Here goes: My Official Conclusion - Time to Change

Qualitative arguments will not get you very far around here.

"HARBAUGH!!!!!" doesn't qualify as an argument. Neither does "We aren't getting ay media love."

The offense is putting up big numbers in the B10. To call them "not tough" is complete bullshit.

Also, what makes you think Harbaugh wants to come to Michigan?

Finally, reserving judgment requires you to watch the rest of the season. To make a decision now is both premature and immature.

I am not one of those that over-promote our offense.  Lloyd Carr offenses, while conservative, were often potent.  However, I think saying that our offense is incapable of handling Big Ten Ds is unfounded.  Our biggest problem is we just don't have a good running back, not that he is small.  Mike Hart was pretty small too.  Our offensive line handled the best the big ten had to offer in Iowa.  We had good push and protection the whole game.  Rich Rod has also adapted well to 'Big Ten style' by featuring tight end more and using big backs like Hopkins.  The only difference is that our quaterback and slots are small ninjas.  But would you really trade denard for navarre??

I rate this Diary 1.5 stars.

Kill me...

agree with some things but number 1 is a ridiculous argument that really makes no sense considering the offense has done fairly well against the Big Ten. Defense is defense and ours is terrible. The initial argument made by window lickers across the nation was that a RR coached offense could not do it's thing in the Big Ten and as far as I am concerned Denard and Co. have struck down that theory emphatically. The defense is still atrocious but the type we play cannot be deemed the sole culprit. I would deem coaching and lack of know how to make that defense work as more of a problem than the system itself. Forcing guys to coach that system when they have never done it may be a problem but the 3-3-5 Sometimes and sometimes not is not the only problem.

381 yards from your quarterback is simply UNACCEPTABLE! This offense is terrible.

...excuse me while I repeatedly slam my head against the wall.

Two recruiting classes equals true sophmores/redshirt freshmen. And we are bitching because are playing such young players, let alone kids who have been in college for 2 fucking months.

Thanks for your opinion. I respectfully disagree.

Who gave you an office?

that watches the game and pays attention to B10 football believes this garbage.

RR's teams are not Big Ten tough.  The offense with smaller backs, smaller/fleeter O-line, etc.

OSU averages 304.5 across their OL.  UM averages...  wait for it...  wait for it... 301.5 TAKE THAT RR!  ANd on top of that we are much younger and still growing, next year we could be a miniscule 302!  Now I realize that this difference is huge, but does it really make us soft? Please find a new argument this one has no basis in fact. Outside of Smith, our RB are the same size as everyone elses.   Again find a new argument, no basis in fact.

And your D argument has been blown to smitherenes more time than I care to count, so I will leave that one alone.

Seems like 40 wasted years of not paying attention to UM football to me. You owe it to your children to ignore the "perception" find out the "facts". Let them know that in life you should not just follow the crowd, but do the right thing. Of course being in DC, that might be a tough sell.

Comments:

Point #1: How do you measure toughness?  On size, do you have any evidence that UM's O-line is any smaller than that of its peers?  I posted a diary on this a few weeks ago and found nothing of the sort.

Point #2: RichRod's first full class consists of true sophomores / redshirt freshmen.  Giving him *half* of the '08 class (snake oil aside) isn't fair.  Don't get me wrong -- most of the results are his fault.

Point #3: I don't know what to say here.  Do you think people like "Clint from Iowa" or the "lifelong Michigan fans" from Barrington, IL that SI's Stewart Mandel always seems to find might _enjoy_ all this?  To me, all the RR attention is evidence that the brand is nationally relevant.  We're seeing This Year in Schadenfreude.

Point #4: Too many eggs, one basket, etc.  I'm intrigued by Harbaugh, too, but let's not be bunglers a la Auburn and Notre Dame, eh?

Finally: "Harbaugh's teams ARE TOUGH.  ...  They smashed the Bruins in the face and laughed about it."  That sounds stupid and emotional to me.  Are Taylor Lewan and Mike Martin not tough enough for you?

So putting up over 500 yards and 28 points against the big brawny number 2 ranked defense of Iowa is not Big Ten tough?   Just checking.   You make a fine argument there and now have swayed me to agree with your conclusion.

And another thing, why do these posts always start with something to effect of "I've watched a lot of Michigan games, so I would know". To me, that instantly makes you 10x less credible.

Otherwise, they are just one royally tough football team -- gee, just like Bo used to field!!!!

Question for you: how many MNCs did Bo field?

A follow-up: what was Bo's bowl record?

Bo was a great personality and a good coach. But in the last 60 years Michigan has won one-ONE! MNC. And they had to share that one with Nebraska. Bo's bowl record was 5-12.

I know that a lot of Michigan fans prize our NCAA-leading all-time winning percentage. But I would rather be able to say that Michigan leads in all-time national championships. (In the history of the AP poll, which has been around since 1936, we are tied for 12th with two.)

I think it's great that we won a lot of games before World War II. So did Yale and the University of Chicago. If we want to contend for national championships in the 21st century, Bo and Bo look-alikes are not the answer.

As has been mentioned before, we have one of the top offenses in the country with a sophomore QB and no outstanding RBs. We hired RR for his offense, and that has done VERY well given the short amount of time and lack of experience.

As good as RR is for our offense, Greg Robinson is as bad for our defense. True, we have some young players, but they lack fundamentals such as tackling and often miss their coverage. We need a new defensive staff, someone who can at least make us competent. A mediocre defense with our awesome offense will get us very far.

Jim Harbaugh isn't the answer--he took 3 years to get Stanford back to snuff, and he didn't have to start over like RR did. People who talk about "tough, pro-style Michigan teams" clearly think we started playing football in 1969. We spent two years fixing one side of the ball, now we need to fix the other, and we need RR to stay for that to happen.

#1.  Re-read what everybody has said in response to your point #1; this may help it sink in better.  Also, in Big Ten play, we have scored 42 (Indiana), 17 (MSU), 28 (Iowa) and 31 (Penn State) points; other than the MSU game, I think our offense scored enough points to win games.  Our offense is obviously fine; this brings us to our defense and your point #2.

#2.  The guys that Rich Rod would have recruited in 2008 would be either true juniors or redshirt sophomores.  His first full recruiting class is comprised of current true sophomores and redshirt freshman.  The only upperclassmen that are making any sort of positive contribution on defense right now are Mike Martin, RVB and Mouton.  Where are the rest of the recruits from 2006 and 2007 (Martin is the exception to this list since he was the class of 2008)?  See the diary titled "Decimated Defense" for your answer.  I would hope someday that we can field a defense full of some combination of true/redshirt juniors and seniors.  I honestly can't remember any other time we have played so many underclassmen at the same time on defense.

#3.  Not sure how OSU decals in metro Washington DC equates to more media love for OSU; maybe that simply just equates to more OSU grads or Ohio natives moving to DC in correlation with the general explosion in population in the DC, Northern Virginia, Maryland area over the past 15 years.  Notre Dame still gets a lot of media love and they have not been consistently good for at least 15 years.  We were getting a ton of love from the media when we were 5-0 and everybody was ready to hand the Heisman over to Denard.  When we win, the media hypes us up (almost excessively).  When we lose, they become very negative (likewise almost excessively).  Welcome to the media in 2010.

Fair enough that you want Harbaugh, but you said yourself that you would wait for the PSU, Illinois, Purdue stretch to conclude.  This is such an over-reaction to one game in a long season, not much different from the over-reaction to 5-0 leading to Denard4Heisman and MichiganBCSChamps2012.  Some people on this blog are so uneven sometimes.

Can you go back to being an infrequent poster.

We should fire RR because we're not getting enough media love?  That's the dumbest thing I have ever read on the internet.

really?

Lol i stopped reading when the first point was RR players are not "big ten tough" hahah...

Funny that even without a feature RB we have still put up points on everyone.. If we had a mediocre D we would be undefeated and not be crying like retards right now

I'm sure this will come across as dickish, but can we just create two wiki-like Diary entries called "RR should stay" and "RR should go" and just let people post away at them.  I count at least 8-9 "Diaries" that are just jags from people in one of these two camps, and news to everyone - we know the arguments. 

The season is still only 2/3rd done, and no changes will be made until the last 4 games are completed.  Let's just sit back, enjoy the fact that there is still footballl being played in A2, and leave the future to the, well, future.