ESPN: Coaches Fans Hate (refers to UM Fans hating Tressel and GRob)
Disclaimer: This is a light, fun, nothing going on in the summer article. For those who come here just to bash someone "bringing up old topics that have been beaten to death"...this is not for you. Not this time --- it's not what anyone will be discussing. No one is here to talk about what happened or why it happened.
We're simply discussing an article, that is rather different...but rather spot on:
Here's a little snippet:
"Michigan fans hate Rich Rodriguez for hiring Greg Robinson.
Syracuse fans hate Greg Robinson for, well, being Greg Robinson.
Notre Dame fans hate Charlie Weis' arrogance.
Non-Notre Dame fans hate Brian Kelly's arrogance."
...I mean, that's good stuff? Right? One of those funny because it's true type moments?
So please, let us simply have some summer fun and do not bring you "Robinson/Rich Rod/Tressel are gone, let it go, beating the dead horse negativity."
End Disclaimer.
Link: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7954235/college-football-coaches-love-hate
It's good they had
Michigan fans hate former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel because he always won -- and they know he cheated.
but they should have also had:
Michigan fans hate Phil Fulmer for screwing Michigan out of a unified national championship because Woodson won the Heisman rather than Fulmer's man Peyton Manning
Fulmer's been on my "list" ever since, and I've only recently forgiven Tennessee for this (figuring that the Lane Kiffin years were sufficient karmic retribution). (And I'm sure my forgiveness is a huge relief to Tennessee!)
...otherwise it would go on forever (which it kind of already did). But I thought it was pretty funny, especially coming from Mark Schlabach who always writes like he's smarter/better than everyone else.
That being said...I too HATE Fulmer for that. Hate Nebraska for thinking they deserved a share of that title, let alone the whole thing.
That was one of the 3 most dominant defenses since 1990. Period.
The shared title was a retirement present for Tom Osborne from his coaching brethren. Had he not announced he was retiring, I suspect Michigan would have won the outright NC that year.
had Fulmer not voted UM 5th or 6th in the final poll, UM still would have been the outright champ. The coaches poll was that close.
Relying on memory (some quick internet checks came up dry as far as anything dispositive), the Coaches Poll vote numbers indicated that as a matter of arithmetic fact one coach had to vote Michigan 4th (I think it was 4th). I think it was because the total number of No. 1 votes were disclosed for both U-M and Nebraska, and the total numbers did not work unless someone voted U-M 4th.
A commonly-held view is that Fulmer (who was very coy about his vote, after his Vols had been roasted in the Orange Bowl by Nebraska) was the culprit. The bottom line is that there was plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing at the split championship being the direct result of a petulant coach's ludicrous ranking of the 1997 U-M team at 4th. And no coach was more petulant that year than Phil Fulmer.
If Tennessee had shown even a smidgen of competence against Nebraska, the vote wouldn't have been close, and Michigan would have won both polls. Tennessee could have at least pretended they belonged on the same field as Nebraska.
Tennessee lost, 42-17, in an era when 42 points was a lot, and usually a number that was only amassed against directional schools and other tomato cans. The only thing that amazes me is that some UT fans actually think Peyton Manning deserved the Heisman. Manningn proved that the Heisman went to the right player with his "performance" in the Orange Bowl.
Getting outgained and beating #8 Wazzu by 5 in the Rose Bowl didn't exactly help Michigan either. It was hardly a dominating performance by the #1 team in the land.
Fulmer voted Michigan 4th. Even if he had voted Michigan second, however, Michigan would have still been in second place.
Michigan had two fewer first-place votes but four fewer points. This means that either two coaches voted Michigan #3 or one voted us #4. I don't remember if it's actually confirmed, but it is widely assumed that it was Fulmer who voted us fourth. However--and I cannot believe how many Michigan fans get this wrong--that did not cause Michigan to lose the Coaches poll. (In theory, had Fulmer voted us first, we would have tied, but the controversy isn't that he didn't vote us first which is reasonable albeit stupid, the controversy is that he didn't vote us second which is unbelievably devoid of any integrity.)
I like the way he wrote this, but then it drug on a bit too much. Overall, pretty creative for ESPN even if it was pretty pointless as well.
"Florida fans hate Urban Meyer for the way his tenure ended." - from the article
Which ending specifically do Florida fans dislike the most? The loss to Alabama in the SEC championship game, which was followed by the health problems, Sugar Bowl victory over Cincinnati and resignation, or the 7-5 season which was capped with a victory over Penn State in the Outback Bowl, followed by health problems and a resignation?
It's an interesting gloss that works well in the off season. I'm just glad he didn't go the Bleacher Report route and come up with a top ten list and pretend there's some order of importance to the list. Also, there are a lot of reasons Michigan fans "hate" (though that seems too harsh a word) Rodriguez that go beyond his hiring Greg Robinson, but the hiring is a nice, safe pick that both the Rich Rod lovers and haters can agree upon.
Nobody in the media was fairer to Rich Rodriguez than was Brian, and nobody in the media did more to quickly doubt the wisdom of Rodriguez's hiring Greg Robinson. From before the moment Robinson was announced.
And actually, when you use the word "hate," I actually think that there are a lot of Michigan "fans" who hate Rodriguez. A lot of ignorant Michigan fans.
What is a sign of progress in all of that is that the sportswriters are making their jokes at the expense of Greg Robinson now, knowing that "Rodriguez/NCAA practice time violations" is a joke to the Rodriguez supporters and not his detractors.
Who really knows what's in the hearts of others? But, I don't get the sense that very many Michigan fans hate Rodriguez. What they hate is what happened to Michigan football,especially the losses and missing bowl games for two years, during his tenure. Almost everyone concedes that not all the problems during his tenure can be blamed on him. And, yes, not everybody knows the ins and outs of the internal strife and role of the Freep is the stretching "scandal." But people do know the head coach makes the big bucks, and he is the one ultimately held responsible for W's and L's.
Just going by what you said (which makes some good sense), you would think that pretty much everyone could agree on a few basic principles:
- As many people as possible should be informed about the true role of the Freep in having manufacured controversy related to Rodriguez;
- The notion that a Michigan head coach was undermined by any internal faction(s) may be mere history now, but it is interesting and valuable history in any event -- we do study history at the University of Michigan, don't we?
- Based on the foregoing, any personal criticism of Rodriguez ought to be severely vetted, and;
- The matter of W's and L's is beyond the ken of most average fans and is best left to the people who are full-time professionals in college football.
That the passing months seem to prove, more and more, that there really was a determined undercurrent of disapproval among many past letterwinners. More and more, we see bits of the "unplugged" Carr-era football alumni. Rosenberg might well have thought that he was giving voice to a significant and influential constituency. The silence on the subject of Rosenberg from folks like you was certainly remarkable.
I'm not really "bothered" by any of that; I am quite confident in my views on those subjects.
But I am looking forward to Lloyd Carr's autobiography, and a book tour, and some open Q-and-A sessions on the contentious issues.
I don't know who's doing it...but you've gotten negged to -1 Trolling 3 times...maybe it's time to stop? Maybe you should move on? Maybe you should discuss the thread's topic?
There is a small group of members who neg virtually anything I write. Quite often, people who are new to the board are really confused at why my comments get that response; the content itself wouldn't warrant it.
As for the topic -- I didn't author the original content (mentioning Rodrigez) which was on espn.go.com. I didn't start this thread with the Original Post, linking the Rodriguez reference. And I wasn't the first to mention Rodriguez in the comments. I responded to someone's mention of Rodriguez, and everything else has been a kind of a counter-response.
Concerning your last bullet point: I assume you don't think it was beyond our AD's mental grasp to judge the performance of our coach. It didn't take a defense scientist, after all, to perceive that our defense was an atrocity for three years (blame for which I really think falls on Rodriguez, and not the commonly scapegoated Gerg).
What we saw was a terrible defense.
If David Brandon had a final conversation with Rodriguez that began, "You know, the way our defense has played is basically intolerable to me," I would have understood. I'd also have expected a response from Rodriguez, saying something like, "Dave, I made a terrible mistake in hiring Greg Robinson two years ago. He was never my first choice, and I have been trying to get Jeff Casteel here for almost three years. I think I can get Jeff if I have full Departmental support."
I don't know how it is "scapegoating" to say that Robinson was a bad DC and was a mistake. I don't mind a bit if you say that the Robinson-hire by Rodriguez was a bad mistake on Rodriguez's part; in hindsight, it clearly was a bad mistake! Hiring Robinson was Rodriguez's fault; it could have been corrected at the end of 2011. But Robinson's being a terrible DC and producing a bad defense was Robinson's own fault; it "falls" on Rodriguez only if Rodriguez was willing to tolerate GERG indefinitely, and I don't think he was. But we don't know.
But Robinson's being a terrible DC and producing a bad defense was Robinson's own fault; it "falls" on Rodriguez only if Rodriguez was willing to tolerate GERG indefinitely, and I don't think he was. But we don't know.
You're right ... we don't know ... and can't know.
But my sense was Rodriguez was not yet ready to give up on the Robinson experiment at the end of 2010. My sense is he would have carried Robinson into 2011.
And if my sense is correct, then all the downsides to that inaction would have been the responsibility of the head coach.
* * *
I have a question -- and I'm entirely sincere in this -- how did you acquire 13K points? I've long been curious how some of those point totals are accumulated. And in your case, given how your posts of late are received, it makes me wonder how you acquired that many.
I have a question -- and I'm entirely sincere in this -- how did you acquire 13K points? I've long been curious how some of those point totals are accumulated. And in your case, given how your posts of late are received, it makes me wonder how you acquired that many.
Before Brady Hoke was hired, "defending Rich Rodriguez" was seen as a good thing for the most part. Brian Cook led the way, and it is his blog.
Since Brady Hoke got hired, for some people "defending Rich Rodriguez" now seems to be a form of disloyalty. Particularly insofar as "defending Rich Rodriguez" means outing or at least questioning some of the factions within Michigan who opposed or failed to support him when times were tough.
Things came to a head when Three and Out was released last fall during the football season. I sided with John U. Bacon's insider- history. Part and parcel of that was the deepening outrage over the Free Press reporting and the NCAA investigation. Bacon added to the record of outlandishness that the blogosphere had begun to pile onto the Freep.
I reveled in Three and Out. I saw the book as a major vindication of much of what this blog had stood for in the hard days of 2008-10. But others saw the book as something which (whether the book was right or not) did not contribute to the football team's future success on the field, and the book represented something which threatened to continue the simmering divisions between Rodriguez-era factions. They had "moved on."
Seriously, I puchased an abandoned storage unit in Ypsilanti and there were 12,000 MGoPoints in one of the boxes That box was unmarked except "Stapleton" was written on one side.
Oh, that was the episode of "Storage Wars" I saw that I didn't understand ... why all the excitement over a box of "points?" :-)
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question.
when you wrote this:
Was he [Rodriguez] treated unfairly? Probably.
As you might guess, my own answer to the question, "Was Rodriguez treated unfairly?" would be "Unquestionably. A freakin' book was written about it." But we're close enough.
I suppose I do regret that in my effort to be generally agreeable (criticizing the widely-criticized Greg Robinson on the basis of coaching failures) I broke my own rule about not getting into the technical merits of coaching. I'm an attorney, not a football coach, and football coaches know more about their jobs than I ever will. I think Greg Robinson was a stinky DC, but I don't know. I think Rich Rodriguez is a good coach but I don't know. I think Brady Hoke is a good coach but I don't know. What I do know is that Rodriguez got some very unfair treatment while at Michigan. The one point on which we agree. I can't change any past W-L records; I can't even hope to change any future W-L records. I can (sort of) hope to instill a history that Rodriguez got treated unfairly at Michigan, and make a case as to why and how he got treated that way.
knows.
I'm scared to expand the post of who you're responding to. Seeing that person has negative karma I fear it may be the one and only Section 1. I hope I'm wrong.
Look who's climbed back up on his hobby horse. I also love the elitist atitude that you exude calling fans who don't agree with you ignorant and claiming that understanding w's and l's are beyond the ken of normal fans. And in case you're confused, by love I mean hate.
If you got hate in your heart.....let it out.
this thread was doomed to go exactly where the OP didn't want it to.
If we flip the coin ... coaches fans revere and why.
I'm trying to think of coaches (any sport) than fans seemed to hold in high regard, and not simply because of victories.
My mind only comes up with a few -- John Wooden at UCLA, maybe recently retired Pat Summitt for the Lady Vols, perhaps Tom Osborne at Nebraska.
Then I wonder -- were they truly admired, or was any animosity simply not so amplified by 24x7 blogs and such? If they were truly admired, are the qualities and attributes that led to that admiration a part of a bygone era?
It's hard to find a coach, particularly from the modern era, whom non-biased fans can look at and say, yes, I admire that coach. Wooden was pretty well admired, but there's always the Sam Gilbert stuff. Paterno would have topped the list... but we all know that story. I guess I'd nominate Frank Beamer... and maybe that's it? (I'm not listing Hoke or Beilein because I have no sense of whether other fanbases respect them.)
I guess I'd nominate Frank Beamer... and maybe that's it?
I wouldn't. For obvious reasons, but also because his son is kind of a smug entitled prick, and because Beamer is Dantonio-lite on discipline. Or if you prefer a national, unbiased level, Beamer doesn't really earn the respect that he could because his teams tend to fold on a national stage, and because of lingering questions about whether a lot of his success is due to Bud Foster instead.
Pat Fitzgerald is at the top of my list of coaches that you can't hate (and that don't work for Michigan).
listing Pat Fitzgerald, too, but how many fans outside the B1G actually know who Pat Fitzgerald is? Being worthy of respect (which he is) =/= being respected (which he can't be if people don't know he exists).
I would say most people love John Woodson. But many people (outside of UConn) didn't like Summitt because she came off as well, a b****. Now with her condition, and with the fact that she is a coaching LEGEND...I think a lot of those people have softened their stance. You have to respect/honor greatness.
Osborne was considered smug by many...the white haired leader of the "good ol boys." He also took A LOT of criticism for the Tommy Fraizer/Lawerence Phillips era. He was never tough of those guys when they messed up.
As for today, here are a few names:
- Pat Fitzgerald, I think he may be #1 in the country
- David Shaw, honorable, respectable...he's right there with Fitz.
- Chris Petersen, always respectful when Boise is shafted, the lovable underdog.
- Brady Hoke, even Ohio fans respect him. The make fun of his because of his voice and they call him fat...but they respect him. I know the "Ohio" thing rubbed some the wrong way but many applaud him for caring about the rivalry when Rich Rod seemed to dismiss it. Michigan has always had an arrogance, like we don't need to acknowledge Ohio. Hoke does each and every day, all they want is attention and he gives it to them.
- Kirk Ferentz, meh...somewhat. This depends on the person you ask. I don't think he belongs, but if you ask around, many will say he does.
- Paul Johnson, I only say this because I've never heard anything bad...but I don't know if that makes him "liked."
- Kevin Sumlin, Again, can't say I've ever heard anyone say anything bad.
- Service Academies...don't know anything about them, but haven't heard anything bad on the coaching front.
Michigan and Northwestern likely have the best 1-2 punch in terms of likeable coaches in football and men's basketball. I've been all over the country and people LOVE Beilein. Everyone talks about how great of a coach he is and how great of a person he is.
My thoughts:
Ferentz doesn't belong anywhere near this list, with the revolving door at running back caused by drug related dismissals and the Rhabdomyolysis epidemic resulting from their workout program.
Northwestern's own fans don't like Carmody. He's a nice guy and all, but I think you need to have success and be a good guy to make this list.
Regarding B1G football coaches, Adam Rittenberg has a post today with results from an earlier fan poll about which coaches fans hated most:
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/50452/who-are-the-b1gs-coaching-villains
The winners were Bielema, Meyer, and Dantanio, which seems about right to me. Btw, having both of these posts coming out on ESPN on the same day seems unlikely to have been coincidence.
Thats why I said I wouldn't put him on there...but he and Schiano both seemed be loved by the media and people who weren't close to their situations.
And I disagree about success...Terry Hoeppner's teams SUCKED, but he was considered a nice guy.
I think the regard for Ferentz comes from three sources. 1. He's well known for doing a lot of very generous and personal charity and service work around Iowa City. I know about some of this indirectly from the experience of a friend and it sounds like it was above and beyond anything the vast majority of coaches do. Word of that stuff gets out. 2. His ability to develop middling-ranked players, particularly linemen, into high draft picks. 3. He's turned down the ability to move on to the NFL to remain at Iowa (though his salary certainly hasn't suffered).
It strikes me there's a mix of success and humility ... success is a prerequisite element, and how one responds to the success is the other. As much as we might smile at a loveable loser, we don't admire them.
"Humility" is not quite the right word -- but I think it underlies the idea of an honorable and gracious coach. I honestly do think Hoke possesses a good measure of that. If he continues to win ... and he continues to stay true to that honorable posture ... he'll elevate in many peoples' eyes.
There is, of course, false humility. But that tends to show itself during times of stress. So it's unlikely someone can maintain the veil of false humility forever. Whether Hoke has any element of this I can't say ... I suspect he does have a temper, but I suspect it's got a short leash on it.
Service Academies...don't know anything about them, but haven't heard anything bad on the coaching front.
Fisher DeBerry was always considered pretty decent people, and basically built the Air Force program himself. Probably should be on the list.
Paul Johnson can sometimes resemble Brian Kelly on the sidelines. He's generally known as a screamer. I don't know about his off-field persona at all, but there is an amusing video out there somewhere where he's yelling at some player just coming off the field and clearly saying "ARE YOU THAT STUPID?!?!"
It's really hard for me to muster up hate for the poor soul who coaches at Indiana.
"Alabama fans hate Auburn's Gene Chizik because they think he cheated to win a national championship."
So does this mean that Alabama fans hate Nick Saban?
As long as a coach is winning, most fans will overlook an awful lot. Look how many Arkansas fans wanted to keep Bobby Petrino. The list of beloved disreputable coaches is quite long, and yes, most average fans are hypocritcal about such things.
Yes ... and the coach whose behavior required too much overlooking will take a fall really quickly when the winning stops ... even if only temporarily.
I currently live in Mississippi and both Mississippi State and Ole Miss fans hate Tennessee more than most of their rivals. When I lived in Athens, GA, UGA fans hated Tennessee more than any team outside of Florida. My graduated from Alabama and says that Bama fans hate Tennessee more than any team other than Auburn.
Down here they say that Tennessee chose orange as their color so their fans could wear it to the game on Saturday, hunting on Sunday, and to pick up trash by the side of the road the rest of the week.