Thank you RR
I just want to give a quick comment on what a great bunch of recruits you brought in during your short stay here. Most of the kids stayed when it would have been easy for them to bale because they didn't necessarily fit the new scheme. We have a lot of talent coming back next year which would be your first full recruiting classes senior/rs junior year and I look forward to great things from them.
Hoke and Mattison took your young D and helped shape and mold them into a very good defense. Seniors congratulations you finally got the type of season you expected when you committed to the University of Michigan. Go Blue!
November 27th, 2011 at 9:21 AM ^
Great group of kids on this squad.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:22 AM ^
....as I was leaving yesterday. These are his recruits, and like I've said throughout the year, it seems to me that we had the talent to do this all along, but it takes the right people to manage and develop it. Mattison turned the same defensive squad that was 110th last year into a top 20 defense, and Hoke has gotten these kids to believe in themselves and their ability despite introducing yet another philosophy on both sides of the ball. It makes me like this group of players just that much more really.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:45 AM ^
The last two years, most of the starters were underclassmen. This year, most of the starters are upperclassmen. It helps a lot when a team isn't having to play boys against men. RR could have won the same amount of games this year with these players and a competent DC.
It's the same old story, I guess: some people don't think it's possible to support Brady Hoke without hurling thinly or not-so-thinly veiled insults toward RR. Why not just embrace Brady Hoke, Al Borges, and Greg Mattison without bitching about RR? Is it really that difficult to do?
Hats off to the players and staff for a great victory yesterday.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:57 AM ^
If there had been a decent staff on the defensive side of the ball (i.e., not GERG), we may very well be in this same place. I would agree with that - it would be a possibility.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:36 AM ^
I don't know how anyone could watch this team all year and think that RR could take the same kids and win 10 games. Its an insult to what this staff just did.
Turning a year of the calendar does not turn kids from hopelessly lost to above average. It may be part of it, but coaching has a much greater impact.
Besides that, it makes me cringe every time I read a "with the right DC" comment. He struck out twice hiring a DC, and its obvious many of his defensive coaches were sub-par. A brilliant offensive coordinator he may be, but that does not make him a great head coach.
It wasn't all his fault, he was certainly playing against a stacked deck when he came in, by most accounts he seems like a good guy, but he didn't get the job done, he's gone, we now have an excellent coaching staff, so let's move on without having the daily RR tongue bath thread.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:46 AM ^
I was gonna post the same thing, albeit minus the tongue bath part. To me, as I said in another thread, thanking RR for this season is like thanking Chamberlain for the Battle of Britain because some of the planes in it were bought while he was PM.
November 27th, 2011 at 11:31 AM ^
Brewster had similar comments about Minnesota this year. The outgoing coach setting the bar high for his replacement isn't particularly unusual or noteworthy.
November 27th, 2011 at 11:33 AM ^
It's not so much that he struck out on his DC hires--I don't think Shafer was such a terrible hire.
Fundamentally, the problem was that he brought his defensive staff with him from WV and hired an outsider as coordinator, then scapegoated the coordinator and protected the rest of the staff when things started to go south. No competent DC was going to replace Shafer after that, not if the condition was working with RR's guys as position coaches.
Lloyd Carr got a lot of criticism here, much of it justified, for his loyalty to his current and former staff. It's referred to as "cronyism" and "nepotism". It's ironic that his successor took this to a whole new level (Lloyd might have protected his guys but he never threw an outsider under the bus to do it), to the point where it became fatal, and for the most part he gets a pass on it.
November 27th, 2011 at 1:29 PM ^
the problem was he was given a 1980's budget and no contract to hire a DC....see the disparity between ~200K to hire a DC, versus $650K and a multi-year contract to hire Mattison.
Please stop with the 'RR hired GERG' stuff. RR was stuck with GERG, becausethere is no way that given $650K that RR makes that hire, it is yet another way in which the AD failed to properly support the head caoch they hired. In any other AD in the country, where you have a beleaguered HC that is struggling on one side of the ball and showing great progress and production on the other, where there is a clear need for a top-level DC, the AD would open the purse strings and make that happen. That is, if they want that HC to stay and be successful. Telling RR that he has to make something happen with a freshman/sophomore players and third rate DC in his first season witho those players is saying nothing more than, 'tough shizzle, no $$ to do what you need, but I do have budget for some rope....go buy some.'
November 27th, 2011 at 5:21 PM ^
Stop.
It's not that his defenses were bad. They were historically bad.
Sure, the players were young. But Michigan has had other young players before, and they were never at the bottom of every NCAA defensive ranking.
The coordinators were underpaid, sure. But Toledo's DC was paid less, and their defense was better.
So stop.
November 27th, 2011 at 2:19 PM ^
...I don't think there's anything wrong with loyalty. Networking is an important part of life; we're reaping the benefits now of Hoke's contacts and friendships in the coaching community. And also of the care taken of Hoke while he was here and after he left.
But there's a point beyond which it shouldn't be pushed.
November 27th, 2011 at 11:29 AM ^
...and an all-around good guy. And I do appreciate the effort he put in here, including developing guys like Denard into all-world heroes. But he clearly didn't know what he was doing on the defensive side of the ball...he made one terrible DC hire (GERG), who might not have been quite as terrible had he been allowed to build his own staff and run his own schemes, and another that could have been pretty good, but again was undermined and forced to take on really awful position coaches.
Our players were young, but they also couldn't do basic things like tackle or stay in coverage Look at the difference between JT Floyd last year and this year. That's not just getting older...that's coaching.
November 27th, 2011 at 11:53 AM ^
Offensive Innovator?
I know that's what everyone is supposed to say, but how well did he do against teams like...oh, say...Ohio State? RR scored 24 points (total) in 3 games. What about stodgy ol' "manball" Hoke? 40 points in 1 game. Let's not let reality be clouded by some fantasy that RR was anything better than the results he left on the field.
November 27th, 2011 at 12:37 PM ^
He's an offensive innovator. To suggest he isn't is idiotic. He did what he did with a sophomore Denard and not the Fitz we saw this year but the Smith and Shaw we saw this year. Our offense, as a whole, would have been better with him this year.
November 27th, 2011 at 1:14 PM ^
Which, as you probably know, continues to be a huge thing for us, and for offensive football in general. Our offense might not have been A+ against the A-level defenses of the Big 10 last year, but it was also a record-setting offense that was super exciting to watch. He is, objectively, an offensive innovator.
My issue with him, as a head coach, is that this was his thing, to the point where it detracted from the other important things a head coach has to oversee, like defense and special teams.
November 27th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
whom I'll always refer to properly rather than abbreviations...while his 'system' failed for the most part and cost him his job...he was dealing with far more than players and coaching issues...he came in to a decimated program without talent of any sort at any position...perhaps he spent too much time trying to create a culture and program that was anti-BIG and that set him back a bit.
There was a STRONG underground faction trying to witchhunt the guy...be it prior program desciples getting whispers in their ears from inside our own athletic offices...or WVU alum/boosters with so much vile and hate for a man they felt sold his soul on them, to the FREEP and their yellow journalism...clearly a different hue than MAIZE...or any number of other programs who were fearful of a guy who beat Oklahoma with one tenth the recruiting power of a program like MICHIGAN.
There was a propensity for him to make bad hires to his staff like Gerg or a majority of his assistants compared to the likes of Mattison and Borgess...I'd say losing Barwis was a painful departure but it is what it is...
bottom line the guy put together some of the best kids we've had from a KIDS standpoint...the win and loss margin forced his resignation. I'd have liked to see five years of progress to really judge, but in the end, HIS KIDS got what they deserved and UM is making strides in a perfect storm of PSU and OSU implosion on the political fronts...recruits are flocking to A2 again...and we have to embrace the program...and hope or HOKE for the best...I sincerely hope RODRIGUEZ does great at Az...though I have a fear he's going to be flattened once again before he ever has a chance to get off the ground.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:24 AM ^
yes thank you RR for being turrible
November 27th, 2011 at 9:36 AM ^
Are we thanking him for not totally killing our program while he was here...This is Hoke's team. Lets never mention RR...he is in our past, and lets keep it that way
November 27th, 2011 at 9:42 AM ^
Your kidding right? I absolutely love Hoke and the coaching staff he put together but don't kid yourself. Those were Rich's kids out there yesterday - not Hoke's. And the fact they all stayed and didn't bolt en masse like Carr's did speaks volumes to the MAN Rich is. Instead of encouraging them to leave like Carr did he told them to stay.
You don't have to dismiss the success of one person to appreciate another's. Hoke accomplished far more than I dreamed he would but he did it with RR's recruits - not his own.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:47 AM ^
The fact that these kids didn't bolt is more about how well Hoke handle the transition. The fact that so many kids bolted during the last transition speak To how poorly RR managed his transition.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:50 AM ^
Right. RR told the players to stay and buy in. Lloyd told the players to leave. I am going to guess that you didn't read 3 and Out.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:01 AM ^
The point is, RR got paid alot of money to do a JOB...why are people thanking him for doing one aspect correctly, especially when he did other parts so poorly. If we went off of the three years of the RR tenure, players like Morgan, Beyer, Ryan, and Floydd may not have reached the potential they reached this year. There development is mostly due to the coaching received by the current staff who won the game. Forget the past coaching staff already
November 27th, 2011 at 10:07 AM ^
I think the idea, however, is that without RR's time here, several of these kids may not even be here to be coached by the new staff, so then where would we be? Perhaps not at 10-2 with a potential BCS at-large bid.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:18 AM ^
Well, there's no doubt that if we'd left the head coach position vacant for three years and didn't bother to recruit at all, yesterday would have been very different.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:16 AM ^
Well thank god we got RR, bc no other coach at Michigan at that time would have recruited good players and good men. Give me a break
November 27th, 2011 at 10:34 AM ^
I don't recall anyone ever saying that. I am sure many people could have recruited excellent players, but we hired RR, and oddly enough, although it didn't work out here, he managed to find us some great players. Dilithium, for example....
November 27th, 2011 at 3:25 PM ^
rodriguez did recruit some great guys, but he didn't hold onto a bunch of Lloyd's guys. Plus, did he recruit forcier as well? As much as I loved Tate, he was kind of a punk. There were also questions surrounding Demar Dorsey who didn't make it. A lot of people were afraid that another Pacman Jones would end up at Michigan under Rodriguez.
Rodriguez definitely deserves a lot of credit. But, those kids may not have been as good with him on the sidelines this year.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:38 AM ^
I get what you are saying, and yes these are RR's recruits, but he is not part of Michigan anymore. I will say this though, he was the only guy to let Denard have a shot at playing qb. Other than that, RR pretty much didnt do anything here. He is a good coach and a nice guy, but ill let his three years here speak for itself.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:42 AM ^
So in other words, he can be thanked for exactly what the OP wrote and not for what all the RR haters are trying to turn this thread into. Gotcha.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:15 AM ^
Your argument has nothing to do with this thread.
November 27th, 2011 at 1:07 PM ^
" I am going to guess that you didn't read 3 and Out." 3 and Out is really no different than wikipedia. It's one man's account of what happened, it should not be taken as FACT. I am so sick of seeing pople quote 3 and out. Independent thought poeple, stop being sheep.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:49 AM ^
Some of them were Carr's recruits.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:11 AM ^
Hemmingway, Van Bergen, Huyge, Woolfolk and Molk were Carr's recruits in 2007 and from the 2008 class, Shaw, Martin, Stonum, Koger and Demens were already "hello's" before RR was named the coach and several other names we know well had indicated interest before Rodriguez.
November 27th, 2011 at 11:02 AM ^
Your point is valid, but Shaw was a PSU commit until signing day.
November 27th, 2011 at 11:44 AM ^
Rich was a great man. Perhaps the best man to ever have lived on this earth.
He was a terrible coach. Why can't we all agree that he is an offensive genius, but that offense is only a 3rd of the team and this is why he failed as head coach of Michigan? Defense and special teams were a joke under Rich.
I won't say we couldn't have won 10 games with Rich, but we would have to have won a lot of 65-64 games. That defense would never have been at an acceptable level under him. The record shows that his defenses got worse every year! How can you argue that?
November 27th, 2011 at 1:45 PM ^
but look at the number of freshamn and second stringers playing those three years, especially in the defensive backfield. You can't just ignore the level of experience and talent on the field as if it didn't matter.
Compare the the amount of money provided to RR to hire a DC....$200K and the length of the contract he was able to offer that DC, 0 years. Now go recruit a top-level DC and be sure to tell him that he has an inexperiened group of players and injuries to the few upper-classmen on the roster, and ask him if he is willing to take a cut in pay and likely commit career suicide by coming to Michigan and having neither the time nor the tools to be successful. that way, he can be sure to be looking for a job again after 1 year of dismal results and a year of sub-average pay, keeping in mind that this person may have kids and may not actually like moving and taking cuts in pay.
That is not recipe for a good hire and that is not something that an AD that wants to support the HC allows to happen. That is shooting a torpedo at the Titanic as it is taking on water.
Now, look at the number of juniors and seniors on the field yesterday, especialy on the defensive side of the ball. Also compare the $650K being paid to Mattison to shore up the Hoke hire, and the number of years in his contract. No comparison. THAT is an example of an AD that wants a HC to succeed.
November 27th, 2011 at 5:16 PM ^
I am not ignoring the number of upperclassmen out there or the level of talent. My contention is that Rich had the same exact players (minus Morgan and Countess) and his defenses were worse. Much worse. By orders of magnitude.
It is true that the players will be better simply by having more experience, more muscle from offseason workouts, and so on. But not this much better.
But that can't account for all of the improvement. If time was such a huge factor, why did Rich's defenses get worse every year? Weren't those players getting older as well?
As for the defensive coordinator hiring practices, I agree with you. Rich did not get a good break. But neither did Carr, whose coordinators were paid even less, but always had better defenses. Ron English was a virtually unknown defensive backs coach who was promoted to DC under Lloyd, and he coordinated the 2006 defense, which was a monster.
AND, Rich had two cracks at a DC. Sure, he was handicapped a bit, but he struck out epically, twice!
And let us not forget that Rich didn't just have bad defenses, he had the worst defenses in the history of Michigan football!
They were amongst the worst in all of Division 1!
Don't try to pretend that the lack of top level pay rates was the sole reason. Out of the more than 100 defenses that were better than ours, did all of them pay their coordinators more? No.
November 27th, 2011 at 1:11 PM ^
The lower level of attrition under Hoke says much more about Hoke than Rich Rod.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:45 AM ^
we're thanking him for bringing us a great group of kids that didn't leave when it got tough
so if you can't see that, then well, you're just a moron
edit: above reply is better than mine lol
November 27th, 2011 at 9:42 AM ^
I feel close to this group through all the interviews and news articles. They are a wonderful group of kids that accomplished something seemingly impossible after last year.
Congratulations to the coaches and players of team 132.
Now go win a bowl to cap it all off!
Go Blue!
November 27th, 2011 at 9:44 AM ^
I am not trying to have a RR flame war or to dump on the guy, but I have to disagree with this. RR did a poor job at Michigan and objectively set us back some as a program. Some caveats obviously apply - media jihad, divided fanbase, lack of internal support by some - but that aside I do not think that rr deserves credit for this, at all.
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<br>1. RR took these same defensive players and led them to be one of the worst defenses in the country. He even publicly said that Vince lombardi couldn't make them successful. Well, Hoke and Mattison disagreed and turned these same players into one ofthe better defenses in rh country, all while transitioning to a new system. Some will say that last year was younger, and that's true. But that doesn't account for the transformation in JT Floyd. It doesn't account for RR and his staff failing to properly use Roh. It doesn't account for the failure to heavily use Demena until late in the year.
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<br>2. On offense, RR couldnt figure out how to succeed against the b10 defenses. Borges did. We are actually scoring 5 points per game MORE in the B10 this year than last.
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<br>Did RR recruit some gear guys? Sure. But every coach a every school can say that they recruited some great guys. Unfortunately, taken as a whole, the recruiting under RR, especially when you adjust for the players that left during rr's time - was not good, and will leave us thin at several positions (both lines, RB, WR) for a year or so.
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<br>All of that said, there is one thing that I am definitely willing to give re total credit for. Not one other division 1 coach was willing to give Denard a shot at qb. RR saw the potential and mad him a starting qb. Last night, I think we saw a glimpse of denard's true potential. That goes to rr. However, o do believe that Borges is taking Denard from a spread qb that is somewhat one dimensional to a true qb that is going to be deadly in 2012.
November 27th, 2011 at 9:57 AM ^
One thing nobody can deny: RR left the program in MUCH better shape than he inherited, leaving behind a full set of competent offensive starters and a talented, if inexperienced, defense. For that, I am thankful.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:08 AM ^
I disagree with this comment. I think the widely held contention that Lloyd Carr left the cupboards bare is a sad excuse for Rich Rod. The cupboards were bare of players that played RR's system. Hoke took players designed for RR's system, modified his system and has proven successful. RR tried to force a bunch of round pegs into square holes and you give him an excuse for failing. I call BS.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:28 AM ^
Michigan lost over 90 percent of its offensive production going into the 2008 season.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:40 AM ^
It jjust proves that the 2007 team was quite senior laden
November 27th, 2011 at 10:44 AM ^
I do not even know how to respond to this. The logic is beyond reason.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:44 AM ^
NFL teams showed several times over how little they think of what Lloyd Carr left Rodriguez to work with. It's all there in the draft results.
November 27th, 2011 at 10:20 AM ^
Do you even know who was on the roster then? a five star qb with game experience (left bc of RR coaching pick) , Adrian Arrington (left bc of RR coaching pic), Brandon Graham, Warren, Schilling, Boren (left bc of RR), Mouton, etc. There was talent on that roster that with more player development, would have turned out into great players. Further, the pick of RR itself caused us to lose out on our better players like Arrington, who entered into the NFL draft.
I understand that some players leaving aren't RR fault, but you are acting like Carr gave him a MAC level team, which is fiction
In addition, who here thougth at the beginning of the season we would be here...this close to a BCS bowl birth. No one would have rationally thought that...We are here bc of great coaching and player development, not RR