STOP JUMPING OFF THE LEDGE!!!!!!
I was not happy how yesterday played out. I have been frustrated by the inefficient play that we have seen sometimes.
But we as a Michigan fan base, need to chill out. 'We' act like a bunch of whiny little girls on the school playground. And yesterday's halftime on the upper-concourse behind section five was the epitomy of why we come across as snobs and arrogant to other fan bases.
Has RR done everything perfectly? No
Have 'we' agreed with every playcall or timeout management? No
Are we sick of losing to the major players in the Big 10? Yes
But here's the bottom line: Rich Rodriguez is our coach. And until the day that he's not, if you ALL IN, you support him and the program. When some of our fans criticize/bitch/moan/complain and IT GOES ON AND ON AND ON, you are not making this situation any better.
David Brandon is the only person who will decide the future of the program so get deal with it. I have a lot of confidence in him and I support fully Coach Rod. Some of you will read this and say "WHY?" Because he's our coach God Damn It. And that's the only reason you'll ever need to know.
I don't know what the future holds but I know we will be in Columbus in six days.
Go Blue.
P.S. I am not painting all UM fans this way because not all of us act like that.
November 21st, 2010 at 11:10 AM ^
They will not be able to waltz through their schedule next year like they did this year. The only formidable challenge they faced so far this year was Wisky. Next year their B10 schedule is as follows:
OSU
UM
Wisky
Nebraska
Minnesota
Iowa
Indiana
NW
If they can get through that at .500 I will hand it to them.
November 21st, 2010 at 11:16 AM ^
We may well be the most spoiled football fans in the world, with our "most wins" best percentage", "best helmets", :"best song" "our shit doesnt stink" attitude, and I cant stand watching games with Michigan "fans" any more.
I too am very tired of the spoiled whiney "RR didnt part the waters" crap. These are no doubt the same people who whined that college football was passing us by during the final Lloyd years.
Face facts: RR inherited bupkus. Its his third year, and where are his 17 senior starters.....like what Wisconsin trotted out yesterday.
And we KNOW that Michigan denies admissions to top players who RR could have brought into Clemson, WVU orTulane.
Year 3: We have one of the top offensese in the country, and all the skill positions and most linemen are returning. See any prograss?
And as for the character issue, how about Mealer? How about NOT putting Denard back in after his bell was rung? And how many of you smirked when RR kept insisting "Denard is a QB"?
Did it surprise you that the full blown NCAA investigation turned up "failure to count stretching toward exercise time" as its most serious charge? Jeez, we didnt even bid on Cam Newton!
7-5 is real progress. OBVIOUSLY, Defensive improvement is the emphasis. I have no doubt RR will addrfess it.
Instead of whining so much, how about we focus our attention on attracting defensive recruits, instead of creating so much pissy attitude that recruits are scared away.
Many of you do more harm than good with your smarmy, negative attitudes.....do you think of this site as a way for recruits to take the pulse of the program?
Either "all in" or all out!
November 21st, 2010 at 11:58 AM ^
I see some great potential in these kids. They will be forged by fire as sophmores instead of going through the redshirt leap. The bowl game will be a time to develope some of that potential. Look at the leap that Denard made with off field work and spring ball (small sample size) Patrick O made a great leap, Lewan made a redshirt freshman leap. Demens could not crack the two deep last year a year later he's better for it, I have no doubt through experience and recruiting legal extra practices Michigan will be a better team physically and mentally. Yeah I'm a Kool Aid drinker based on what I see as progress (slower that I want as a fan) but I accept the reality of the situation.
I've been a Michigan fan since before the Ricky Leach days and through the years Ive' been spoiled to no small degree. But I see some of the similarities in this coach (Stuborness)(Willfull)(Resolute)(I'ts going to be done my way) love all of it.
I'm not blind to the short comings of this coaching staff but Bo had his too. Bo never won a national championship I know blasphemy, Bo waited too many years to start throwing the ball (my opinion) Carr played to not lose the game for too many years, Moeller didn't stick around long enough.
Michigan will be better next year. The last two years speak to that evidence w-l column does not lie. Say what you will as a fan the kool aid drinkers, the people that want RR gone yesterday, The wait and see crowd none of us can influence DBs decision one bit and he said as much.. The problem is we as fans communicate this negative attitude to prospective recruits, our negative rants add fuel to the MSM we endorse the MSM by repeating what some guy who has nothing in the way of fanhood invested in this team. They don't care other than if RR is fired they get a juicy story. Recruits read this crap, what they read may or may not directly influence them. But mom and dad may be influenced.
Wow rant over I'm out
November 21st, 2010 at 12:26 PM ^
The college program with the most wins in A-1 is now barely beating fourth tier A-1 schools and being mauled by tier one schools and that is progress?
It has been three years and the only positive is we were fortunate enough to schedule weak non conference opponents to pad our record to get into some obscure bowl game. If anything, we should hope the opponent in the bowl game is from either the MAC or Big East. Even then we still make take a drubbing.
I was all for RR when first hired but when I review the facts after his three years, it is clear this program has regressed and barely at the mediocre level.
What a mess.
November 21st, 2010 at 12:34 PM ^
Steak sauce!
November 21st, 2010 at 2:29 PM ^
You're lucky we've also lower our standards for proper English and knowledge of NCAA football nomenclature.
In any event, here are some reasons why there has been progress... from 2008.
- We are a legitimately very good to great offense. We sucked on offense in 2008.
- We beat bad teams. In 2008 we lost to Toledo and Purdue.
- We were 3-9 in 2008 and 5-7 in 2009. We will most likely finish 7-5 (not counting the bowl game). Mathematically, that is progress.
November 21st, 2010 at 3:07 PM ^
Here's the unfortunate truth: the difference between 5-7 and 7-5 may simply be due to random variance more than anything. Consider: we played one overtime game last year and one this year. Last year we lost; this year we won. What if those overtime results had been flipped, and everything else remained the same? Then we'd have won six games last year . . . and six games this year.
This year we are 4-0 in games decided by seven points or fewer. That is unusual; most teams would lose at least one of those. That suggests that we've been luckier than the average team, as opposed to last year, when we were 2-3 in such games. Is that enough to conclude that definitive progress has been made?
November 22nd, 2010 at 12:40 AM ^
If wins only count as wins when you blow the other team out and if that was the only point I made, then you'd have a point.
I know you're smart enough to know that this team is slightly better than last year, which is to say the offense is a whole lot better and the defense is a whole lot worse. Special teams are worse too, overall.
In any event, my view all along has been that short of serious malfeasance (which I don't see in our case) or the team quitting on the coach, or something like that, a college coach should get 4 or 5 years. Even if we hadn't improved I would say that. So in some ways, I don't really care to have the argument about whether we've improved. I just wanted to offer some reasons for steak sauce for why I think we have.
November 21st, 2010 at 3:01 PM ^
I wasn't sure whether or not to agree, but that sixth exclamation point in the headline got to me. Five wouldn't have done it.
November 21st, 2010 at 3:57 PM ^
Rich Rodriguez is not immune to criticism, and nor should he be.
The issue I take is that there is a rational way to look at what's going on with the program, and few of the OMG UNACCEPTABLE crowd do so. I think the honest truth is that Rodriguez walked into a perfect storm in terms of defense and has made a few mistakes in the effort to dig us out. These are mistakes that any coach in the Big Ten could have made.Is the guy perfect? No. But I still think he can get the job done. The guy is a good coach. This is a young team and we're returning 21 or 22 starters next year - I think that's when you can truly evaluate the program.
We're a 10 win team next year if we play even average defense. If we get our young guys playing well, we're looking at a GREAT football team in the future.
If you want a rational discussion, look no further than this interview of Dave Brandon:
November 21st, 2010 at 4:02 PM ^
We will win again, next year we are Big Ten champions.