Mike Martin contrasts Mattison and G. Robinson
"There's just no way I'd have the same kind of respect if it weren't for him," Martin told AnnArbor.com during a recent interview. "We were playing backyard defense (under former defensive coordinator Greg Robinson), pretty much. Just going out, picking a gap and just kind of doing whatever we wanted to do. It was a lot different."
http://annarbor.com/sports/um-football/ex-michigan-dl-mike-martin-nfl-draft-greg-mattison/
Scott Shafer has had a solid career as a coordinator at Western, Stanford and Syracuse. At Michigan, he was saddled with Rich Rod's buds as position coaches, including the infamous Tony Gibson and Bruce Tall, the safety coach trying to coach DLine. The only thing memorable about Tall was his total meltdown during the loss to ND in the first year.
Dude why can't you respect what Mike Martin said? Why must you attack the guys who play for Michigan? Martin said that he learned more from Greg Mattison and the new staff than he did in his previous three years. The previous "three years" (Martin's words) includes Shafer. Mike Martin is a Michigan football player. Our best player on the defense last year.
The only memorable thing about Scott Shafer was his total meltdown during the loss to Ohio State in the first year.
The RR era vs. the Hoke era. Use your God given analytical skills. RR was focused on his strength and Hoke is focused on his. The biggest difference is Hoke has a great offensive mind on his staff, while Rich Rod had a less than stellar Defensive mind in Robinson.
It's not that complicated.
Go Blue!
The biggest difference is that Hoke inherited a solid team, while RR inherited a smoking crater.
- of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate: The car gets only mediocre mileage, but it's fun to drive. Synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian, everyday; run-of-the-mill. Antonyms: extraordinary, superior, uncommon, incomparable.
- not satisfactory; poor; inferior: Mediocre construction makes that building dangerous. Synonyms: meager, low-quality, second-rate; so-so. Antonyms: excellent, superior.
The team that RR inherited had won 9 of their last 11 with many of their big play makers injured for most of the year. Yes they were losing a lot, but the general consensus was that they were headed towards a 6 win season.
The team that Hoke inherited was returning a lot of players. But these were the same players that had lost 6 of their last 8 games and arguably made up the worst defense in the B1G, all while losing their backup QB and (arguably) top reciever and not really gaining anyone of note. The general consensus was a 7 win season.
I don't know guys, these two teams may have come from two drastically different situations, but still ended up with the same preseason predictions of mediocrity. I hate to be a douche to fellow MGoBloggers, but maybe putting forth a little analytical effort and reading a dictionary may come in handy before mistakenly telling someone their notion of what is and isn't mediocre is incorrect.
The team that RR inherited most certainly did not win any games; the guys that won those games were gone. Consensus was wrong. Consensus was still smitten by the notion that Michigan was a rock solid program. It wasn't. Consensus was wrong.
If you hate to be a douche so much, why'd you do it?
Quote Webster all you want, everyone knows that mediocre means the first: of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate. The talent on Michigan wasn't ordinary, it was of far inferior quality, and wasn't near adequate. Therefore, I question your use of the word.
April 22nd, 2012 at 10:05 PM ^
It's funny how quick you were to completely disreagard half of the word's definition when it doesn't work in your favor, but that's fine. I'm quite aware of my own vocabulary, and I used the word how I meant to justify the opinion I'm sticking with. Anyways, this back and forth between you and me is just going to go in circles without either of us budging. I thank you for adding an opposing opinion, but for now, let's just agree to disagree and move on.
I defended RR early on specifically because I felt he inherited the least talented team in modern Michigan history. Michigan was woefully short of scholarship athletes, making little mention of the talent of those scholarship players they had. The shit storm that was the 2005 recruiting/attrition debacle was at full hurricane force with a team nearly devoid of developed upper classmen; of those, two emerged -- Graham and the punter.
I agree RR made his own bed -- esp. with the defense -- but to say he had a "mediocre" team is just down right silliness.
Blake Countess, Desmond Morgan, Brennan Beyer and Justice Hayes beg to differ.
Not to mention other commits who left after RR was fired: Jake Fisher, Dee Hart, Kris Frost.
And guys like Anthony Zettel who didn't commit because of Dave Brandon's handling of the situation.
The simple facts are that there were very few really good players when RR arrived. It worsened when players like Mallet and Ploughboy transferred. The team improved every year under RR. When he left the offense was able to compete with anyone. The team had turned the corner. There was still work to be done, especially on defense, but Michigan was once again a solid team by the end of RR's tenure.
If you didn't notice, Michigan did some pretty terrible things to Rich Rodriguez as well.
But I guess reality is a little hard to handle.
April 23rd, 2012 at 12:59 AM ^
yeah, they paid him millions of dollars to do a job poorly. The bastards.
He scoffed at this and said that Robinson was considered a fraud D Coord by NFL insiders. I dismissed his comment because he had a habit of talking down Michigan (he played his college ball at USC).
Turns out he had GERG exactly pegged.
Willie McGinest?
When I found out we were getting Robinson I talked to my buddy who played football at Syracuse while GERG was there. I said I was excited about the hire...he just started laughing.
reading that comparison makes me sad, I hope we never have to see a defense like that again. Those close games against UMass and Indiana drove me nuts.
Man how screwed were we under Rodriguez? You gotta figure Mike is putting it as mildly as he can with the NFL draft around the corner too. The last thing you want to do is trash your head coach. Even if it looks like he totally deserved it.
Look at the results on the field. D stunk
Generally, it's a good idea to first actually know something before posting rather than making shit up.
I think RR hated M and did one of those double agent things, conspiring with the Freep to bring down M, but Brandon and Hoke arrived like super hero's to save the day.
This place is MLIVE. It's fucking pathetic. Stop spewing garbage as if it is fact. It's like none of you read Three and Out and those that did just brushed it off as fiction because it hurts your brain to accept that RR and the University and the Freep are all responsible for the failure of the RR era. It isn't all on RR. Ugh, fucking sheeple.
I've never understood the connection between the Freep's despicable hit job and Rodriguez's clear incompetence at leading a defense (or special teams for that matter). Reading 3&O and feeling bad for Rodriguez won't change the fact that he failed here. The head coach takes on the responsibility for the entire team. The worst defenses in Michigan history are on Rodriguez's head.
And look what happened: The same exact players, who were supposedly incapable of playing on this level, plus some freshman (the RR "sheeple" on this blog at the time would have you understand that underclassmen could never play at a high level) were part of the biggest defensive turnaround in college football history.
Then you clearly don't understand the power of the media and you are truly simple.
April 22nd, 2012 at 10:28 PM ^
But really, I'm interested to hear your explanation of the media's power in this context. Try to be as specific as you can.
I will always hate the RR era just for the god awful assistant coaches that dude dragged to AA
remember it for bringing us Denard Robinson and many other players who I am proud to cheer for.
Sounds about right for GERG. That D looked like they were on 5 different pages every play. And Martin's description pretty much confirms it, and explains why Demens was always right on Martin's ass. No one knew what they were doing, and neither did GERG.
Mike Martin can lead you to water, but he can't make you drink. He's basically saying the defensive staff under Rodriguez was incompetent. Part of being a head football coach is putting together a competent staff. It doesn't sound like Rodriguez even cared enough about defense to make that happen. Which is odd, given that he was a linebacker back in his playing days.
If the results on the field in 2011 combined with our defensive players saying that Rogriguez pertty much ignored the defense doesn't convince you that he was the wrong guy for this job, I don't think anything ever will.
He almost took us to permanent Notre Dame status, which is mediocrity from being a kickass top 25 team. I get the bowl losses when we play in SEC land, and at California. I do not remember going to a bowl with that douche Rodriguez being pleasant. Get your wildcat truck and get the fuck out of my state.
April 22nd, 2012 at 11:26 PM ^
Please note that my above comment was meant to apply to a much more trollish comment, not Jamie H's. That comment has either been caved or I screwed up on my iPhone. My apologies.
If my draft stock was in question I would not being saying negatives about coaching staff I'd worked with.
I respect what Martin is saying and agree that GERG was probably lacking in developmental skills for some of his players, but at the same time it is always easy to knock the old guy and talk up the new guy. I love Mattison and think he is amazing, but that defense struggled for numerous reasons beyond just GERG and player development. From what I've read here and other places, it was a team without a leader on that side of the ball from a coaching perspective, but there was little chance of that given RR's hands-off approach to defense. The greatest travesty of RR's regime was not getting Casteel early on; I do believe that if RR trusted his DC then he would not have undermined him the way it apparently happened with Schaffer and GERG.
was that he was the only competent and experienced DC who would be willing to work with RR's collection of assistants. Otherwise, the choices were (1) hire someone inexperienced who could be pressured into keeping the gang intact, (2) hire someone experienced but no longer competent who would be happy just to still have a job in the game, or (3) break up the gang.
(1) and (2) were tried because (3) was unthinkable.
Blaming the situation on the failure to hire Casteel and not on the set of principles that made that the only possible hire seems to be missing the essential point here.
April 25th, 2012 at 11:03 PM ^
I don't disagree that RR's zealous allegiance to his assistants hurt, but he is not the first coach to have that mindset. But with Casteel, UM's defense would have probably been competent, which given the offense would have been enough to keep the team winning until RR's offense could truly take hold.
Again, I'm not defending RR, but to say that principles were the reason the RR era failed is to ignore the reality that those principles could have been maintained AND the team succeed if Martin had been willing to spend a million or two more.