ESPN article on Rich Rodriguez and the juxtaposition between Michigan and Arizona Football

I wanted RR to have another year but understood that after the bowl game it wasn't going to happen. For me he had always been a coach I loved to watc, and the fact that we had him and let him go left a bad taste in my mouth. I thought he was badly mistreated and felt sorry for him when his time to leave ultimately came. 

I felt bad when the timing of the firing left he and his staff little to no chance to find a job for the upcoming year. This is just another reason I hate DB. His process didn;t just screw UM (which I think we deserved given everything that happened) but it screwed that coaching staff out of employment. 

The final staw for me was when whichever station he worked for thought it would be a good idea to get an interview with BH and have RR conduct that interview. That was a disgrace IMHE and one I won't forget. I think BH and RR both conducted themselves with class during that interview, but whoever was responsible for setting that up should have got a kick to the nads. 

The culmination of all these things has made it easy for me to have a soft spot for RR following his departure from UM and honestly, I look much more forward to watching his Arizona team play nowdays than I do my favorite Wolverines. Hopefully the next hire will bring some excitment back to UM football.

One of the reasons Rich is doing well at Arizona (though it's way too early to make final judgments) is that he learned from his experience at Michigan.  He might not have been treated well by various factions in A2, but he also bears some blame for the way he rolled into town with a my-shit-does-not-stink attitude.  Tis a two-way street; and 3-9 doesn't make for a smooth ride.

Folks can complain about the "not a Michigan man" stuff, but that doesn't really explain how he alientated the high school coaching community as well.  My guess is that Rich learned (or was humbled) and hopefully isn't making so many enemies in AZ.

"Had Bo Schembechler been there, I probably wouldn't have had to deal with some of it."

Fergodsakes, he nailed it.

He ended up being the rebound girl.  He filled a void for a short time and then the prograsm decided to go in another direction.  I think if Hoke would have come first and failed like he is now and THEN RR could have brought in the DC he wanted.  The results would be very different.  RR is a brilliant coach, the problem is UM is a very old-school tradition blinded program that has not wanted to let go of the past.   To be fair, RichRod made many mistakes of his own, but his plan works everywhere, but here.  What does that say about "here"?

The Rich Rod loyalists are out in force.  Hey, I liked the guy.  I thought hiring him was exactly what all of us complaining about Mike DeBord's predictable (if talented) offense wanted to see.  I wanted him to succeed, and he clearly has done so before and after Michigan, but scoreboard please.

He was an epic failure at Michigan by every imaginable measure.  The defense was historically atrocious (and regardless of scheme or coordinator, fixing that is on the head coach, especially at a program with such lavish resources available to fix issues).  The offense was exciting in September, but unable to move the ball inside the 25 or against competent FBS teams in November.  Geez, just look at the scores for his last three games, when everyone thought he was coaching for his job: vs. Wisconsin 28-48, at Ohio State 7-37, vs Miss State at Gator Bowl 14-52.  All three teams pulled their first string by the end of the third quarter, or those scores would have been worse.  Even more telling, he landed the Michigan football program on probation with the NCAA for the ONLY TIME EVER!  Attrition in his program was so bad that the graduation rate landed Michigan on probation with the NCAA for a second reason, and if you look at the players he tried to recruit to Michigan who didn't make it, you can see why.  (Yes, I know he also recruited the quitessential Michigan Man and the guy every father wants his daughter to bring home for a family dinner, Devin Gardner.  He's only one guy.)  Back to W&Ls, even with Brady Hoke's troubles, Rich Rod is still the only guy EVER to be the head coach of Michigan football for more than one season, and have a career losing record.

As I've said, I like Rich Rod; he's been a winner everywhere else he's gone, and I wish him every success at Arizona.  But, PLEASE.  Dude got fired for a reason.

Having watched the entire Oregon Zona game, what stood out is the dominance of the 2 lines for Zona.  Now Oregon does have injuries on their OL but Zona's DL was a beast and Zona's OL could run block very well (had some challenges on pass blocking).  Oregon had better skill players but when your QB is  under pressure all the time it doesn't matter much.

I don't know what happened here in terms of evaluations and development (well I know to a degree because Martin did not give him the budget) but we never had lines like RR showcased in that game.

I am rooting for RR there, but it is moot to do a compare and contrast.  There were factions against him from day 1, he was not given the appropriate budget, and his identification of players on the OL/DL IMO were too hit or miss (he did have some hits).  That team we saw versus Oregon was not similar to anything we had here. 

I also think RR has mellowed out a lot since he left here, so good for him.  His interview at halftime was concise, well paced, normal - whereas here he always sounded defensive and panicked.  Further his offense has changed quite a bit from here - it is a lot more pass oriented.  In fact it looks more like the Oregon offense, or A&M or Arizona State's then what he had here which was almost a mirror of West virginia.  Maybe he learned getting your QB rocked 20-25x a game doesn't work in the long run.  QB still runs but nowhere near as much as when he was at Michigan. 

So he may have just  been forced to reevaluate post Michigan as it was his first failure and in the end I think it was the best for him.  The team had quit on him vs Miss State and the atmosphere was toxic at that point similar to what we have now. 

RR at Michigan was just tainted from the start...and it wasnt really his fault that things got off so poorly.  Remember the ridiculous WVU lawsuit, and the outcry from their asshat fans?  Then came 3-9 and the ridiculous Freep investigation.  RR was pretty much toast at that point, there was too much perceived negativity around the program for it to be turned around.  By the end of year one, there were more ridiculous articles in local papers about RR's financial situation, his real estate dealings, connection to a shady booster from another program etc.  It was all pretty silly in retrospect. 

It's interesting that Arizona is 5-0 without their QB having scored a single offensive TD yet. 

I love this.  It reminds me that everything I said during the firing and subsequent coaching search was true.

Fire David Brandon.

As probably the most vocal supporter of Coach Rod both while he was here and especially since he's left, I couldn't be happier for him.  I joke that I will probably get my Michigan Football season tickets revoked one day for supporting Coach so enthusiastically. I just feel like his success is scriptural, almost--it feels like a table is being prepared for him in front of his enemies and I couldn't be happier for him.

I know I've shared this story before, but a few years ago when I was in Arizona for work I was able to visit him on the Thursday before the Oklahoma State game. Huge, important game, right? I thought I would be able to maybe shake his hand and that's it. I would've been so grateful for just that opportunity. The warmth with which Coach received me was just incredible--he said, "Wanna chat for a bit? Let's have a seat." And so we sat for 15 or 20 minutes and chatted away. We even called my best friend Aimee who has supported Coach through thick and thin just as I have. He chatted her up for a few minutes, too. "Hi Aimee, this is Coach Rod!" (I'll never, ever forget those words.)  The first thing I did when I met Coach was apologize on behalf of the program, the university and the entire state of Michigan.  Also, I immediately started crying. (I told Coach this was like other people meeting Leonardo DiCaprio lolol). But when I told him how sorry I am for how our fanbase treated him, he replied, "Oh, that's alright Jenny. That's long gone. Things are much better now. I really like it here in Arizona and they're giving me plenty of time."

I love Coach because he always wears his heart on his sleeve. I don't think he would know how to operate in coach-speak if his life depended on it.  He's just REAL. Everything about him. And that resonates deeply with me because I'm the same way--super passionate yet widely misunderstood.

I get a lot of flack (especially on Twitter) about being disloyal to Michigan for supporting Arizona, but I guess I don't understand how the two are mutually exclusive.  I quote Brian's Rich Rod farwell column title ALL the time and occasionally shout it to Brian when I see him at games. ("I THOUGHT REAL FRIENDS WOULD HAVE STAYED!" Sorry, Brian.) After Coach's Oregon win last week, Michigan fans were STILL angry, still tweeting out mean things about Coach and about how Oregon "really isn't that good anyway", calling Coach supporters "history revisionists".  I guess I don't understand why Michigan fans feel the need to go out of their way to convince themselves and others that Coach Rod is an awful coach and worse, an awful person. You wanted a new coach and you got one. Leave Coach Rod alone. I don't understand the need to actively root against someone that shouldn't matter to you.

I guess my point is this--I hope Coach balls all the way out.  If he ends up at a great bowl game this season, I'll probably go. When (not if) he makes the Rose Bowl, I will be there, in my Arizona gear, despite my Michigan degree and block M tattoo, because that's how strongly I feel about supporting Coach. I supported him at 3-9 and when it appeared that every other Michigan fan (besides Aimee and me!) had walked out, and I'll support him at Arizona and wherever else he may go. Bear Down and Go Blue.

Had Bo Schembechler been there, I probably wouldn't have had to deal with some of it.

Fuckin' A, Bubba. That statement has caused me to sigh harder than anything related to Michigan athletics in a long, long time. I can also tell you that if Bo were here, it's likely Rodriguez never becomes coach. It would've been possible, but as soon as Martin started to screw up the search, Bo would've chewed Martin out, then told him to step aside as he personally conducted the search.

I wish I could say it more diplomatically, but those who sabotaged the program while Rodriguez was here behaved like a bunch of spoiled, bratty, entitled, suburbanite, daddies' girls.

So it stands to reason that armed with hindsight, Rod would have worked out if given more time.

Do we follow that the next time around or continue to act with urgency?

It also might stand to reason, again armed with hindsight that Brandon should have stuck with his coach rather than be swayed by public opinion to Fire Rich Rod.

So should he listen to public opinion this time or go his own way?

These are difficult questions depending on whether you believe history should be repeated or history should not follow what didn't work last time.

 

The first comment after the ESPN article when I read it was from some guy named Mike Steffy from Columbus, Ohio, who said, “Dear Michigan, Thank you for not knowing what you're doing. signed, Ohio State" If it had started "Dear Dave Brandon", he would have had it completely right. RR was and is a good coach. Contrary to CLord, who wants to say he is half a coach, the fact is that most coaches are better on one side of the ball or the other and rely on the coordinator on the other side to get the job done. It is not so much that RR did not understand or could not coach defense (he played DB in college) as it was that his passion was for offense and there are only so many hours in a day. If we had forked out the money to let him get his coordinator, it is highly likely that Casteel would have come. If the fans had not screamed for Shafer's head after 2008, it is likely that we would not have experienced GERG. As to those who found RR's personality abrasive, my only opportunity to meet him was when the Coaches' Tour came to DC, and he was extremely pleasant to everyone that day. He was polite, not arrogant and not at all abrasive.

This University can't get out of its own way, that's the real issue. This Michigan Man crap is the biggest dead horse beating ever. Everyone has to have their piece of power and it's getting old. This is why no first tier coaches want to coach here. RR never had a chance from Day 1. The minute he got here Carr sabotaged him and that's the biggest crime of all. To me Carr is the main of many reasons why we are where we are now. RR doesn't know defense but he should have been able to have Casteel from the beginning and the fact a measly 200k was the sticking point is ridiculous. I'll admit before 3 and out I thought very differently about RR but thanks to the last honest guy at Michigan (John U Bacon) that book really opened my eyes. I'm happy he's found success with a University that gave him everything he needed for that success and it's paid off for them and him and I can't blame him if he watches this dumpster fire with a grin on his face.

Here's my take, our University is very finicky and may have chased RR out and maybe he never had a shot from the beginning. However, RR did not do a very good job of coaching this program, his in game coaching was questionable, I thought for the most part, outside of a few guys, his recruiting was below standards, he didn't get the best players IMO, it seemed like we always got lower level guys and they had to play early. It also seemed like we were so much smaller and slower than most teams, I remember playing Wisconsin, Penn State, OSU, and our team would just get pushed around. His offensive line recruiting was abysmal, I'd still like to hear from him what his plan was. He pretty much started from scratch but after he was fired, sans 2011, we had ZERO depth. To me, RR is an average coach who earned most of his wins in a hapless Big East and tried fitting a square peg into a round hole at Michigan. I don't wish for 1 minute that he was our coach still, he might be better than Hoke, but neither were right for Michigan for various reasons. To me, RR's ceiling outside of the Big East is 8-9 wins.

Sorry!

Whatever we think of how Rich Rod worked out here, he isn't here any more, so there's no point in beating a dead horse.

Obviously Brandon was wrong about replacing him with Hoke. Whether a better choice was out there, we'll never know given the context of every school presenting different problems and different opportunities for a given coach.

The thing to do is discuss the future. I think there are two problems that will stall change:

1. So far I'm hearing that Brandon hasn't lost the money guys. Unless that changes, he's staying. The new president isn't going to have the balls to tell someone like Ross to go pound sand if he doesn't like what's going on.

2. Brandon's trying to come off as personally butthurt, but he's not the kind of guy who stays butthurt for long. He's the kind of guy who says F.U., and I think he'd keep Hoke another year just to be a dick.

You can hear him in interviews saying he's not tone deaf, but he says it in the context of the criticism of him personally, and not the criticism of his obnoxious decisions.

I think he's the kind of guy who'd leave scorched earth behind, and never give his perceived "enemies" what he perceives as his resources so they can go on to greater success.

I hope I'm wrong, I hope I am dead freaking wrong. But I believe I'm not.

 

Its now the main picture/article on ESPN.com. 

Funny thing, is the other article attached to it is 'Rising Coaching Candidates'. First name on the list is Rich Rodriguez.

 

 

 

and RR's willingness to stretch that out in the courts as opposed to allowing Michigan to pay much of the buyout was also a factor in much of the ill will that was created from jump.

 

Personally, I'm happy for Rod and think that he's a good coach (albeit a bit of a one trick pony...but it's a damn good trick) but I also don't think that he would have suceeded at Michigan.

good for RR, bad for us AGAIN.  

Good lord I want this football season done now. 

fucking fuck