instead we actually sign the guy—opening us up to the most cynical and loathsome of all the lizard-brain media attacks—only to find out he is nowhere near eligible. And don't get me started on the CARA forms, which was a special brand of idiocy all on its own. Martin did a lot of big picture stuff very well, but he was totally unprepared to fix a department that had started downhill long before he arrived.

For all the crap I give Brandon about his failure on big picture stuff, he cleaned out the deadwood with alacrity.

TOMORROW: Players, reporters, me/us(!?).

Comments

Section 1

October 26th, 2011 at 4:41 PM ^

You've almost never seen me on this Board, claiming that I knew how to coach football, and that some coaches were doing their jobs right, or wrong.

Let's review some of the things I have claimed, almost all of which have resulted in people fighting with me on this Board.

Justin Boren - Rodriguez was saddled with the "family values" meme.  I said that was wrong.  I said that I thought that the Boren family freaked out because Zach didn't get his much-sought Michigan scholarship.  The book says I was right.

Rosenberg and the Free Press - I said, in a thousand different ways, that Rosenberg's reporting was badly flawed.  (And Brain Cook was way ahead of me on this one.)  The book says we were right.  Obviously.  Everybody now knows we were right.  The book wasn't even a surprise.

Jeff Casteel - I opined that I thought Michigan had not done enought to get Casteel, and that getting Casteel would have made all the difference.  That's virtually a quote from the book.

The Danny Hope/Reckman controversy - I claimed that Hope had fabricated his attack on Rodriguez.  I was right.

There are more; I've lost count of all of them.

And oh by the way, the West Virginia defense looks better than the Syracuse defense, and has for 5 or 6 years.

 

OysterMonkey

October 26th, 2011 at 4:59 PM ^

It's insufferable.

Not getting Casteel (if a relatively small amount of money were the only hurdle) isn't on Rich. Fine. That's a point of fact the book can illuminate.

What the book can't do, because it's a counterfactual, is show as fact that "Casteel would have made all the difference." It's a judgment (and one that I share).

But it's important not to couple that judgment with the false dichotomy: "Casteel" or "Clusterfuck of mismanagement and misery for three years". There are other DCs that could have "made all the difference." I think you're argument that Rich is mostly blameless re: Defense because of the Casteel situation slides into this false dichotomy. That's what I'm saying.

Shafer may have been one of those difference making DCs, but we'll never know. I'm not saying Shafer > Casteel. I don't believe that's the case. I'm saying Shafer running a defense he knows > Shafer and GERG running a defense they don't know. I believe (again, a judgment) that if Rich had let Shafer have some autonomy to run the defense the way he wanted to (including getting rid of assistants if need be) he probably would've won that additional handful of games over the course of 2009 and 2010 that would have gotten an extra year.

 

Section 1

October 26th, 2011 at 5:45 PM ^

Nor Greg Robinson, because in both cases, I think their failures are all too clear.  I'd never suggest that Rodriguez AND Greg Robinson should have been retained for 2011 and beyond.  I am not making excuses for GERG, and I wanted GERG to be gone.  I'm not much on either DC having been "forced" to coach a 3-3-5, because that's not something you find out about in the third week of the season.  That's something you know about before your first interview.

I really don't recall any tears when Shafer was let go after 2008, either.  I went to the OSU game in Columbus, and I was shaken after that game with how bad we looked.

One thing about the book that has disappointed me is that Bacon did not confirm or refute the rumor that Rodriguez's final play to Brandon in January of this year was that he could turn around the defense if we had Casteel, and to get Casteel to Michigan he needed an appropriate salary plus a guarantee of xyz in the event that he and/or Rodriguez were let go within a couple of years.

I'd like to know what that story is, one way or another.  I don't know, but to me it is just hard to believe that it is not true, given the bizarre two-day meeting/review involving Rodriguez and Brandon.  My thinking is that on the first day, GERG was fired.  And the the discussion turned to Casteel, perhaps through an agent (hence the time involved) and when it couldn't be arranged (or Brandon wouldn't arrange it), then the one and only option was to fire Rodriguez.

jmblue

October 26th, 2011 at 6:26 PM ^

I'm not much on either DC having been "forced" to coach a 3-3-5, because that's not something you find out about in the third week of the season. That's something you know about before your first interview.

Ideally, yes. But that is not what happened. Shafer ran a 4-3 until seven weeks into the 2008 season, when RR dictated a change to a 3-3-5.

Given that Shafer got to run his desired defense for all of seven games, how can we conclude his failures were "clear"?

coastal blue

October 26th, 2011 at 11:05 PM ^

comes into play. The pressure on our very bad team kept getting ratcheted up because everyone saw winged helmets and thought it was a birthright to win. 

After game 7, we were 2-5. Going into game 8 (Or was it game 9? Didn't we first run the 3-3-5 against Purdue when we still had a long shot at getting into a bowl?)  people were calling for Rodriguez's head. And in this moment, I think we saw why Rodriguez wasn't the right man for the job in 2008. He panicked like a fan might panic and overruled his DC, creating the chaos of the Purdue game. He couldn't handle the pressure and it showed in those moments. 

But that's what bothers me: the narrative. It became about things that were ridiculous and grew over time. Rodriguez was a bad coach. The spread doesn't work. The players are too small. The "style" can't win in the Big Ten. BCS bowl or bust by the next season. Things would NEVER get better....The media, you expect them to act foolish, because negativity sells. Fans, being as emotional as we are, you can expect us to act irrationally. But Lloyd Carr and the ex-players? They could have done so much to quell the chaos of that first season. And they did nothing but make it worse. 

Needs

October 26th, 2011 at 7:05 PM ^

Judging from the Syracuse - WVU game last weekend, Scott Shafer is an excellent defensive coordinator. He has been everywhere he's coached, save Michigan. There was something going on regarding the defensive coaching that had nothing to do with Casteel

STW P. Brabbs

October 27th, 2011 at 8:20 AM ^

I'm only picking on an isolated point, here - but did you read that first sentence back before you posted?  Noted football expert John Bacon, with his extended football coaching experience, authoritative hypothesized that things may indeed have been different with Casteel as DC, and this matters .... why?  It doesn't make sense to live only within the logic of the book itself.  We're not doing some kind of ridiculous literary criticism deconstruction.

JeepinBen

October 26th, 2011 at 3:54 PM ^

Or is it also somewhat on Martin/The AD Culture since Bo that "coaching at Michigan is a priveldge and you should accept less money and security to come here".

To get Casteel was $10k more ($260 total) and an actual contract. The AD wouldn't offer it. In comes DB and Mattison gets $675k.

I'd argure it's Rich's fault for who he hired, and the Athletic Department's fault for not getting him who he wanted.

OysterMonkey

October 26th, 2011 at 4:17 PM ^

Honestly, I'm not sure how to portion out the blame. But I do think that the things Rich could control he handled poorly. That part of it falls on him.

And you can't compare Mattison to Casteel. Casteel's a good coordinator, but hiring a guy away from WVU isn't hiring a guy that's in the NFL to come back to college in the same position.

JeepinBen

October 26th, 2011 at 4:25 PM ^

Nor do I think we have to.

I'm not saying Mattison = Casteel, what I'm saying is 4 years ago the coach said "get me this guy" the AD said "this is all we'll offer." Last year the coach said "get me this guy" the AD cut a check right away (and 'this guy's' daughter had a baby).

A huge takeaway from the (1/2 that i've read so far) book for me has been that SO many people made SO many mistakes. Rich included. Honestly it's given me a new appreciation for DB (see my comments below) that I dont know that I'd have otherwise. And the book hasn't mentioned him in detail yet.

mtzlblk

October 28th, 2011 at 1:20 PM ^

will work for lower pay in a toxic situation where the scrutiny will be 100 times that at any other program, the talent pool is depleted and your boss is standing under a bucket of tar with thousands of pitch forks pointed in his direction..........you might have 4 or 5 candidates willing to brave that, not many of which are what you would consider elite, much less proven.

I find it hard to believe, given $650K to find a DC, that RR goes out and says, 'GERG is my man!'

Ed Shuttlesworth

October 26th, 2011 at 3:20 PM ^

The answer 's simple, and was always simple -- we should have hired Les Miles in 2007.  The only reason we didn't is because Martin and MSC were overly swayed by Lloyd Carr, who's proven to be a bitter, self-centered and disloyal man.

The only real question is whether Martin and MSC should have been better judges of character than they turned out to be and whether they should have listened to more unbiased voices in determining the future of the football program and athletic department.

jmblue

October 26th, 2011 at 4:22 PM ^

If we take away all of the things that were demonstrably not Rodriguez's fault -- the 2008 roster, Jeff Casteel as DC, the buyout litigation, the Free Press and the NCAA investigation fallout -- would Rodriguez have won an additional game or two, would he have produced a few better recruits and would he have been given a fourth year?

Perhaps. But if he'd gotten that fourth year, he'd still have been on the hot seat. It's not like surviving year 3 gets you tenure as a football coach. Having his record be 16-21 or 17-20 instead of 15-22 would not be enough of a change. We may have found ourselves in an Amaker-type situation, where a seemingly inevitable firing kept on dragging out interminably. (Did anyone really expect Amaker to survive that last season?)

JClay

October 26th, 2011 at 4:31 PM ^

I definitely think 17-20 would've gotten him another season IF those two additional wins came in 2009-2010. If he went 6-6 in 2009 (thereby getting into a bowl) and 8-4 in 2010, he's still on the sidelines. Or if both those wins came in 2010 and went 9-3? Shoot, he'd have a contract extension.

jmblue

October 26th, 2011 at 4:51 PM ^

That's not really my point.  I agree that he could have been retained beyond 2010 with a couple more wins - but I think it's naive to assume that if that had happened, RR would have suddenly been in the clear beyond that.  He'd still be facing heavy scrutiny in 2011.  There probably would have been a lot of speculation about RR being a lame duck right now. 

Section 1

October 26th, 2011 at 5:00 PM ^

Speculation about another year of Rodriguez.

Spculation about Dantonio going to Ohio State.

Speculation about Bo going to Texas A&M.

Speculation about Woody Hayes being fired in '76... and '77... and '78...

My one and only guiding thesis was that Rodriguez was being treated unfairly.  I regard this book as unassailable proof, of what has been obvious to me for three years.

I never said that I was happy with the team's record.  I never said that Rodriguez (or anyone else) was free of any error.  I said that Rodriguez was being treated unfairly and that it was materially interfering with him producing the best team that he could.  I think I was right.

STW P. Brabbs

October 27th, 2011 at 8:27 AM ^

The only thing that I've seen that connects the treatment of Rodriguez to his W-L table is the AD's inability to get Casteel.  Not having read the book, I'm not entirely certain how ironclad the assertion is that we definitely could have gotten Casteel with $10k/yr and a contract (what was the source for that?), but I'll grant that certainly we could have paid him some number that would have brought him to Ann Arbor.

But people need to stop conflating that with all of the other bullshit that Rodriguez had to deal with (and as someone who thinks Rodriguez was basically a good guy, I agree that it was bullshit.)  Unless you can show me exactly how having bitter ex-Carr players talking shit on the golf course or, hell, even the Freep Jihad was actually connected with the results on the field, I would think that the "things that set Rodriguez up to fail" discussion would have to be limited to a) inheriting a thin roster in 2008 and b) having to find a DC other than Casteel. 

Brodie

October 26th, 2011 at 3:06 PM ^

hey Brian

I'm not sure if you noticed but nearly all of your criticisms of Lloyd can be rendered as "HE'S NOT BO! WHY IS HE NOT BO! BO WOULD HAVE DONE IT DIFFERENTLY! BO BO BO!"

Bo is dead. I miss him a lot. Lloyd Carr is not Bo. He never was Bo. I doubt he wants to be Bo. As a media figure, he's the anti-Bo... reluctant to talk to the press, preferring privacy to publicity, etc. Failing him for not being someone he never was is ridiculous.

Why are we blaming Carr for being loyal to his kids and telling them, quite honestly, that it might be best for them to leave? I think it's great. He didn't doom guys to having to play in an offense that they were horrible fits for, he loved them too much to let that happen. Why are we attacking him for telling Mallett to leave? He'd been telling him that since week 6 of the season. And if he wasn't already out the door, it was in Mallett's best interest to leave anyway. Why is it a problem that Carr cared about his kids more than the school?

Farnn

October 26th, 2011 at 3:16 PM ^

Because this is Michigan.  Bo and Hoke clearly show a great love for the program and that is something that endears fans to them.  Rodriguez tried to as well but was criticized at every turn for not doing it enough.  RR told his players to stick around, even though he recruited them.  Carr did the opposite, letting the players be bigger than the program, and that's not how Michigan works; no one is bigger than the program, even Bo said so himself.

michgoblue

October 26th, 2011 at 3:26 PM ^

Sorry, but the whole "Bo and Hoke and RR loved the program but Lloyd did not" is just bullshit. 

Lloyd loved the program enough not to publicly defend and excuse someone who he honestly - and, ultimately correctly - believed was not an good fit for the program.  I applaud him, as I am sure that he must have known (and, equally not cared) that a faction of the fanbase would criticize him for his conduct.

Lloyd loved the program enough to fight not to allow a scum like Les Miles to take over and turn us into a fanbase that excuses over-signing and throwing players under the bus.

Lloyd loved his players enough to realize that each of them made a life decision as to what school to attend, and that his retirement totally changed the parameters of that decision.  If he allowed his players to transfer, good for him - it does not demonstrate a love of the school to force players to stay when it is not in their best interest. 

 

wolverine1987

October 26th, 2011 at 6:07 PM ^

And why did he offer transfers before the guy coached a single game? Are you saying that he knew RR was a bad fit before he coached a game?? And how did he know before RR coached a game that LC's retirement "totally changed the parameters" of a player's decision to attend Michigan? That's some good foresight LC had there.

Before the new guy coaches a single game, and when you are an employee of the university, you OWE it to M to support the new guy in every way possible. Every single way. Like Gary Moeller, who BTW had WAY more reason, should he choose, to have a grudge against the school that fired him. But instead, he defended RR and helped as he could. That is admirable. LC's actions were not admirable. Period.

JeffB

October 26th, 2011 at 6:45 PM ^

I could see what you say if Lloyd was fired. However, he retired, AND was given a job in the athletic department. With that job came the responsibility to act in the best interests of the university and the football team. Things like telling players they can all transfer was not best for the team. Not publicly supporting the coach that he recommended for the job was not in the best interests of the team.
<br>
<br>For all the good that Lloyd has done for the department an the university, these actions will always color my impression of him as a person.
<br>
<br>JeffB

mtzlblk

October 28th, 2011 at 1:23 PM ^

wasn't Lloyd the first person to call Rodriguez about the job as a way to be sure Miles, who he felt was not a fit, did not get hired?

So.......seems like at some point anyway he felt it not such a bad idea to hire him. 

JClay

October 26th, 2011 at 3:17 PM ^

I think its funny that in the Michigan community -- and especially on this website -- there's a large group of people who want Michigan's football coach to act EXACTLY like Bo when it comes to Sunday-Friday, then on Saturday's, they want a coach that is the EXACT opposite of Bo. "3 yards and a cloud of dirt" and "manball" are four-letter words to some people, but all hell will break lose if Michigan's football coach doesn't mimic Bo 100% in every other respect. Know your idols, I guess.