Thoughts to Ponder on about our coaching situation

Submitted by bouje on

So I just wanted to do a diary entry because I've been in a wall war on facebook for a while with this fan who says things like this:

 

"What were we supposed to
expect in the pre-season? Rich had plenty of time to decide if this is
what he wanted to inherit . . . He knew what he was getting into . . .
I highly doubt he showed up on Day 1 and said, "Hmm, we've got no
talent . . . I guess Michigan will be a shitty team this year" . . . No
one was expecting a perfect season here . . . What we did expect was
more than just the hype we were getting (which I realize now was JUST
HYPE) . . .



If he didn't think he could do something with the team he had he should not have accepted the job . . ."
 
To this I did some research and like many of you found a bunch of names of coaches with poor records in their first few years at their "name" school.  Here's the list:
 

Jim Tressel (7-5 OSU)

Pete Carrol (6-6 USC)

Les Miles (4-7 Okie State)

Joe Paterno (5-5 PSU)

Bobby Bowden (5-6 FSU)

Bear Bryant (1-9 Texas A&M, 5-4-1 Alabama)

Woody Hayes (4-3-2 OSU)

 

And this is the worst one of them all...  Who has been a HUGE critic of RR?  Lou Holtz..  and his first year records:

4-7 Minnesota

5-6 ND

0-11!!!!!! South Carolina

 

MIND BLOWING

Comments

MC Hammer

October 21st, 2008 at 2:28 PM ^

Good post. I was wondering privately whether a "great" coach had ever struggled as mightily as RR had in his first year. Les Miles, Bear Bryant, and Holtz all reassure me.

jamiemac

October 21st, 2008 at 3:45 PM ^

Carrol's first team at USC that went 6-6.....I think they started 1-4 or something like that.......they lost 10-6 to Utah in a very very low level bowl.

Troy Polamalu was a jr on the team.....as was Carson Palmer

Anonymous Coward (not verified)

October 21st, 2008 at 4:38 PM ^

1968 mich 8-2, bo's first year 1969, mich 8-3. lost to mich. state. beat ohio st. lost at home to missouri by 30 with a senior laden team.

Kal

October 21st, 2008 at 10:19 PM ^

Bouje, I've thoroughly enjoyed watching you join every anti Rich Rod group on facebook and proceed to tell them how retarded they are. Highlight of my week seriously.

tomhagan

October 22nd, 2008 at 12:58 AM ^

that if we had even marginal to good QB play these past 7 games...the team would be 5-2 or 4-3 at the least. Utah was a winnable game with better QB play, ND and Toledo for sure...even PSU was beatable if Threet goes the whole game and plays as well as he had in the first.

It is getting better... in all honesty we are one position away from being "perceived" as a much better team, both in actual record...and by the haters, blow hards, and causal "fans" on the net.

ameed

October 22nd, 2008 at 11:26 AM ^

Tom, I'll hypothetically give you Utah and Toledo with better play. 

ND...not so much.  You can't spot ND 14 points on the road in the first quarter and expect to win in a monsoon.  Furthermore, everyone around these parts seems to agree that Threet played fairly well in that game.

Against PSU we lost the momentum after that late first half personal foul + TD drive which is not on the QB.  Obviously, Sheridan did not do anything to help, but I am not sure that if you put a healthy Chad Henne in for the entirety of the PSU game that we win that one.

But, I still agree with your overall point.  Michigan is close, and with experiance and time will morph into offensive Ninja Death Butterfly in a couple years...I hope.

mth822

October 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 PM ^

There's an inherent and inherited destabilization involved in any regime change. And it can be a flat out downer for all parties involved. Fans bitch, recruits jump ship, the media holds a public flogging and Yeti's descend from Siberia to maul your cheer squad. Eventually they all go away and the sun comes back out.

Glen Masons Hot Wife

October 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 PM ^

Of course, Rich Rod himself was 3-8 his first year at West Virginia. We all know what happened after that.

What a bunch of morons out there, calling for his head.