An open letter to the next Michigan coach

Submitted by JeepinBen on

Congrats! You're the new head coach at the University of Michigan! It's a wonderful university with a rich academic and athletic history. The product on the field was a tire-fire in 2014, but you know that. Hopefully you're good enough at "coaching football" even if you don't know "The Victors" yet.

You should know that there are 2 parts to coaching Michigan - being a good football coach and knowing how to bullshit/placate your base. I'm hoping you're proficient at the former and that's why you're here. In terms of the latter:

You'll get asked about being a "Michigan Man". Here's how you should answer that: 'When Coach Schembechler said that "A Michigan Man should coach Michigan" he was referring to a basketball coach shopping his services. Why anyone would want to leave this great university is beyond me. I'm here because I want to be here. I'm here to help make this the greatest football program in the country and I'll put 100% into that every day. I don't know the words to The Victors yet, but I know I'll hear them after every Touchdown and Turnover, so I'll be hearing it often. My staff will start every meeting with it and we will embody everything that this great university stands for.' (If you've got a  tie to Michigan history, use it here. Say you're from the same area of WV as Yost... sigh...  or if you coached at Miami like Bo, or something)

You'll get asked about former players. There are some high profile ones who are varying levels of happy with the program. To them you should say: "Any former player is welcome to my office any time I'm not with the team or preparing for a game. I'm creating an "Alumni Day" every fall when we welcome back any and every former football letterman during a game, in addition to the flag football game as part of our spring game. If any former letterman wants to attend a game, give me a call. Between myself and the AD we'll get you to the games that you need to go to. If you have a legacy recruit - a son, younger brother, cousin - no questions asked they will be offered a preferred walk-on spot here at Michigan. We have to make decisions that are best for the program and if we, as a staff, have scholarships available we'd love to offer them to your legacy.

You'll get asked about wearing a headset/coaches in the booth/on the field. Say that you have to balance communicating with your players and your staff and if you ever have an issue with either you'll change your behavior.

You'll get asked if this is an elite job. Answer "Yes. Winningest program (hopefully still :-( ), The Big House, glorious history and the best damn uniforms in sports. Michigan has all the tools to be an elite program and I'll to my best to win every single game we play every year."

You'll get asked about the B1G being Big tehhhhhnnnn "The B1G has a glorious history in football, but as a conference we need to do better in our non conference slate. There's no reason why every program in this conference can't commit the resources and personnel to be the best conference in the country. We are doing that at Michigan and hope everyone else does as well."

You'll get asked about Michigan State - say that you've got all the respect in the world for them, they've been doing great recently, and that you want to beat them by 20 every year.

You'll get asked about Ohio State - say that you've got all the respect in theworld for them, they've been doing great recently, and that you want to beat them by 50 every year.

You'll get asked a bunch of other bullshit. Realize that you could go 14-0 and win every game by 20. There will be Michigan fans who are upset because you didn't win by 30, or didn't score a point-a-minute, or your QB didn't "look" right, or you weren't as angry as they remember Bo being, or you yelled to much, or because you said that Zingermans is delicious but overpriced.

Don't worry about these people.

Worry about coaching the team, keeping them healthy, punting not-like-a-dinosaur, and winning some games. I hear that fixes everything.

Comments

Chipper1221

September 29th, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^

How did it get to this.. Growing up (Born in 1990) I never thought I would Michigan come to this. Where did it go wrong? Can it be fixed? Is Michigan football a thing of the past?

Blueroller

September 29th, 2014 at 3:56 PM ^

I was born in 1960. My dad and uncle were prototypical grumpy Michigan fans, taking wins for granted and taking losses… Well, let's just say if they were alive to see this, it would kill them deader. Michigan football is bound to come back eventually. As this excellent letter points out, Michigan has a lot going for it. I just hope it happens before I join my dad and uncle.

Sten Carlson

September 29th, 2014 at 5:55 PM ^

Chipper,

I was born in 1973, and moved to Ann Arbor in 1976.  When both of my parents worked for the university, I could hear the Big House from my house, and attended Michigan myself (Class of 1995).

"How did it get to this?" My take -- FWIW -- is that Michigan allowed its football program to be dominated by a "cult of personality" of sorts surrounding Bo, and this cult wrapped itself in a blanket of arrogance basically cloistered itself off from the rest of the CFB world.  Outsidereds were viewed with disdain, and Michigan looked down at programs like OSU and MSU as they tried to find the "Next Woody" or the "Next Duffy."  We had our guy, and we were dominating our conference, there was no need to look elsewhere.

During these two decades Michigan, like an isolated gene pool, began to become inbred and even more suspicious of the outside CFB world, which in the late 80's early 90's was rapidly changing.  New offenses were rising, the "three yards and cloud of dust" mentality was dying off, and programs everywhere were injecting themselves with "new blood" from the young coaching ranks.  Not Michigan.

When Bo, the Cult Leader, retired, Michigan hired his long-time assistant Moeller, and in doing so, it announced to the CFB that it still wasn't interested in breaking away from the regime that had been in power since 1969.  That being said, I liked Mo, and thought that he was going to be the guy to bring Michigan into the "modern age" of CFB.

To me, Michigan had an amazing opportunity in 1994, when Mo was dismissed, to go outside the cult and inject some "new blood" into the program.  Once again, Michigan showed that unless you were a member of the cult, you weren't good enough for Michigan, and it promoted Carr from within.  Despite all that Carr did from Michigan -- like coaching Michigan to the 1997 National Championship -- I think this is "How it came to this.'

The Michigan football program was (is?) being run and controlled by arrogant people who believe that because they are members of the "Bo Cult" that their way, and only their way, is the best way.  Problem is, it's not the best way, and programs from formerly crappy football schools have risen to amazing heights by doing things differently. 

Michigan, under Carr, had become stale and uninspired.  I plodded along as if it was 1980 instead of 2000.  Still, Michigan made no significant changes -- no new blood, only those who were members of the Cult.  Even when Carr expressed his desire to retire from coaching, the Michigan AD made no plans to find someone from the outside, basically assuming that Michigan would just do what Michigan had done since 1969 and promote from within.  Just see it through 2007, Martin pleaded, confindent that the Bo Cult would never be asleep at the wheel, to which Carr agreed.  Then, The Horror and Oregon happened, it it became clear that Michigan's ship had run aground, and yet STILL, no plans were made.

Rich Rod was not hired because the Cult has been usurped, nor because it had come to realize that change was needed.  He was hired out of desperation because NOBODY had a plan, because nobody had ever had to have a plan -- it was just assumed that the Bo Cult would just remain in control forever.

Michigan handed over the program to the first outsider since 1969 in the worst condition it had ever been in.  Then, instead of apologizing to the outsider, asking him to stick it out, and letting him know that he had everything that the mighty juggernaut Michigan could offer, the Cult sabbotaged him, and did very little to defend him from the Free Press, and the angry fans.

Michigan then hires Brandon, a card carrying member of the Bo Cult, he fires RR, and then hires another Bo Cult member.  Unfortunately, Hoke isn't getting it done.  He's missing something, perhaps something intangible, that would enable him to get these highly talented players to perform at reasonably successful level. 

Michigan is where Michigan is now because it is so scared/suspicious of outsiders that it will only accept its own inbred cult members as viable.  The problem is, when you've been inbred since 1969, and that inbred Cult didn't spawn off a fruitful "tree," you have nowhere to go BUT outside.

Will Michigan do it?

I dumped the Dope

September 29th, 2014 at 6:32 PM ^

Agree mostly and I've had a similar experience, I'm a couple years older and didn't get to AA until 1980 but I could see that the end of the Bo era was well, the sun setting on a different time in the game of football, and that QB passing was actually going to significantly change the game in the future.

I agree that my thoughts were that Moeller had the necessary toolkit to bridge the gap going forward, unfortunately a few too many once upon a time ruined everyone's day.

Yes, Michigan was caught with pants down at the end of Carr's tenure.  The 6Ps if you will (meaning Pre Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance).

The epitaph on the RR program, for me, was "if only he could have fielded a viable defense".  And its looking quite likely the one on the Hoke program will be "if only he could have fielded a viable offensive line".

If you take away the names, the decision to completely usurp the basic football schemes and then a couple years later whipsaw it in another direction, with the likelihood of doing it again in some (ideally diminished) capacity forthcoming, is an ever deepening hole to dig out of.

The future, is of course only assurred to be filled with change in most anything you can think of.  Its mostly a matter of hoping the 6Ps get followed this time.

 

snarling wolverine

September 29th, 2014 at 10:44 PM ^

You talk about us being stale and inbred after Bo, but the fact is, 1990-2007 was still a good stretch that included 8 Big Ten titles and a national championship.  There is no guarantee that we would have performed as well if we'd have hired an outsider instead of Mo in 1990.  Moreover, there is no guarantee that the last seven years would be as bad as they were if we'd hired, in 2007, a guy with Michigan ties.  

Don't forget that Les Miles was part of the Bo/Mo tree.  He was the logical candidate to succeed Carr and if he had, I strongly believe we'd have had a much better 2008-14.  We would have largely kept our identity while modernizing it a bit, instead of going through the wholesale changes we did that required a painful rebuilding process.

The problem with Hoke isn't that he's part of the Bo/Mo/Carr tree, but that he's just not a good coach and doesn't know how to actually implement the philosophy he wants.  Miles and Harbaugh do.

 

 

snarling wolverine

September 29th, 2014 at 7:35 PM ^

Come on, of course it can be fixed.  Alabama was in complete disarray before Saban.  ND went through Davie, Willingham and Weis before Kelly.  MSU had Bobby Williams and John L. Smith before Dantonio.  You just have to hire the right guy.  Once he wins, all the other crap goes away.