Rich Rod, Casteel, and the Myth about Money
I realize that this board will never agree on what caused Rodriguez to fail here. However, in an effort to focus our pointless bickering on the right questions, it's time to put to bed a very persistent myth. May the following remove one source of contention from our angry but increasingly-united fanbase.
The myth:
"In 2008, Bill Martin gave Rich Rodriguez only 265,000 to hire a defensive coordinator. This amount was too low to bring Casteel or any other top defensive coordinator to Michigan, which is why the defense was so terrible. Rich Rod was set up to fail."
Ignoring the silly notion that Martin would agree to furnish a new million-dollar weightroom and pay 2.5 million of RR's buyout but simultaneously put a $265,000 cap on the DC salary, let's take a look at what other power conference teams around the country were paying their DCs in 2008.
Ohio State (Jim Heacock): 260,510
Oklahoma (Brent Venables): 210,000
USC (Nick Holt): 300,000
Oregon (Nick Aliotti): 225,000
Alabama (Kirby Smart): 360,000
LSU (Bradley Dale Peveto): 200,000
Florida (Charlie Strong): 300,000
Nebraska (Carl Pelini): 190,000
Auburn (Ted Roof): 370,000
Georgia (Willie Martinez): 220,000
Florida State (Mickey Andrews): 295,483
Washington (Ed Donatell): 334,000
Cal (Bob Gregory): 168,000
Tennessee (John Chavis): 340,000
Texas (Will Muschamp): 250,000
Va Tech (Bud Foster): 300,000
Clemson (Vic Koennig): 260,000
Average: $269,611
Even assuming Michigan refused a requested increase, which is not supported by any documented facts, the offer of 265,000 was competitive even among the nation's richest big-name programs. The fact that it produced the 109th-ranked defense in 2010 is ridiculous and a spectacular indictment of the hiring abilites of one man. His name isn't Bill Martin.
October 31st, 2014 at 10:04 AM ^
Please review the records of the teams under Rodriguez, and then Hoke. Then go back and watch any game that RR's teams played against OSU or MSU. No more need be said. It is a sad state here, how much love there is for a guy that was a complete and total failure at Michigan.
I wish him well. I sincerely do. But to suggest that his teams were improving is like suggesting that that an 18 year who starts his senior year at a first grade reading level is improving when he graduates reading at a fourth grade level. Not to mention the rest of the problems he brought along with that reading level!
October 31st, 2014 at 11:08 AM ^
Why does it matter that Rodriguez started 3-9 when he was fired after his 7-6 season? Why does it matter that Hoke started 11-2 when everyone unanimously wants him gone now? Past seasons are sunk costs that can never be recovered no matter what; the decision to retain or replace a coach can only affect future Michigan teams.
Rodriguez's teams were improving in record and on offense; they were regressing on defense. Hoke's teams have regressed in all facets every year; yes they started very good and slight decline is acceptable, but it's slipped further to the point of apocalyptic. I don't know how anyone can argue that today's future looks better than Michigan's future looked in 2011 under Rodriguez, particularly a Rodriguez with the positive media coverage and coordinator budget that Hoke received throughout his tenure.
In conclusion, I hope your child never falls behind in reading level, because should they actually make strides to improve you'll simply ridicule them for getting behind in the first place.
October 31st, 2014 at 12:45 PM ^
My post says nothing about Rodriguez and everything about Brady Hoke. Try responding to that. You asked, "How did Brandon hurt Michigan by replacing Rodriguez?" I gave you the answer: by hiring Brady Hoke.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:41 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:05 PM ^
for his 15-22 record was more important than fixing the side of the ball we all knew was the problem?
Somehow, RichRod started a year later at Arizona in 2012 yet has Arizona in the Top 25 and beating Oregon while Brady Hoke has turned Michigan football into a fucking disaster.
Maybe, just maybe, Michigan has something to do with why Rich Rod could succeed at WVU & Arizona but not Michigan.
I admit this wasn't perfectly clear in 2011. But we replaced RichRod with a crony pick, not an elite coaching talent that Michigan could surely have PAID to attract.
Replacing RichRod with Brady Hoke has EVERYTHING to do with RichRod and Brady Hoke.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:37 PM ^
...just to quote records.
Actually, I wouldn't say RR deserved to be fired. He didn't deserve to be hired b/c he never had a chance with this inbred football culture.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:51 PM ^
RR didn't fight hard to get Casteel to Michigan and really didn't think it was a big deal to have him until he went to Arizona. I am the biggest RR supporter and thought he should have gotten at least another year but there was just a multitude of problems from the start. Maybe if the AD position was more stable at the time then he could have properly schooled RR on who to recruit but even many of the guys who qualified (think J.T. Turner) flamed out so quickly was inevitably leading to disaster.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:51 PM ^
Is what prevented RichRod from bringing his DC Casteel to Michigan.
October 30th, 2014 at 8:58 PM ^
Are you going to start a thread claiming the 2010 offense was bad against good defenses?
October 30th, 2014 at 9:08 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:10 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 11:36 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:13 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:33 PM ^
I hope we win a nc with another coach and that is a big fu you to you. Actually us mere Michigan fans dong really care about you enough to do so. Live a good life and be happy when your new team wins it all.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:15 PM ^
Everywhere? You mean Glennville State, wich he had 2 losing seasons, WVU where he had a losing season, and Michigan where he had two losing seasons. Meanwhile, 7 years removed from WVU, we are still waiting on a winning conference record for a Rich Rod coached team. Really just killing it.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:13 PM ^
Was this just an elaborate troll job to try to get Section 1 out of hiding? I have it on good authority that he's posting on MLive these days.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:39 PM ^
Go re-read 3 and out.
/thread
October 30th, 2014 at 9:43 PM ^
You make a good circumstantial case, but this was no myth; it's the story both Rodriguez and Casteel told, respectively, to John U. Bacon and Bruce Madej, and if I could find it I'm pretty sure Martin corroborated it. There was still a sense in 2008 of fighting the good fight to tamp down escalating coaching salaries, and Michigan was certainly capable at that time of the hypocrisy you described above, where they'd pay millions for Rodriguez but not another $50,000 a year for one of his assistants.
With coaching changes you have to leave room for an extraordinary amount of people not acting in a manner you would identify as rational, or perhaps sane. Only in the afermath can some of the ridiculous stuff get sorted out, if it ever can.
Shit happens quickly and with a level of informality that is terrifying to those of us who feel so much is at stake. Casteel wasn't going to uproot at that time unless Michigan offered him a substantial raise, and they wouldn't, and Rich Rod tried to convince him to come anyway and Casteel said no he'd rather not, and people got on a plane.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:00 PM ^
Where is Bacon's quote from Rodriguez? Where is his quote from Casteel? Where is the quote from Madej? Where is the quote from Martin?
You're honestly trying to tell me that after spending roughly 8 million dollars for staff, buyout, and equipment, Michigan wouldn't pony up another 50k for Casteel if Rodriguez has pushed for it?
Besides, the myth is not simply that we didn't pony up for Casteel. It's that the budget for DC was inadequate to hire someone competent, which is ludicrous.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:15 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:27 PM ^
It's not an argument from ignorance. I'm not arguing that the premise is false because it hasn't been proven true. I'm arguing that nobody can truly know what happened with Casteel, and that the circumstantial evidence tends to slant against the current narrative.
It's also not a strawman. I was directly responding to the argument at hand, which was whether or not Michigan provided adequate funding to hiring Casteel or a competent DC.
I think you should review your notes on logical fallacies.
October 30th, 2014 at 10:58 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 11:04 PM ^
First of all, the very nature of a strawman argument is that it misrepresents someone else's position and then refutes that false position. If there isn't an opponent to misrepresent, there can be no strawman, meaning that if I simply created an opposing argument out of thin air in a nonexistent debate, it wouldn't be a strawman. You're welcome.
Now, the real argument I'm responding to is one that has been posted here dozens and dozens of times, which is that Bill Martin sabotaged Rich Rod by not giving him enough money to hire a good DC.
October 30th, 2014 at 11:31 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 12:39 AM ^
I've won very little points with you? I'm heartbroken.
October 30th, 2014 at 11:14 PM ^
From Three and Out:
However, when Stewart offered Casteel $275,000 and, more important, a two-year contract, it looked pretty good compared to Michigan's offer: $265,000 and no contract at all. Casteel decided to stay put.
That comes from Rodriguez and RR's director of football ops, Mike Parrish.
Madej: I'm searching for the board post now. He brought it up to me and a group of people on a tour of Schembechler after the remodel.
Martin: An interview after 3&O came out asking him about whether various things were true. He said they had Casteel, and for the same contract assistants always got, but then he was flipped by more money. Martin appears to have his facts not entirely straight since $10k probably wasn't as big of a deal as the surety.
October 30th, 2014 at 11:30 PM ^
Right. So Bacon says "hey, an offer that was higher looked better than one that was lower." Okay, no shit. Thanks for the brilliant editorializing Bacon. Care to provide a primary source for that material or any information from Casteel himself? Of course not. It's John U. Bacon. The guy has gained the most credibility from the least amount of actual investigative journalism that I have ever encountered in my life. Have you ever noticed how most of his writings are completely devoid of citation?
I have still yet to here a single piece of solid evidence or one single quote from a person involved saying that Casteel would have come here for more money. Not one.
October 30th, 2014 at 11:30 PM ^
So now you're onto ad hominem and argument from ignorance. You've been thoroughly answered and presented with consensus statements that don't dispute your primary thesis (that Rodriguez sucked at coordinator hiring and therefore had to go).
I think we're all done here.
October 31st, 2014 at 12:22 AM ^
I'm critizicing Bacon's refusal to provide primary source material, direct quotations, and conduct actual investigative journalism. That isn't an ad hominem argument. It's an argument directly relevant to the merits of his contentions. Pointing out that someone hasn't adequately cited an argument isn't ad hominem, even if you are highly critical of his refusal to do so.
And as I pointed out above, I'm not arguing that it's absolutely true that Casteel would not have come here for more money. I'm saying that we don't fully know and that no real evidence has been presented to support that fact. In fact, the circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise That isn't an argument from ignorance.
Your response of "well, maybe they were hypocritical" isn't very persuasive. I think we're all done here.
October 31st, 2014 at 9:51 AM ^
Why does Bacon have to directly quote somebody for every statement he makes in the book? Not to mention, as Seth has already stated, his work in this book has been corroborated repeatedly by other sources. Let's see, who am I gonna believe on this... some bear on the internet, or John Bacon - NYT best selling author, U of M professor, teacher at NW's journalism school, and guy who had an unprecendented, unrestricted level of access to those in and around the M program during this time? Give me a break.
October 30th, 2014 at 11:23 PM ^
By the way I think you can make your argument without getting accusatory and defensive. The consensus on Rich Rodriguez, then and now, was that he deserved to be fired because he made awful hires for defensive coordinator.
The question remained why was he such a failure at Michigan, because that is most relevant to Michigan right now. We aren't hiring Rodriguez back, but we are VERY interested in not making the same mistakes over again.
It does seem that Rodriguez had a hole in his ability in that he couldn't manage a defense well enough even to pick the right coach for it, and he apparently lucked out by having Casteel fall into his circle at West Virginia. It's well to remember that the "Keep Rodriguez" plan circia 1/1/2011 was absolutely to get him Casteel, and give the pair one year to turn it around, but that would have been a year of recruiting with a noose around their necks and a team that had apparently given up on him by the bowl game. So if you're asking me do I still think it was the right move to fire RR at that time: yes. He should have been gone after the Ohio State game.
I think we should recognize that EVERY candidate we could hire has some things he's bad at. Unfortunately for Michigan, RR's was apparently revealed only here, and only when it was too late.
I also think Michigan probably would have been better off had we kept Rodriguez, but that's less of a positive for RR and mostly a damning statement about how bad Hoke was.
October 30th, 2014 at 11:15 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 11:28 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 11:47 PM ^
October 31st, 2014 at 5:17 AM ^
If Casteel was not coming, I wonder if retaining Ron English was considered. But of course it was his defense that were sliced up by those spread offenses of App State and Oregon in Carr's disastrous last year.
October 31st, 2014 at 12:54 AM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 9:51 PM ^
The myth: "In 2008, Bill Martin gave Rich Rodriguez only 265,000 to hire a defensive coordinator. This amount was too low to bring Casteel or any other top defensive coordinator to Michigan, which is why the defense was so terrible. Rich Rod was set up to fail."Where are you quoting this from? For starters, it will bring this straw-man argument closer into the ballpark to say "or any other top defensive coordinator with whom RR had an established successful working relationship, which is part of the real issue. Contradicting this straw-man argument as stated really doesn't accomplish anything. I believe the Casteel saga has already been treated at book length, but it doesn't look like you have read it. It might save time if you acquaint yourself with the documentary record before trying to set everyone else straight.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:55 PM ^
The "documentary record" is literally a few uncited sentences from Bacon providing a conclusory opinion. Yes, Casteel would have been the best choice for Rich Rod given their previous relationship. Not every coach gets his first choice. Deal with it, take your elite-level funding, and don't produce the worst defense in Michigan history. That's really the point here.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:53 PM ^
I have never gotten the sense that RR fought tooth and nail for Casteel. In 3 and out it sounded like it didn't work out, and that was that.
October 30th, 2014 at 9:54 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:16 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:31 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:41 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:51 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 11:16 PM ^
October 30th, 2014 at 10:18 PM ^
What is being lost in all of this, is that Casteel is just an above average DC.
October 31st, 2014 at 9:41 AM ^
above average defense during the RR era would translate to multiple additional wins each season
October 30th, 2014 at 11:55 PM ^
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October 31st, 2014 at 12:14 AM ^