ESPN has released a list of "College Football's Most Hated Coaches." While Steve Spurrier ranks #1, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer all made the cut, as well (along with Rich Rodriguez).
The article is by Mark Schlabach, and appears to be wholly unscientific. But I can't argue with most on the list.
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/61644/college-footballs-most-hated-coaches
RR is the only one hated for
For losing and leaving
*
NSFMF
Sorry, M-dog, but most of those who hate RR hate him because he won so many games at WVU and then left. What's really funny about it is that those are the smartest people among his haters.
Michigan fans don't hate RR
Michigan fans don't hate RR nearly as much as WVU fans.
"So put 2 on, put 10 on, WHAT DO YOU CARE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE PAYIN' FOR 'EM!!!!?"
-Doug Heffernan, in regards to Arthur and his stamp needs
I don't think
I don't think a lot of Michigan fans hate RR, as evidenced by his cult following here (which in itself has inspired some pushback). Hard to hate a guy for giving it his best and failing anyway. For most of us it was a "Glad to see you go, hate to watch you leave" situation.
When I go out I want my theme
When I go out I want my theme song to be Bon Jovi "Blaze of Glory", RR went out to Josh Groban. He needs to work on his entrances and exits. OK maybe who he hires as a DC too but other than that RR was a saint.
I don't hate RichRod... I
I don't hate RichRod... I hate that he was ever hired. I will readily admit that this is all the benefit of 20-20 hindsight. But I still contend that he's a better startegist than coach.
My take
is that he is an excellent OC who was fortuitously paired with an excellent DC at WV when he made the leap to HC, and exposed when UM cheaped out on a DC.
Would Hoke have fared better here in '08? Even without real money to hire assistants, I doubt Hoke would have ever put his secondary in the hands of someone like Gibson. He certainly would not have done as well as he did starting in '11. Anyway, I think the timing was as fortuitous for Hoke as it was shitty for RR; he got two years experience at SDSU, which was a promotion from Ball State, and the additional experience building programs. He also knew where he was headed all along, while RR found himself at an institutional dead end almost immediately after slamming the door on his first escape offer at Bama. UM was a little like Anywhere But Working for Pastilong to RR, which made everything a little unsettled for everyone. That, and a fractious and entitled UM community that was just realizing that Generalissimo Bo was no longer cracking heads and enforcing discipline -- picture Yugoslavia after Tito. As time goes on I can start to imagine how '08 could happen to either UM or RR.
From what I saw, entitled goons at WVU started making it impossible for RR to stay shortly after he gave his pledge to WVU. He built a gravy train, and then all the parasites wanted to suck off it, which is normal, and then they all wanted to get to drive it, which is also normal but intolerable. And all along, he seems to take the blowback created by the double-dealings of Pastilong, BM and MSC. (Gibson is still his fault -- here and at Arizona.)
I hope he gets a chance to set up his old formula for success from WV and to put all of the crap that fell on his head behind him. I think he showed himself to be a genuine, well-meaning and honest administrator as well as a powerful offensive mind while here, despite all the rest, which is hard to grasp after all the kerfluffle thrown up by the turkeys at WVU, the MSM smelling a "decline and fall" headline, the blame-shifting of BM and MSC covering up their own potentially firable offenses and, most of all, a rancid coalition of unethically ambitious local press and implacable RR-hating fifth-columnists inside our own AD. I hope, and we will see soon enough, that RR's departure from UM turns out to be a win for both. I can't remember if DB ever came out and said that it was all just too much to keep fighting back against even if success was on the way, but I remember getting that impression and at the time I though it was all unfair.
Now that I think about it, is was just plain true. At the time, I thought that firing RR rewarded saboteurs who put factions over program by giving them what they wanted. Now I think that it did bring the factional strife at UM to a quicker end; fighting it out would have, among other things, kept the old partisan hostilities on a permanent war footing until the battles had been fought to a restless truce, waiting to break out again. And against this, RR's potential was still unproven here and nobody was predicting an '11 season under RR that would be as good as the one Hoke actually had. I hope RR gets off to a good start at Arizona so we can all move on to greener pastures.
Dick Rod is first in my book,
Dick Rod is first in my book, then tressel, then kiffen. Like you said, can't really argue with most of the list.
Mlive misses you. Please go
Mlive misses you. Please go back there.
Are you a park ranger at Yellowstone? Say hi to Yogi Bear for me. - the_big_house 500th
I may not be a 70 year old man. - Herm
Are there seriously grown ass
Are there seriously grown ass men who utter the words "Dick Rod" or are you just a middle schooler?
"There will be blood on the field and it won't be mine." -KK
I live in Columbus
I can tell you there are many juvenile adults out there. Even some who are old are still juvenile.
Wasting away in Ohio, a Wolverine in a sea of red and grey
Sure. Check MLive and RCMB.
Sure. Check MLive and RCMB.
See it through.
Just for clarification
Just for clarification purposes: is that supposed to be grown-ass men or grown ass-men? Because I think the second goup probably uses words like "Dick Rod" quite frequently.
We ARE Michigan....COME GET SOME!!!
I don't think that's fair.
I've slowly evolved from a Leg-Man to an Ass-Man over the years, but no Dick is involved (except mine).
A lot of talk about running
A lot of talk about running up the score in there. Is he talking about against teams like EMU and Ball State and other little schools? Personally I don't have a problem with running up the score once you get to the college and pro level, as long as it's not one of those teams doing you a favor by coming to your stadium to fill a spot on the schedule. If you get hammered Wisco/Oregon style you have no one to blame but yourself. Just play better. And I noticed there was no talk of bad feelings towards Tressel or Hayes when they let the school down with their bad behavior. Oh yeah, that's because Ohioans still don't see the problem.
"Michigan Defense" is dominating everything, in every aspect of life. That's a rough definition.
-Craig Roh 10/29/2011
i know he's not a HEAD coach
but Gerg...that mothafudga ruined Michigan football
Solid List
This is a pretty solid list, for the most part. It would be hard to argue with most of these.
One thing I always find strange but ultimately very Ohio is that, although Hayes' career ended when he punched Charlie Bauman in the throat and then proceeded to verbally abuse the officials and then his boss after the game, he was still rewarded with the opportunity to mentor Ohio students until his death. I guess they wanted him to work with others on their throat-punching technique and dry wit.
As an aside, you would also think that, in retrospect, Volunteer fans would be upset with Kiffin's substandard communication skills more than anything. His ability to coach aside, give him a microphone or anything which allows words to be delivered to large audiences and Kiffin is his own worst enemy historically. If only he had taken some Carnegie courses....
"Funny isn't it, how naughty dentists always make that one fatal mistake."
Follow the random tweets of a Michigan alum - http://twitter.com/#!/LorneEC3
he was an old man with
he was an old man with severe, untreated diabetes who lost all restraint for a moment and did something unthinkable. He wasn't some monster, it was a tragic show of what happens when you let football control your world and hang on for too long.
I like the rivalry talk as much as anyone, but seriously go to tell Bo that Woody shouldn't have been allowed back to talk to those kids. He even had Woody come up here and lecture our players.
When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing. -- Bo Schembechler
Woody and Bo
were bros, and they were cut from the same cloth. Perhaps that gave Bo a tolerance for things about Woody that the rest of us can't stand.
I think Woody's social disease was just a lack of self-discipline and respect for others in the heat of the moment and what I will have to call a hint of malice.
In W's best moments, he was a model of citizenship and leadership, such as the time in 1960 when he showed up to speak to and break up a crowd that had formed in protest to the Ohio Faculty Senate's decision to decline OSU's 1960-1 Rose Bowl invitation. His words at the time went to the tune of something like: "We're not talking about the rent; it's just football. Keep your focus on the big picture and stay out of trouble. Go Home." His actual words from this occasion are actually quite moving.
But from the time I started watching football in 1969, W was always in the news. He didn't lose "all restraint for a moment"; he did it over and over and over again. By this point, we have to acknowledge a complex mixture of not compatible tendencies; the restraint and good will he preached at the high point of drama in the institutional struggle between academics and football in 1960 are not visible in what looks to me like disrespect and ill will for at least some of the people around him on the football field. Not just the adversaries -- one of these days I need to go and pinpoint the place in the film of the 1969 M/OSU ABC broadcast where Woody expresses the sentiment, to an assistant, that "you're in the way, I can't see" by shoving him and knocking the beverage out of his hand. Fairly or not, that is the image of him that resonates with my recollections of the years that he personified OSU football to me.
And then there is the running-up-the-score thing. All of this together I take as a hint of malice.
To sum up, I quote Wilhelm Furtwüngler's comments about the symphonies of Anton Bruckner: "It is philistinism to suppose that greatness arises from a lack of faults." So Woody may have been a great man, just not a very nice one all the time. I think the normal hatefulness inspired by success over rival fanbases is augmented in his case by repeated instances of not-cool behavior.
This is the first I've heard about Woody speaking to the team from TSUN; the mythology seems to be that he would never stoop to do such a thing. I know Bo was tied to the OSU family by his years as an assistant there, leading to the famous "Dammit, Bo!" story. Can you lead us to more info on the subject of Woody's address to the Wolverines?
Bo talked about it in passing
Bo talked about it in passing from time to time in interviews and I think Rosenberg's book some detail on it, but I really can't recall it right now.
When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing. -- Bo Schembechler
True,
At least he didn't leave a problem too big for Greg Mattison to fix!
.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Saban.
"I have three kids and no money. Why can't I have no kids and three money?"
They have not had ONE coach
They have not had ONE coach leave on his own terms since 1950.
Pathetic and speaks volumes about the kind of program they truly are. Especially if you look into the reasons WHY those coaches were fired.
When the ADept sells special jerseys and gear, you'll see my picture next to the targeted customer crowd. A sheep.....but a Blue one.....
you are talking about a
you are talking about a program that in the last year put up a mural of a known cheater. Ohio wonders why nobody outside that state respects them.
Vice.com
Wow that is a great stat.
Wow that is a great stat. Can't believe I've never heard it before. Really is the program in a nutshell.
Grow Blue
Keep in mind the OSU coach in
Keep in mind the OSU coach in 1950 got fired as well. Already won the big ten and decided to play Michigan in the Snow Bowl when he was advised to call off the game. He lost, and got fired. So it's been since before 1950.
It's been a lot. Its been a roller coaster that for some reason seemed like it would never get good. But you know what? We kept fighting. It's like that old saying goes, "Those Who Stay Will Be Champions." -David Molk
I don't know about "since 1950" --
from wiki:
Bixler endured a mediocre 4–3–2 season. Bixler resigned and talk of Ohio State being a "graveyard of coaches" became commonplace, a reputation that lingered for decades.[9]
Wes Fesler became head coach in 1947 . . . In 1950 Fesler, rumored to be resigning because of pressures associated with the position and abuse of his family by anonymous critics [emphasis mine], returned to coach the Buckeyes, who won six games in a row to move into the top ranking in the AP poll. However the season fell apart as the Buckeyes lost to Michigan during a blizzard, a game that came to be known as the "Snow Bowl". Two weeks later, citing concerns about his health and family, Fesler resigned.
I suppose it all depends on what you mean by "his own terms"; would you consider Rommel's death to be on "his own terms?"
Speaking of "health and family," this seems to be a refrain for OSU coaches, doesn't it?
Their fanbase will probably
Their fanbase will probably spin the three coaches in the top ten to "Well everyone else hates us and our coaches because they envy us"
No, we hate your coaches because they are douchebags.
"Ohio is like a giant turd that Michigan just can't pinch off"
Right now tell me you
Right now tell me you wouldn't take any of them or their combined 8 national titles. Do it.
"So put 2 on, put 10 on, WHAT DO YOU CARE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE PAYIN' FOR 'EM!!!!?"
-Doug Heffernan, in regards to Arthur and his stamp needs
I would absolutely love if
I would absolutely love if the icon of my program got fired for punching a college kid. Sounds like a classy guy
(Shouldn't be needed, but an obvious /s)
If you're doing nothing, how do you know when you're finished?
If you don't want Woody Hayes
If you don't want Woody Hayes coaching your college football team, you're being biased.
"So put 2 on, put 10 on, WHAT DO YOU CARE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE PAYIN' FOR 'EM!!!!?"
-Doug Heffernan, in regards to Arthur and his stamp needs
Naw I'm more than happy with
Naw I'm more than happy with the guy we grabbed back then
If you're doing nothing, how do you know when you're finished?
5 > 0
5 > 0
"So put 2 on, put 10 on, WHAT DO YOU CARE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE PAYIN' FOR 'EM!!!!?"
-Doug Heffernan, in regards to Arthur and his stamp needs
What would you rather have? 5
What would you rather have? 5 wins over us and 0 national championships, or 4 wins over us and 5 national championships? There's only one right answer...
"So put 2 on, put 10 on, WHAT DO YOU CARE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE PAYIN' FOR 'EM!!!!?"
-Doug Heffernan, in regards to Arthur and his stamp needs
there is more to a program
there is more to a program than wins and losses and its called class. something ohio knows nothing about. you love a coach that won you a lot of game and is remembered as a asshole,our greatest coach(Yost) is remembered as a legend,a man of character and a teacher. Now tell me which one you would rather have. there is only one right answer.
Vice.com
I'd be careful with praise of
I'd be careful with praise of Yost. What you said about him was true, except you left out that he was horribly racist. Like even in an era that had its fair share of racists, unfortunately he sticks out as being more racist-y
If you're doing nothing, how do you know when you're finished?
This is funny. This is why
This is funny. This is why everyone needs to get off their high horse. Everyone has faults, is being racist way worse than punching an 18 year old? Yea, obviously. But that's our/your history so embrace what you can and ignore the rest. It's called being a fan.
"So put 2 on, put 10 on, WHAT DO YOU CARE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE PAYIN' FOR 'EM!!!!?"
-Doug Heffernan, in regards to Arthur and his stamp needs
He was an asshole to the
He was an asshole to the opponent, everyone on his side adored the man. Michael Jordan was an asshole too, and history remembers him rather fondly.
"So put 2 on, put 10 on, WHAT DO YOU CARE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE PAYIN' FOR 'EM!!!!?"
-Doug Heffernan, in regards to Arthur and his stamp needs
From a non-fan's perspective
I remember Jordan as one of the best players of all time who was supposed to be a family man then cheated on his wife. I suppose you mean history remembers him fondlingly.
A Journey of Father and Son
http://mysonsfirstbible.blogspot.com/2013/05/15-things-you-may-have-miss...
Well we actually have 11
Well we actually have 11 National Championships and 58 wins over you, so I'm pretty happy with that
If you're doing nothing, how do you know when you're finished?
Oosterban?
..
ohio is proud of their
ohio is proud of their national champioships. Fine. Would Michigan like to have more? Of course. But Michigan fans are proud of the way we run the program and the class of the head coaches we hire. ohio's program and coaches have never had class so the fans don't know anything different. Every coach you hire leaves in shame and you don't care because they won. We expect better from our head coach. Our former coaches are loved by our fans and respected by everyone. I will take Bo over woody and Carr over tress and Hoke over meyer.
Switzer not being #1
Switzer not being #1 illigitimizes this list.
Come on now
Tressel makes Switzer look like a saint by comparison. And Switzer certainly isn't the pompous asshat that Tressel is.
Disclosure. My lawyer was the person who gave Switzer the ultimatum to resign or be fired.
Born in Oklahoma
Raised in Ohio
Escaped to Meechigan
"But WVU fans literally drove
"But WVU fans literally drove Rodriguez and his family from his native state..."
Figuratively.
No no, three of them drive
No no, three of them drive his car in shifts to Michigan with the entire Rodriguez family in the backseat. It was a touching gesture.
Are you a park ranger at Yellowstone? Say hi to Yogi Bear for me. - the_big_house 500th
I may not be a 70 year old man. - Herm
I pictured
a The Russians are Coming type envoy.
A Journey of Father and Son
http://mysonsfirstbible.blogspot.com/2013/05/15-things-you-may-have-miss...
I can see Spurrier being on
I can see Spurrier being on the list but I'm not sure he should be #1. The main school he ticked off the most in the SEC was Tennessee and I have no problem with Tennessee being miserable.
The rankings are pretty good. Woody, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer deserve to be that high. Tressel's profile should be longer.
Other than us and West Virginia, I figured everybody loved RichRod. He brought dozens of winning streaks to an end and teams like MSU, Illinois and Purdue could finally beat us with him in charge. I'm not sure he belongs on the list.
Go Blue! Always!
Indiana really missed their
Indiana really missed their chance, though.
RR is the only one hated for losing. All the rest are hated by oppsoing fans for winning too much. (Or for being unstable slimeballs like Kiffin and Petrino.)
M'Dog