Doyle: RR Passes the Buck (no pun intended)

I don't like this. RR said in his initial press conference something like, "the past is the past, why worry about it." RR has said repeatedly this year he doesn't look to the past except to learn from it. Now here is RR blaming LLoyd for M's troubles. True or not, as wolverine1987 said above, leave LLoyd out of it. RR comments are divisive and unneeded I think RR did a great job at WV and I am hopeful that he will end up doing a great job here. Did RR put any of the responsibility for the horrendous October and November on himself and his staff? If he did I would feel better about his "The last three Februaries, or four Februaries, have hurt us," comment. What is clear to me at this point is RR is not a football genius, he cannot make wine out of water. RR may be great at building a program, we are in the process of finding out if he is. Until RR gets his program in place, with players experienced with his program, we can expect fairly pedestrian results.

I've been a pretty strong RR supporter from the beginning, but I confess that I wish he would, at least once, squarely take the entire responsibility for the team's struggles the past two seasons on behalf of himself and the staff he's hired, without also referring to the shortcomings of the players he has on hand. It's silly for Hagan or anyone else to deny the roster/attrition issues he inherited as being significant, but some times in life the appropriate thing to do is to is to swallow your pride and take one for the team without blaming that team at the same time. Perhaps he has already done so, but in all of the instances I'm aware of where he speaks about the team's performance he doesn't seem to acknowledge the possibility that some of the position coaches he brought with him stink, to be direct. If there isn't at least one significant change to his staff in the off-season (not talking about Gerg, either), then I think that will bode very poorly for the immediate future. Having said that, Doyel's column makes it perfectly clear what his attitude towards Rodriguez was even before the game. As with virtually every national "journalist" who has commented on Practicegate, Doyel is plainly entirely ignorant of the large body of evidence put together by Brian and others here that the charges brought by the Freep are held together with chewing gum, dog turds, and rotten string. He apparently is unaware of the fact that it was a compliance officer in the AD, not someone on RR's own staff, that failed to submit the practice logs. In all this, Doyel is absolutely no different from those hysterical idiots who were screaming that RR shredded documents and that "family values" was a legitimate explanation for Boren's departure. There is plenty to criticize RR and his staff about what has transpired on the field. His record is hard to defend. The main difference between people is on the question of whether he deserves more time or not, and this generally turns on the question of whether the losses stem from talent/depth issues or coaching issues. The most extreme partisans on either side seem to regard it as a black-or-white situation, with the problems entirely attributable to one or the other factor entirely. The opinions of partisans — whether it's politics or religion or sports — are for the most part the least illuminating and worthwhile to read. They remind me of Churchill's famous quote: A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. What I would love to read here on MGoBlog from now on are the opinions of the coaches who post here (Magnus, Sharik, etc.) on RR's staff and their apparent coaching abilities. I think we're all well aware of the roster issues, and how the recruiting is going. In other words, less "RR sucks/RR is fantastic" and more information and informed analysis. That's what brings me here in the first place.

The header says "no pun intended." What is the pun, intentional or otherwise? I don't see it.

You don't even agree with everything Gregg Doyel wrote. You're just linking to him because he wrote something against RR. Go away. You are trolling, pure and simple. As I've said before, it's bad enough when a classless rival fan rubs in a loss. Why should it feel any different when it's by a supposed fan of the same team? You do make for a good argument against abstinence. On the other hand, I'm not too wild about there even being a chance of you passing on genetic material to offspring. Tough call. I would say double-bag it and pull out just to be sure. This of course depends on you actually finding a mate, and thus far there is not much evidence suggesting that you have been very successful in doing so.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Video-Les-M…-?urn=ncaaf,204141

Do you know what a pun is TomHagan? Are you Mark Dantonio?

Most of us know that LC's final recruiting classes were far from stellar because of attrition and poor player performance on the field. There isn't a lot of depth and only a few good players. But by saying you didn't like those classes, even if perfectly legitimate, you're just raising the pressure to win by saying you'll bring in better players. Year 3 is when some of your players are in the system. The expectation for a program such as ours is at least 7 victories. I don't think that's unreasonable in the slightest. By year 5, a BCS run is required. RR insists on getting his players (he's loading up on WRs, some of whom will invariably be moved to the secondary) to try to improve speed for players who must navigate in open space. We'll see how that goes. But the bottom line is that if you think prior players (for the most part) were not good enough, then your players must be good enough for at least 7 victories in year 3 or else there's something wrong with the coaching. Otherwise, you're just being Weis-ian.

The last "3 or 4 Februarys" includes 1 or 1.5 classes of Rodriguez recruits. I don't see him placing the blame squarely on Carr's shoulders.

I think that the MSM thinks Rodriguez is slick and dishonest. I think he's the opposite. I think he's unusually open and blunt about things - to a fault, as Brian has described. He lacks any art to what he says...If he hadn't answered the media's questions they would have disliked him for that and, since he did offer (honest) explanations for Michigan's trouble's, they don't like him for that - or at least Gregg Doyle doesn't. I like Coach Rod's bluntness. It boggles my mind that he can be considered a villain while a bitter, passive-agressive man like Dantonio can be considered classy. One more note: The reason I don't mind the "Februaries" quote much is that, one can at least infer, he's not criticizing guys who are on the team so much as pointing out that the team is short 10+ scholarship players.

This is from his own bio at CBSSports.com; I'm not making it up: "You dislike me. That's OK. That's why you're here, right? You were reading something I wrote and you simply had to know: Who is this knucklehead? This knucklehead is 39. Yeah, I look younger. But I'm not. I've worked for the Tampa Tribune, Miami Herald and Charlotte Observer. Once worked for ESPN.com. They asked me, not the other way around. And I left ESPN.com in 2003 for CBSSports.com. This knucklehead graduated from Florida. So I'm a Gator homer? Don't think so. Read this and tell me I'm a Florida homer. Basically, take what you think you know about me -- your assumptions about the typical sports writer -- and start over. I really am that unbiased, I really am that athletic, and I really will beat you up. I started boxing at 36, had four amateur fights and won all four (three knockouts), and then retired because the pros I spar with kept breaking my nose. So I take it back: Maybe you can beat me up. But only if you're a pro boxer. And a good one. But enough about you. My likes: Chuck Palahniuk, when he's on. Esquire. Eminem. Tupac. Sparring. That stud Matt Taibbi. Dogs. Dislikes: Chuck Palahniuk, when he's off. Sports Illustrated. Beastie Boys. Kanye. Surfing. That idiot George Will. People." THAT'S IT. That is the Gregg Doyel bio. It is nauseatingly clear; the media have learned that "Michigan controversies" = major website hit-counts. What we have learned, is that the more that national sports columnists and Free Press reporters have written about Michigan and Coach Rodriguez, the more erratic and exposed those reporters and columnists have become. A much better column from Gregg Doyel might have been about something he ought to have had some familiarity with; how it was that his fellow national columnist Michael Wilbon got it sooooo wrong in predicting (complete with our new favorite feature of journalism, the "anonymous source,") that Coach Rodriguez was going to be gone for next year. You have to stretch, twist and turn to find anything out of line with what Coach Rodriguez said. But you only have to take Michael Wilbon at his own, unequivocal words to know that what he said was 1000% more inflammatory, and patently incorrect.