CC: Will Gator sway many opinions here?
Happy hols, everyone. With the Gator Bowl just days a way, I'm wondering re the degree to which a big win or loss would influence opinions of RR here. In other words, would a win silence many in the anti-RR camp? Would a loss -- a double-digit one -- push many pro-RRs in the anti camp?
And what about the undecideds? It's my sense that most people are somewhat on the fence. I could be wrong -- I usually am -- but I just get the sense that a big win or loss would tip a lot of opinions. Am I wrong?
December 26th, 2010 at 9:04 AM ^
When we beat them.
December 25th, 2010 at 12:57 PM ^
And if M gets (god forbid) thumped? Won't the RR-lovers start spouting their own rationalizations?
December 25th, 2010 at 1:19 PM ^
will simply feel very, very sad.
December 25th, 2010 at 1:54 PM ^
They've been doing it for three years now--why stop?
December 25th, 2010 at 3:10 PM ^
So I get negged for saying this, but the guy who says the exact inverse does not. This is the difference between being pro or con RR. The cons get negged to death, just for disagreeing.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:35 PM ^
There is some unwarranted negging for disagreement on this site. However, I'd say the vast majority of negs for anti-RR posts have more to do with tone than opinion.
December 25th, 2010 at 6:48 PM ^
For example, calling people that want Rich Rodriguez to remain as the coach "RR-lovers" or "RR-apologists" doesn't make people happy, and is bound to get one negged. On the other hand, if someone feels that referring to people wanting a coaching change "RR-hater" is unacceptable, it's the reader's responsibility to neg them for it; that's the point of self-moderation.
December 25th, 2010 at 8:56 PM ^
Why one group feels the need to, and the other doesn't.
December 25th, 2010 at 2:58 PM ^
I was a staunch RR supporter before Penn State.
So yes, if Michigan loses by 4 touchdowns and looks like crap, I will be very unhappy and not as much of supporter anymore. However, I really wish there was better alternative than JH. Oh, I am sure he will be at least as good as RR in winning football games (though I think with RR's higher variable performance RR will probably win more MNCs in the next 20 years than JH and have more poor (6-6, 7-5, 8-4) seasons than JH. Those jumping up and down can note I said 20 years, not 2 years).
The problem is that JH is not as good a person, from ALL external and (indirectly surmisable) appearances not as a good a person as RR or LC. In spirit of Christmas, I won't say more about JH.
December 25th, 2010 at 8:26 PM ^
Dickrod: He's a man of his word ... signs a contract, breaks the contract, and then tries to sue his alma mater for money.....great, great man. Under his tutelage, the football program ends up on probation. wow..
Jim Harbaugh is the coach on January 4.
December 25th, 2010 at 9:59 PM ^
Why are you calling our coach "Dickrod"? Even if you want him fired, he's still our coach.
December 25th, 2010 at 4:32 PM ^
Im a RR supporter, but if we get stomped, I can't really defend him.. Now if we get beat cause our players just fumble constantly like they have all year then idk..
Then ill be at the point of who can actually get these kids to not fumble.. Unless the reason for all this the last 2 years is mainly cause of the age of all our playmakers who have been fumbling.. Fresh/soph's.
December 25th, 2010 at 4:32 PM ^
Im a RR supporter, but if we get stomped, I can't really defend him.. Now if we get beat cause our players just fumble constantly like they have all year then idk..
Then ill be at the point of who can actually get these kids to not fumble and lose us games.. Unless the reason for all this the last 2 years is mainly cause of the age of all our playmakers who have been fumbling.. Fresh/soph's.
December 29th, 2010 at 12:51 PM ^
Ugh. Michigan Football =/= Rich Rodriguez, it's not about him. People want to win, if they win this game, the Michigan fan base will be beyond excited for the start of next season.
December 25th, 2010 at 12:44 PM ^
This is one of the toughest teams we play all year (By far the hardest hitting). They're going to make it really obvious if this team doesn't come out to play. So I'd say if we get railed, we need a new situation.
December 25th, 2010 at 12:48 PM ^
Against a good team, ranked team, bowl game. It shouldn't mean any more than that, but with things looking 50-50, it's the decider.
<br>Same mistakes (fumbles, drops, ill-timed penalties) and a loss and he's out. Big win and DB can bring him back, as I believe he wants to. Simple eh?
December 25th, 2010 at 3:00 PM ^
I cannot believe almost nobody believes that DB REALLY hasn't made up his mind yet. Sure, that is not the most likely probability, but it seems to be at least possible (25%) that DB really hasn't made up his mind yet.
December 25th, 2010 at 12:54 PM ^
I'm in the minority that suspects DB is waiting on Harbaugh. But if I'm wrong about that -- and DB really hasn't made up his mind -- then it's not unreasonable to suspect that RR's fate hinges on the final-score of one game, next week.
December 25th, 2010 at 1:18 PM ^
it's gotta be oversimplifying a bit to think he's just looking at the final score. how the coaches prepare the team and how the score gets to be what it is should be more important than just our number and theirs.
December 25th, 2010 at 2:03 PM ^
Well, yes, of course. No one's saying it's the only barometer. But it may be the largest one.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:09 PM ^
I think it is very possible that DB is NOT waiting on JH.
But if you read some of the threeads and many of the post here, many believe there could not be any other reason for DB to wait.
December 25th, 2010 at 7:07 PM ^
I think it is very possible that DB is NOT waiting on JH.
But if you read some of the threeads and many of the post here, many believe there could not be any other reason for DB to wait.
December 25th, 2010 at 1:35 PM ^
I hate to say it, but if we win, it will still bring up a big issue: Why the futility in conference play?
With a Gator Bowl victory, we will be undefeated in the last two seasons against non-conference opponents and 4-12 in the Big Ten. Changing conferences is not the answer.
December 25th, 2010 at 1:45 PM ^
The Big Ten is really, really good.
December 25th, 2010 at 2:19 PM ^
Well, we haven't played any good non-conference teams. Just ND. And ND has been crap. So I don't think it's a conference thing. I think it's that we've only been able to beat weak teams.
December 26th, 2010 at 12:35 PM ^
3 teams Michigan lost to were ranked in the top 10. Penn State was a let-down game, Iowa was beatable but Michigan let the game get out of reach before their comeback, and Illinois was a game Michigan could have lost to but found a way to win despite Robinson's injury. Illinois is probably better than their ranking will have you believe.
December 25th, 2010 at 1:39 PM ^
Sure seems like Christmas has brought the negitive Nancy's. I want to see us win this game and get rid of the DC and get someone in here that can recruit a big 10 defense!
December 25th, 2010 at 2:14 PM ^
i was thinking the exact same thing. I'm so sick of just sitting here negging idiots, probably time for me to take a break, but the board was a lot of fun last night, I was hoping it'd keep on going for today.
December 25th, 2010 at 1:39 PM ^
I dont really know how I will feel after the game. I am all for RR and if for some reason RR ends up being removed then I am just hoping that Harbaugh will be our guy. I think RR has a good chance to still build something at Michigan and hopefully he will be able to do that and we can win some B10 Championships and even better National Championships with him. However, I know that if we lose that there will be a point on the way home where I start to wonder if this is the guy that can lead us back to the big wins. Merry Christmas MGOBLOG!!! Also, is the fathead stadium a little to unprofessional for an office? It is my goal to figure this out by Monday.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:26 PM ^
RR can take away our upper tier defense, our NFL QB tradition, our three yards and a cloud of dust, our jobs, the economy, our winning streak over the Spartans, our bowl streak, our safe safeties, the unshakable pimp hand of the Schembechler era, Gittleson Pizza strength development, BUT HE BETTER NOT MESS UP OUR SEC RECORD /s
December 25th, 2010 at 2:19 PM ^
I would stick with him for two more years at the minimum. I think he is good for his players.
It has been a pleasure to watch how well the young atheletes have responded to the troubles the team has endured this season.
Once the defense and special teams catch up with the skills shown by the offense, Saturdays during the Fall in Ann Arbor are going to be rocking.
Give us two very good defensive tackles added on this years recruit list, and in two years Michigan will once again be fighting for the Big Ten championship.
If JH comes in to replace RR, we wlll go through a period of transition while the new systems get implimented. I think JH would also be a good coach but, for now, I hate to see change come to a team that has a great future ahead of it.
I am glad I don't have the job to make these kinds of decisions.
December 25th, 2010 at 2:34 PM ^
RR lost the "mulligan" you seem willing to keep giving him. That's life in the fast lane.
What you are saying is the players to change things aren't on the roster yet. That means RR will not just have to recruit the players you think he needs, but get them to develop (and quickly--two years?)
And you are calling for it to happen on two different units--all the while continuing to assume the offense will be golden.
Too many "ifs" after already having three years on the job.
And you emphasize the "skills shown" by the offense--and the pessimist would suggest those "skills" were rendered largely ineffective against most of the Big Ten this year.
The #1 QB ws injured quite a bit--can he continue to take a beating? He went down against iowa with them up 35-14. Tate Forcier put up the last 29 points against Illinois. Wisconsin and OSU? forget it. Twenty points against Purdue. PURDUE. On and on.
Yeah, I challenge the notion of the "skills shown" by the offense--unless garbage time and a second-string quarterback who was ostracised by his coach and our fan base coming in to make games respectable is considered "skills shown"
Rodriguez doesn't have time to embrace the phrase "once the defense and special teams catch up"--and he shouldn't.
If he was doing this at OSU, Notre Dame, or MSU--we'd all be laughing at him.
December 25th, 2010 at 6:22 PM ^
Does everyone realize that Illionios had the 15th best defense in the nation when we played them, and ended up the 37th ranked defense on the year? Just think where that defense would be if we hadn't have put 67 on them. I guess when we look at good defenses, we only want to look at ones we lost to. Also, I don't know if this counts at all, but we put up 550 yards against Iowa, which hadn't been done in around 10 years. But yeah, I guess that 7 points we were down against Iowa with 8 minutes to play means they were taking it easy on us and weren't worried. Also, Iowa had a better defense than Wisconsin. But I guess everyone is right.
December 25th, 2010 at 7:08 PM ^
December 25th, 2010 at 7:39 PM ^
The point was about the offense, not Denard Robinson. The offense put up 67 points against the 35th best defense in the country. Without that game, where would the Illinois defense have been? The point still stands...the offense was just fine for those of us who actually watched the games. Also, to think that a great offense won't do less against better defenses is a little ridiculous. It is pretty stupid to think that an offense will do just as good against Bowling green as it would against OSU, who had the 2nd best defense in the nation.
Also, the "garbage time" argument is pretty ridiculous. We were down to Iowa, who had the 2nd best defense in the conference, by a whopping 7 points with 8 minutes to go in the 4th. Numerous things could have happened in that game with that much time to go, so if you think Iowa let up against our offfense you are kidding yourselves. One possession games are not blowouts and the other team doesn't just give up. We put up the most yardage against Iowa of any team all year long. And they had the 2nd best defense in the B10. But please, tell me how our offense didn't do anything against the better defenses we faced all year.
December 26th, 2010 at 10:48 AM ^
December 25th, 2010 at 7:15 PM ^
The problem is RR haters cherry pick the worst of his record and complain.
RR has NOT had a good record, but it's not nearly as bad as so many people want it to be. I think its not clear whether RR should be kept around or let go. I think he should be kept around. But I can see why people would want him to be let go.
I just hate it when people make out things to be worse then they are just so some saviour (JH) can come in. I tell you, if JH comes here, we HAVE to keep him, basically forever or we are Notre Dame. People better keep loving JH no matter what kind of guy he is.
December 25th, 2010 at 2:53 PM ^
If it's gonna be two more years before we're up there, then why not go with Harbaugh? Based on everything I've read, it takes less time to covert a spread O into a pro-style one. Besides which, I doubt JH would go from one extreme to the other. He wouldn't disregard the Denard Factor.
JH's track-record indicates that he bends his offense to suit his roster, whereas RR does not. Given Denard and Devin, I could see JH going hybrid -- the way Texas did with Vince Young or VT did with Vick. The transition would not require three years of chaos; he could implement his system gradually. Which is how it ought to be done. We don't need to burn everything to the ground, then rebuild from scratch. We never needed to do that.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:15 PM ^
Rich is doing what Rich does and he apparently didn't make exceptions in his plan for the normal expectations at the University of Michigan. But as has been pointed out numerous times on other posts, this sort of slide when a new coach takes over is the exception, not the norm. It is really the exception at a very successful program like Michigan. So to your point, a guy like Harbaugh isn't going to come in here and even consider the possibility of a total tear down and a throw away season like we had in 08.
IMO, Rodriguez' coaching/building plan was not properly vetted by the decision makers in the beginning. If this is how he does things, someone making the call should known more or less how he would roll in handling the program. From there, they could have been more informed about whether this was a good idea or not. I am not convinced the interview process got into any level of depth about these issues. Is there any way people as intelligent as President Coleman and Bill Martin would have hired a guy that would take us on this three-year whirlwind with the pounding we have taken in our league, had they known? They were just over their heads. Brandon definitely isn't.
If Rodriguez is just doing what he knows how to do, it definitely isn't his fault. It was Michigan's job to figure out if this was the right move for what would be required. We are where we are and maybe he is the best guy to take us back to prominence if we can't get Harbaugh. But the history is there: Harbaugh took over worse than this at Stanford and turned it to gold. He saw the necessity of quality wins to unite the players and the fans and pushed hard to make it happen. It started with immediately beating some good teams, then more, then more the third year. It looked nothing like what has been done at Michigan under Rich. So I have no concern about any transition problems. If hired, Harbaugh will know the expectation is to win, win fast, and set it up to win for 20 years.
Starting in year 1 he can more than handle this job in a way that would likely satisfy even the most hardened Rich supporter on this blog. I don't mean any disrespect to the people who are Rich absolutists on here when I post these opinions. You are all great fans of this team. I am just very excited about the potential of a Jim Harbaug- run program at Michigan. I like Rich though and he might still be the guy to lead us out of this.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:20 PM ^
IMO, Rodriguez' coaching/building plan was not properly vetted by the decision makers in the beginning. If this is how he does things, someone making the call should known more or less how he would roll in handling the program. From there, they could have been more informed about whether this was a good idea or not. I am not convinced the interview process got into any level of depth about these issues. Is there any way people as intelligent as President Coleman and Bill Martin would have hired a guy that would take us on this three-year whirlwind with the pounding we have taken in our league, had they known? They were just over their heads. Brandon definitely isn't.
The first time I've ever agreed with NateVolk.
December 25th, 2010 at 9:42 PM ^
I agree that none of the last few years is RR's fault. RR has a track record of rebuilding from the "ground up" which has at every stop resulted in a total dismantling of what came before. Most programs did not mind that process. But we are Michigan-the winningest program in college football history. We don't adapt well to the "blow it up and rebuild" mentality. We want quicker results. Our AD at the time did not properly evaluate the impact of RR's MO on the fan base.
So here we are. I personally think RR is a good coach and now that we have lived through the "great pain", we can be successful over time. But in all honesty, we have no shot at being back among the elite next year. Our defense is sooooo baaaad that we still will not be able to turn that side of the ball around that quickly.
I think Harbaugh is the best option to return the program to greatness. If he is not available, the stick with RR another year.
I am guessing that we will learn that Harbaugh is our new coach a couple days after the Orange bowl. Don't neg me for this! This is just my gut feel.
Regardless, I am ready to support either of these guys next season.
December 26th, 2010 at 4:43 PM ^
I agree that none of the last few years is RR's fault.
Wow. The MGoBubble speaketh.
December 25th, 2010 at 2:49 PM ^
This isn't a very good offensive team Michigan is playing, so I don't know what you could garner from it as far as any reason to hope about our defense. These games are slightly above exhibitions after the ridiculous 4 or 5 weeks off.
I still want Harbaugh as you are probably plenty sick of reading. If that doesn't happen, I guess keep Rich and do the cross your fingers method. Although Hoke is growing on me. That program was bottomed out two years ago and this year he takes them to 9-4 with 4 losses totalling less than 15 points.
December 25th, 2010 at 6:19 PM ^
Arguing in favor of Harbaugh is one thing. He has accomplished great things at Stanford and I think would be an excellent coach here if he unfortunately(in my opinion) replaces Rodriguez. Arguing in favor or replacing Rodriguez with a coach who hasn't accomplished half of what Rodriguez did before Michigan is beyond dumb.
December 25th, 2010 at 6:24 PM ^
Jim Harbaugh hasn't accomplished half of what RichRod did before Michigan.
December 25th, 2010 at 8:14 PM ^
It doesn't matter. Don't you know, RR is just not the right fit for Michigan. He's not a Michigan Man and if we don't get rid of him now, he will have a good seaon in 2011 and we will never be rid of him!!
/s
December 25th, 2010 at 3:06 PM ^
I basically agree with you, NV. And, although I have no stake in Brady Hoke, I can't quite understand why so many people dismiss him out of hand. He turned around two lousy programs. The teams play hard and well. He's a solid guy. And he lives and dies for Michigan.
Feels as if he gets dismissed because he's not a glamorous "name" coach. If DB wants RR out, I see no reason why Hoke shouldn't get interviewed, at least.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:22 PM ^
I tend to think that RR will be here next year, and I'm under the opinion that he deserves a fourth season. If you would have asked me (or almost any fan) after the OSU game, I would have thrown him out in a flash, but things have cooled off, and the only thing that hasn't been positive for UM since The Game has been the Josh Groban embarrassment.
1. Picking up some really quality recruits that won't necessarily stick around if RR leaves.
2. Although he's not certain, Dee Hart is still committed to UM, and he says that he is 90% sure Clinton-Dix will go to the same school as him. Read between the lines and that means that either there is a chance C-D comes here, or they are both leaving. I'll leave you to stew on that one.
3. Michigan was put in a winnable bowl against a good (enough) opponent. Sure, I'd have liked to see Nebraska, but I think a win here would still look great. Let's be honest, who wouldn't love an 8-win season after winning only three times two years ago?
Now if it's another high double-digit loss, I think DB has to rethink things a bit more, but I think RR will still be here. The more interesting question will probably be whether this game will change any minds on GERG...even if the defense pitches a good performance, can you forgive a guy whose defense gave up 406 points already?
My money is on RR staying no matter what, although there was some interesting stuff on Harbaugh's new contract the other day.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
I've been telling you this stuff all year. Thanks for finally comin' around.
December 25th, 2010 at 3:54 PM ^
You stay brassy, people will come around.