If RR doesn't make it past next season...

I dont know why we are talking about this 7 months before even the first game is played. Guys this is how rumors start and scare recruits away. I understand what you are saying but lets wait for the games to be played before we decide on paper the fate of somebodys job and the fate of Michigan for years to come. We should talk about positive things and supportive things about our coach not throw around what ifs.

Brandon, being a savvy and smart guy, will bring in someone who is flexible enough to run a system that would make good, it not great, use of the players RR recruited. This guy would also have to have the name and reputation that would immediately attract recruits as well as keep current players on the team. It would also have to be understood that Michigan is his dream job, that after arriving he is staying. One guy fits the bill, and is currently coaching at Stanford.

not to play the what-if game about our coaching, but rather its more a testament to the potential I see of the players we do have. I know this sounds funny, but I'm really excited to see how these players develop. Tell me that any coach wouldn't be excited to coach these promising young players:
QB- Forcier/Robinson/Gardner
RB-Smith/Toussaint/Shaw/Hopkins
WR-Stokes/Stonum/Miller
OL-QW/Lewan/Schofield/Pace/Barnum
DL-Roh/Lolata/Campbell/Black/Ash
LB-Furman/Robinson/Bell/Hawthorne
DB-Turner/CC/DD/Emilien

Needs to be his break out year with Michigan and that starts with a big home opening win over Uconn then beating the Irish in South Bend. But his Big Ten record has just been god aweful, in the past two years only 3 Big Ten wins?! That is not the Michigan I know of and never has been untill now. He really needs to get things rolling in conference play and start demolishing teams like Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois, MSU and Indiana. I think though we have a great chance of beating MSU this year. They are in the Big House plus the growing pains I'm sure are going away with each practice. But if he doesn't have a winning season, go under .500 and finish 9th, 8th or even 7th he is gone. This has to be the turn around year.

What strikes me the most about the whole "should he stay or should he go" situation for the past two years is that a good chunk of the fan base didn't give him a chance to begin with. Not to get controversial, but I honestly think that the reason for this is because Michigan (the University and the region too) is a little fearful of big changes. I think the overall mindset is to have controlled change, but when you really try to take things in a totally new (and potentially improved) direction, for better or worse, people around those parts get uneasy. Just my observations as an outsider who didn't grow up in the mid-West, but went to Michigan.

i'm sure there will be no shortage of coaches lining up to take a job where people in your own athletic department will work with the local media to assassinate your character from day one.

Sorry for missing your point but if you wanted to say that you could have started a thread. Our players and their addaption in other systems or Our player and their amazing talent...

By the ways i didnt negg you

If it happens, we will deal with it. But until it happens, he is the coach, we are Michigan. Support the team.

because we will NOT lose. Guaranteed, this is the year we turn it around and get back to kicking ass
and taking names.

HC Jim Harbaugh
OC S. Loeffler
DC J. Herrmann
Recuit corr. Chris Singletary.

Well this is what the posters asking. I always thought Herrmann got a bad rap after 2005 (someone had to take the fall). Obviously I'm not a golfer. And no I don't RR fired because it will set UM back.

In my opinion, what's lacking if, say, we moved back to a pro-style offense with a 4-3 defense like English ran:

- Traditional, drop-back QB who would be comfortable from under center and running play-action

- Linebackers (specifically, a MIKE)

- NFL prototype WR (6'3", 200 lbs.) like Terrell, Edwards, etc.

and then there's 7-5. Assuming M achieves at least that record next year, what becomes important is how we look achieving it. Are we in games, even if we lose? Do we actually beat a couple of good teams? Does the offense look as if it is improving as the year unfolds? Does the defense seem finally to have a clue? A 7-5 record with dismal performances down the stretch warrants firing; 7-5, with close losses and an improving team in November, warrants another year.

i don't think rr will be a head coach again,if he is fired at mich. At the most he could be a offensive coordinator. Why would a school put themselves through this.

Holy shit, I'm really sick of people somehow turning every thread into "if RR goes (insert record here) then he does/doesn't deserve another year." Just stop people. That wasn't even the question or issue at hand from the OP.

This thread got way OT. To the OT part, I'll just say I really like Rodriguez, I fully support him and I hope he's here for a long time. But I don't make those decisions, and although somewhat contradictory, I also support the University and their decisions if they decide to fire Rodriguez.

But on topic, I don't know how to feel about the athletes that Rodriguez has recruited. He has recruited some great offensive skill players and now some great secondary support, but past that I don't know what to think. The only current QB I could see running a non-spread offense is Gardner based on what I've heard (sort of like a TP setup). Tate COULD work in another offense, but I just feel like the spread is where his game can shine.

But as for the team as a whole, I wouldn't have a ton of confidence into switching back to a pro style system. A lot of people, myself included, have said that Rodriguez needed to recruit HIS KIND of players into his system. We're now seeing that happen and I'm not sure how that would translate. I wouldn't hit the doomsday button if we fire Rodriguez, but I would completely expect a few more years of irrelevance if we switch coaches.

So here's to a 9-4 season (bowl win included)! That's right, none of this puny 7-5/7-6 talk.

(in reality, I'd be happy with 7-5/7-6/8-5)

RR has actually recruited players that would specialize in his system. If he is fired after next season and they hire a non-spread coach it's going to be a long climb out of the hole we will be in. I think Rodriguez will do fine next season and as long as the record keeps improving he shouldn't be fired IMO.

Almost everyone uses spread principles if not some version of the spread now. The personnel that RR has gathered could play in pretty much any offense except the outdated Carr offense.

I think, though, that RR will be at UM for a long time. If they planned on firing him, it probably would have been between signing day and now. And I can't see this team not improving enough to at least get back in the bowl picture this year. The increment to rise back above the level of MSU, Purdue, and Illinois is extremely small; even marginal improvement will get them to eight wins.

I think with age, experience, and better personnel, this team will show more than marginal improvement.

The real issue isn't the talent that was brought in, but the extensive departures of players recruited near the end of Lloyd Carr's tenure. On the Solid Verbal podcast Brian posted a link to on the main page, he said Michigan was down to around 67 scholarship players at the end of last season--which is why Michigan could bring in such a large class this year and why Kovacs was a starting safety.

Whether Rodriguez can be blamed for that or not is up for debate--to a point. I'll agree the caliber of athlete has probably increased overall, simply because the cupboard was extremely bare relative to a normal Michigan team once the Long/Hart/Henne class graduated.

In addition, Michigan will probably continue to run a spread in some form (perhaps not the Rodriguez run-first spread) if Rodriguez were to be fired after this season. The pieces are in place for a spread, Michigan does not (and never really did) have Wisconsin style road-graters and the era of the statuesque, rocket-armed QB at Michigan is probably over. Gardner and Forcier are spread-style QBs, and may not fit a traditional pro-style offense.

Then Tate will be the first QB to throw for a million yards and if some fat loser wants to transfer to Ohio State we can just lock him in a shed for hours.

or days

you made sure to alert all of us to the fact that you are an alum.

Otherwise, I would have been sorry I clicked on this link.

Potato Salad.

A bit morbid, are we? I'm pretty sure he's in good health.

I think that if RR is unable to turn it around, and loses his job (which to me means he doesn't win 8 games), I think we'll be fine.

A new coach will likely be smart enough to know that he must take the players he has and tweak his chosen system (it may be a spread variant or something else) to those players. Over time, he'll adjust his recruiting to match his particular needs.

Of course, he could take the reverse path and demand that existing players conform to his system...lose a record numbers of games, and then hope to turn it around after 4 years. I doubt we'd hire this type of coach again.