Stu Daco

October 13th, 2015 at 7:53 PM ^

I hope not.  Dantonio has had the advantage of playing against two of the worst coaches in Michigan history.  I want to see the meltdown when he starts losing every year to Harbaugh.

Tater

October 13th, 2015 at 8:15 PM ^

First of all, RR was not one of the "worst coaches in Michigan history."  His status as reigning Pac 12 Coach of the Year is proof that he is a very good coach.

Anyway, I do agree that Dantonio benefited greatly from Michigan's 8 years of self-destruction.  Dantonio knows that and knows his job is about to get a lot harder.  He also knows he didn't really accomplish nearly as much as he could have during his "window."

South Carolina is a great place for him and he would go in a heartbeat.

However, SC is not looking for another old coach making his last stop.  They are looking for youth and enthusiasm.  Spurrier's presser after he talked to his boss for the last time is a great indication that SC plans to go young for a coach.  

Those of us who want to see Dantonio squirm as he loses to Harbaugh year after year are probably going to get our wish.

 

The Mad Hatter

October 13th, 2015 at 8:25 PM ^

I'm seriously asking.

3-9, 0-6 v MSU and OSU, giving up 65 points to fucking Illinois, and A .250 winning percentage against Big 10 teams.

The worst Michigan coach in living memory, maybe of all time.

Oh, but he's the PAC -12 coach of the year and that makes him star spangled awesome? B1G coach of the year Brady Hoke says hi.

The Mad Hatter

October 13th, 2015 at 9:09 PM ^

Look at my avatar. Calling me a clown isn't a stretch, or an insult.

Second, RR was horrible at Michigan. And his overall coaching win percentage is something like .62ish. Good, but not great.

I only mentioned Brady because being named coach of the year is a stupid argument. Brady is a mediocre coach, and yet he was given that honor.

bj dickey

October 13th, 2015 at 11:59 PM ^

Rodriguez is a better spread coordinator than hoke. For sure.

Hoke is a better defensive line coach and coordinator than Rodriguez. For sure many times over.

As far as who the better head coach is it's a crapshoot. One guy refused to use the talent he was given in any reasonable way. Perhaps he simply had no coaching ability to adapt. The other was willing to adapt to what he was given but probably didnt sweat the details enough or foster enough sense of urgency and competition.

Neither is clearly better as a head coach generically. Hoke was obviously a better head coach at michigan.

Kapitan Howard

October 14th, 2015 at 10:46 AM ^

Just because it's an opinion doesn't make it a good one. Lots of people have stupid opinions that don't deserve to see the light of day.

 

EDIT: It's not that I disagree with whatever opinion you have, it's that hiding behind all opinions being equal is overdone and stupid.

gwkrlghl

October 13th, 2015 at 9:29 PM ^

My first born, I will teach of the trials and tribulations Richrod went through. How he was a great coach in an unwillable situation. He would've been great in Ann Arbor under different circumstances

My second born I will teach of how Richrod willingly hired GERG. How when the other team has a 3rd & 15 it was near certainty they'd convert.

They will fight and I will sit back and smile as I have passed a great Michigan tradition on to the next generation

Lou MacAdoo

October 14th, 2015 at 12:44 AM ^

Those pesky 3rd and 15s always got us. I have a theory on that. It was rich rods 3/3/5 that he forced on gerg that was vulnerable to the 3rd and 15. Although schematically it was proven to be strong at WV, by the time it had been installed at Michigan opponents had unlocked the code to breaking it. 3 for third down, 3x5 for fifteen = profit. This was likely figured out by Sherlock Holmes or a Navajo. Rich rod never had a chance.

BlueChitown

October 14th, 2015 at 1:59 AM ^

I don't think the defensive debacle was due to anything inherent in the 3-3-5 defensive scheme.  It was that GERG had never run a 3-3-5 and did not know how to run a 3-3-5.  And RR, instead of letting GERG run whatever he was comfortable and most familiar with, because all of his other indespensible staff were 3-3-5 guys, forced GERG to run it.  Result was massive confusion and sad kittens.

Champeen

October 14th, 2015 at 10:55 AM ^

I really liked RR as a coach.  He was a great coach before Michigan, and a great coach after Michigan - he did not suddenly forget to coach in between.  As others duly noted, there were other factors that led to our demise.

I also really liked Hoke and wish people would quit slamming him.  He was a good person.  He was also a good recruiter.  Just did not coach well or hire good assistants. But damn, leave the poor guy alone already.

But with above said, i will say that Dantonio REALLY benefited from RR in the fact that RR did not keep/build relationships with Michigan high school coaches.  his focus was way too much on Florida than Michigan and the midwest in general.  It allowed Dantonio to pick up some extremely solid talent that he would otherwise not get when Bo/Moeller/Carr were here.  Its similar to the rise of Izzo.  Izzo could get almost anyone he wanted in state - who wanted to come to Michgian after we got nailed?  Izzo and Dantonio were very fortunate that they were heads at times where their dominant competition's local recruiting demise allowed them to recruit the best in state for different reasons.

kalamazoo

October 13th, 2015 at 9:13 PM ^

Look, RR put himself in a deep hole his first two years. Had RR had a 4th year with 9+ wins, his win % would have taken him out of last place to the amazingly high ranking of "second to last" place in winning percentage with Bump Elliot's win percentage "third to last" in sight. Yes, scorching hot at that point, I get it.

If he had another 5 years, he would probably pass Hoke's final percentage at .608 winning percentage or certainly be threatening.

He may not be the guy who could have consistenly won the Big Ten or gotten Mich a national championship, but I'm glad he is at Arizona showing that he can do just fine.

If you want to see Michigan head coach records (I guess I did), see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michigan_Wolverines_head_football_coaches

And to segue:

Great Scott! Cubs win!

Yeoman

October 13th, 2015 at 11:24 PM ^

...the all-important UPWARD TRAJECTORY?

Few Michigan coaches had one. Yost started with a 56-game unbeaten streak. Kipke had one loss in four seasons early in his career, then the wheels came off. Oosterbaan opened with an undefeated season. Bo came right out and upset OSU and went to the Rose Bowl in year 1, and years 2-6 were probably the five best seasons of his career. Carr won a national championship in year 3 and it was all downhill from there. Harbaugh's going to have a hell of a time doubling this year's win total two years from now.

Bump Elliot and Rich Rodriguez share the honor of being the only two Michigan coaches ever to have a year where they won more than twice as many games as they did in their first season. Isn't that kind of improvement the mark of a great coach?

Champeen

October 14th, 2015 at 11:01 AM ^

Criteria?  Hoke won with RR's players/schemes.  When he started implementing his own schemes/players, he started losing more.

RR came and gutted the entire team to install his system.  Worst year was the first because of obvious reasons.  But he had a progressively ascending wins EACH season year over year.

Hoke came in and ran with RR's players and scheme.  Hist best year with what RR gifted him.  Then he slowly plugged in his players and system year over year and progressively descendingly the wins went down.

For a guy who quickly and easily calls others an idiiot, how the fuk do you not see this, and how the fuk do you even think Hoke > RR?

I mean, are you being serioius?  Your like my coworker a few years ago who demandingly and aggressively would argue that Barry Sanders and Dan Marino sucked and were losers because they did not win the super bowl.  Records/trophys do not mean everything.

The Mad Hatter

October 14th, 2015 at 11:31 AM ^

that Hoke was a better coach than RR.  I'll wait.

What I said was that he was a better coach at Michigan, which he most certainly was.  RR blew up a team and program that didn't need to be blown up because he wasn't smart enough to run a pro-style offense using the players he had.

Credit to Hoke, a manball coach, for adapting and running some spread elements to suit the talents on his roster.

And I swear to Christ, RR started out at 3-9.  Stop using the "getting better every year" as an argument in his favor.  Never mind the fact that his teams were still betting blown out by any decent team in year 3.

If records aren't everything, we should have kept Hoke.  He was recruiting well (as evidenced by Harbaugh's massive success this year) and graduating players.

Yeoman

October 14th, 2015 at 11:08 AM ^

It's not so much a question of whether his teams are good or bad, as that they're high-variance to an extreme. For all their recent troubles, Arizona hadn't suffered a 30-point regular-season loss since they opened at LSU (oops) in 2006. In Rodriguez's three-plus years there he's already had losses of 49-0, 66-10, 58-21, 51-13, and 55-17.

If it's coupled with big successes, too, that's probably OK at a lesser program. But the truly elite programs with a talent advantage over their opponents are trying to squeeze the variance out.

To me it's similar to Borges's offenses. I love watching them--I've been staying up late on Saturday just to watch San Jose. When it's working it's spectacular--unheralded recruits running for 300 yards, the backup 2-star QB goes 22-24--but when it lays an egg it's brutal. Elite programs can't lay eggs. Even when I was arguing in his favor here, I knew he wasn't a good long-term solution at Michigan. Variance made sense when we had a talent deficiency, but once the roster was fully repaired we needed something more reliable.

DairyQueen

October 13th, 2015 at 11:22 PM ^

 

Don't forget the offenses either!

Sure, with RR, the rankings may have looked nice, but that's because we could smoke all th mediocre and cupcake teams and put up video game numbers. But, the moment we faced a real defense, it was lights out.

The averages you get when calculating 8-9 games with gaudy-numbers added to 2-3 of getting smacked, might rank highly/look good, but the eye test showed that we looked like children when we faced a "real" defense/contender-team.

 

"Statistics" are a very myopic way of making an argument, but, if you want to throw one out there that speaks volumes:

SIX Big-Ten wins in THREE YEARS under Rich-Rod.

SIX.

Swayze Howell Sheen

October 13th, 2015 at 10:14 PM ^

as much as i liked richrod, have you forgotten what his defenses were like? it was like he didn't know that the other side of the ball existed. scoring 50 and giving up 45 is not good football. i am now quite happy he failed, and honestly don't think he is a great coach. good, sure. but not great.

 

I dumped the Dope

October 14th, 2015 at 7:41 AM ^

RichRod is a defense-optional coach.  It appears like he might have one now until recently Scooby the Third got injured, then there was None.  It also appears that his offense is heavily reliant on loading up star players.  A QB with the speed to be a runner has some serious advantages when you run receivers way down the field and there are just DL to beat in a footrace.  However as I've seen, a star running QB is one injury away from sinking your team, and he's getting beaten up with regularity.  Also, kicking is boring and should not occupy practice time.

-=> RR = destined for mediocrity wherever he goes.

BornInA2

October 13th, 2015 at 10:58 PM ^

He was undoubtedly among the worst coaches at Michigan. He may have done okay at WVU and be treading water at Arizona, but he was a complete train wreck at Michigan. From the 3-9 record, to AWFUL recuiting classes, to his insistence on running the spread with Sheridan and Threet, to SANCTIONS, to his downright idiotic attempts to motivate the team. Have we forgotten his comment that he was considering stopping the team bus on the way to Happy Valley to hold open tryouts for kicker? He said this at a press conference.

If you look up train wreck in the dictionary, there's a picture of him scowling on the Michigan sideline as we lose to Toledo.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure he's the only Michigan coach with a losing record during his time at Michigan. So those pesky numbers do actually make him the worst ever. WCiMFH is an apt moniker.