RR's first year grade
I spent a lot of time this year debating with non-Michigan fans, various yahoos and some interested neutral parties over the debacle that became our season. Their reaction was some measure of surprise, dismay, glee and consternation, depending on their orientation, and I often came here to read (usually) intelligent, though partisan, perspectives.
Dismissing the patently absurd "fire him now", "should have run a conventional offense this year" and "he drove off Mallett and Boren so its his fault" schools, I nonetheless had to at some point conclude in my analysis that given our record and performance, that mistakes were made, which ultimately accrue to the head coach. And while I thought pre-season that our record would be 7-5ish, maybe even as Herbstreit predicted, 6-6, we were all blindsided by the final result.
IMO, at least one loss (going to 3-3-5 at Purdue) was directly related to coaching decisions, so its fair to say that if one were grading RR, he would not receive an "A" for the year. Or would he, and if so please explain. I would like to hear what our fellow readers say on this subject. I'll start, and give him a grade of C.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:46 PM ^
with the QB situation worse than expected it was, i think it was good just to get 3 wins. Like Herbstreit said, "These quarterback couldnt even start on another teams scout team, they are just awful."
November 29th, 2008 at 7:06 PM ^
Tough call. I'd say C to C- with the caveat that I fully expect him to improve and I have faith in him as a coach. Hard to stomach the blowout to Illinois and the loss to Toledo, etc.
November 29th, 2008 at 7:08 PM ^
A: 12-0, 11-1, 10-2, 9-3, 8-4, 7-5
B: 6-6
C: 5-7, 4-8
D: 3-9. 2-10
E: 1-11
F: 0-12
I was one of the people who thought he could work miracles with inferior talent based on all the recruiting analysis that was shared here. It didn't happen. I think we should have beaten Toledo and Purdue, which would have made RR's first season a C for me. I'm of the opinion that a 3-9 record does not warrant a passing grade, regardless of the obstacles we're all familiar with.
For comparison, other first year marks:
Tressel at OSU: 7-5
Meyer at Utah & Florida: 10-2, 9-3
Stoops at Oklahoma: 7-5
Carroll at USC: 6-6
Weis at ND: 9-3
Miles at LSU: 11-2
Petersen at BSU: 13-0
Hawkins at Colorado: 2-10 (6-7 and 5-6 since)
Pelini at Nebraska: 8-4
Richt at Georgia: 8-4
Spurrier at S.Carolina: 7-5
Nutt at Arkansas & Ole Miss: 9-3, 8-4
Petrino at Louisville & Arkansas: 9-4, 5-7
Kelly at Cinci: 10-3
Better records by first year coaches are not uncommon. He'll get his grade up. As Brian mentions, he might just not be that good at delivering great results in transition years. Others might be better at it. Since we're looking at the long run, the transition year should be dismissed if we make solid strides next year (e.g. 6-6 minimum) and start contending for a BCS game by Years 3 & 4.
November 29th, 2008 at 7:19 PM ^
and I think right. It makes me consider "D" as a more accurate grade for this year. And I also think time will show this a good hire--but none of the coaches listed here would receive a grade as low as RR based on this evidence, which is cause for concern.
On a side note, I think Peterson at Boise is completely under-appreciated for the job he's done. Herbstreit was on record last year pushing for him at UM (of course after his Miles debacle, but still).
November 29th, 2008 at 7:43 PM ^
I like the brand of football Boise plays and their results speak for themselves. From an article I read, I believe that Petersen is being sincere when he says he really has no plans to leave Boise. He makes a lot of money to live comfortably there and really enjoys the area.
btw, I also think UM had enough talent on its roster to beat ND & NW. After all, 3-9 Syracuse beat ND (in South Bend) and 3-9 Indiana beat NW.
To me, it just makes sense to reserve judgment until after the transition year. If you're giving out pretend grades based on a 3-9 record with wins over Wisconsin, Miami and Minnesota, I'm not sure how anyone who is being objective can give RR a passing mark based on what other first year coaches have achieved.
November 30th, 2008 at 9:50 PM ^
On what grounds.... that we completely dominated them besides the first 10 minutes where we gift wrapped 21 points for them.. yeah I bet that RR ran the "fumble the kickoff play"....
Yeah ND was his fault....
November 30th, 2008 at 11:40 PM ^
a play perfectly you are supposed to run the exact same play next touch...
November 30th, 2008 at 11:46 PM ^
You misinterpreted my post.
No where do I say "we should have beaten ND." My point was simply that we had enough talent on our roster to beat ND. Look, the argument about who is to blame for certain losses - the coaches or the players - has always been retarded in my book. You could always argue either way but in the end the coach is accountable for getting W's, like it or not.
Why can't some people understand and accept that Michigan, under RR's leadership, had one shitty year? I'm not saying RR is a bad coach or his tenure at UM will be a bad one. I'm looking at one frickin' year and basically saying it sucked. I'm not giving RR a lifetime grade or saying we're doomed with him at the helm.
If the question was, "What grade do you think RR should get for his entire body of work as UM's coach?" I'd say "Incomplete." However, the original commenter asked how would you grade his Year 1 results.
I don't comment much on this blog b/c I get tired of seeing other posters jump on here and rip on others for expressing their POV. My advice to you is don't be one of them.
November 29th, 2008 at 9:40 PM ^
at all.
I'm not saying that the records of these coaches don't indicate their talents, but are you seriously not going to look at the situation these coaches came into?
You must consider:
-The change of style of play between old coach and new
-The personnel for the new coach
-The change of role of coach to players (this might be contrived, but I saw Carr as a father figure to the team, and see RichRod as a general, which might cause some of the players to be disillusioned and therefore not perform to their standards (I'm talking about the Minor quote here))
Because all of these are so against Rich Rod, it's hard to believe we managed to keep almost every game close in the first half. And it's also absolutely unbelievable that this year's offense outscored and doubled the yardage of last year's (see Brian's Schadenfreude this week for a reference, I haven't actually seen the numbers)
But the defense not living up to expectations hurts Rich Rod in my mind, and the fact that the team didn't appear to improve over the course of the season worries me.
The record leaves me extremely disappointed, but I wouldn't watch the season if it was all about me seeing a record at the end of it. And what I did watch and see was a football team that showed extreme potential, but wasn't ready for its competition.
I'm not about to give Rodriguez a grade for this season, because it would probably be a C- and I don't think that represents Rodriguez as a coach (just like Weis receiving an A by your scale does NOT show how good of a coach he is).
So I'll give him an "incomplete"
EDIT: I mean not well reasoned in terms of your grading scale and reference to other coaches' first seasons, but your last paragraph proves you're not at all an idiot (in my mind)
November 30th, 2008 at 12:44 PM ^
you disagreed with him in your first sentence, but I'm at a loss to see where, you both arrived at similar grades, you at C-/incomplete and he saying it wasn't a passing grade, but will get better--not much space between those.
November 30th, 2008 at 6:39 PM ^
that grade that I won't give is based on, basically, defensive decisions (3-3-5 made me throw things) and me not seeing game to game improvement... nothing to do with the record. My point was: to rate Rich Rod's coaching this year based on a record is faulty logic, and to compare him to other coaches in their first years is even more stupid. And the incomplete is not meant to be a failing grade but to symbolize that the transition is incomplete and I need to see more before I can give Rich Rod a grade at all, because a C- is just the first thing that popped to my head. and who knows, maybe the 3-3-5 will bloom into something useful
December 1st, 2008 at 5:24 PM ^
Comparing this year to any of the above years is ridiculous. None of the above coaches inherited the talent deprived team RR did this year. The only one that comes close is Colorado's 2006 season. They lost less talent, but, to be fair, weren't really that high up to begin with.
In BCS conferences (except perhaps for the Big East/ACC), no matter matter how good of a coach you are, you can't put together a 8 or 9 win season without a team with a fair amount of talent. We just didn't have it. I'm not going to say RR put up an A performance, but to say it was a 'D' performance... That's just not fair.
Go through that list above and look at how many offensive starters each of those teams returned from the year before. THEN make your comparison.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:54 PM ^
Dude, seriously. Do you have any idea what the rosters looked like on all the teams I note above? Because I sure as hell don't and there's no effin' way I'm going to go back and research it. My guess is you don't have any idea either.
Results are results. Each team has their own unique set of obstacles to overcome. I'm sure the teams I mention had similar challenges and to think they didn't is naive. RR had a talent disadvantage to be sure but are you telling me that there wasn't some failure on the part of the coaching staff to work with the talent available to them? (e.g. judging Sheridan as the better QB coming out of the preseason, not featuring Minor until midway through the season, and ARGUABLY driving key offensive players to transfer or go pro (major emphasis here on ARGUABLY, we'll never know whether they would have stayed or gone).
While you're researching the roster differences of the above teams I noted perhaps you can research the attrition rate of teams that RR has coached in his first year vs. other teams lead by other coaches? My hypothesis is that RR has a higher attrition rate. Does that make him a bad coach? FUCK NO. He's made it pretty clear that he's a guy who wants to work with people who are willing to play by his rules, who are loyal, etc. He probably bends over less than other coaches to reach all types of personalities and this approach hurts him during transition years but pays huge dividends down the road.
His Year 1 results were terrible. Ask him, and I'm almost certain he'd say the same thing. In fact, I bet he would have graded his results with an "E" or "F" based on what he's said in the press. I was being generous with a "D."
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 AM ^
Tressel had a True Senior QB and RB, two RS sophomore starting at WR, a 4th round TE, a offensive line consisting of 4 seniors and RS juniors and one RS sophomore.
Meyer at Florida returned 7 starters each on offense and defense going into 2005.
Les Miles had Addai as a Sr, Russell (who had just under 50% of the QB load as a freshman) as a So. the O-line lost... Wilkerson, and that's it.
Peterson at BSU returned the most players of any team in D1A football with 9 on each offense and defense (and he was the OC there for the last 5 years, so there wasn't much of a transition).
I already talked about CU.
I don't really have time to go into the rest of them, but my point is clear. (p.s. you were right, I hadn't looked at the actual numbers until you said something, but 1, I remember at least a little bit of history, and 2 returning ONE starter on offense is a recipe for disaster, even if it's not a new coach.)
December 1st, 2008 at 6:25 PM ^
id agree... a D seems pretty fair.
you also left out georgia tech from this list. the guys running a different offense in his first year and not doing too bad
November 29th, 2008 at 7:13 PM ^
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
November 29th, 2008 at 8:41 PM ^
why bother with this. Pointless.
November 29th, 2008 at 9:29 PM ^
You could argue everything that is discussed here is pointless. Watching sports is pointless in the grand scheme of things. I opt to numb my brain by watching sports. So if I'm in to doing that, I also like to imagine and discuss useless scenarios like "what if" we had a college football playoff. Or, what if we could come to some objective consensus of what a good vs. bad coaching job would look like so we could all be united behind our team's success or failure. Then we wouldn't have to hang on to coaches who are underachieving or put up with whiners that bellyache about their team's misfortunes a year after winning an MNC. It's pointless for me to fantasize about Glen Mason's hot wife but I still do it ever since your avatar showed up.
As a fan, what isn't pointless to discuss here in your opinion?
November 29th, 2008 at 9:58 PM ^
Sports are important to me, therefore I think there is a point to discussing them. But I think grading Rodriguez now is ridiculous. It's like grading a paper that's missing half the pages.
November 30th, 2008 at 12:50 PM ^
and you're welcome to the opinion. But how is grading a complete season, i.e. one that by definition is finished and complete in itself, a waste of time? To use your term paper analogy, during the course of any year, by the end of the term the paper is due, and you get graded for it. That doesn't mean that you will not improve or get worse the next year, and it doesn't mark you for all time in terms of future success, it like all grades, is a snapshot in time.
November 30th, 2008 at 1:04 PM ^
as my first impression was an "incomplete."
Recruiting is such a big factor in success, and this incoming class looks good so far, but we wont know until signing day. We also wont know how good the last class and this incoming one is for a few years.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:13 AM ^
He gets an "F" for year 1 from me. 2008 was a disaster of epic proportions and it cannot entirely be blamed on Lloyd Carr's safety recruiting or the quarterback situation. I have confidence for 2010 and beyond but RichRod shouldn't be given a pass for this horrible year.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:43 PM ^
Any way you cut it, this was, at best, M's 4th worst season EVER!!!
Provide all the rational that you want -- these are just opinions. The facts are the facts.
That is an F for F'd UP!!!
But, you don't get kicked out for one F. RR will be given more than enough time to show us what kind of coach he really is.