Charlie should have hired you. Maybe you could have "looked deeper" and helped him keep his job. He could use your arguments when discussing with the AD:
"ignoring things such as field position, turnovers, and injuries is a simple minded way of evaluating things".
Doesn't appear you did. I never said the offense was worse because they didn't win as many games. I was comparing offense based on points scored against Conference opponents. Unless we are in the National Title hunt, the Big10 is what counts.
Our offense scored just as many points per game year to year and actually relative to the other big 10 schools we dropped to 9th place in points scored in the Big10.
You would argue we weren't worse in the Big10 this year than last?
I did watch the games. Everyone feeling better primarily comes from starting 4-0 and coming off a season where we went 3-9. It doesn't say anything about how we performed against the Big10 competition.
I felt it to watching the games. It felt like we improved. It felt like we were better. But at the end of the day it really didn't translate into anything tangible. Backwards on wins, offense, and defense relative to the Big 10.
I don't think you can cherry pick stats to try to prove someone improved and I think Brians points are very well balanced.
However, for me at least, if I was trying to measure improvement for college football in the big10 relative to peers my hierarchy would start with Wins, then Offensive Points scored to measure the offense relative to others and Defensive points allowed to measure the D.
As for Wins, none of the other stats, no matter how hard you look at them, get you to a bowl game and that is the goal.
For offensive points scored in the Big10 and measuring the offense, we were exactly the same as last season 22.1 points per game scored in the Big10(and that includes the 14 points the defense put on the board for us). Relative to the competition we went backwards. 8th in 2008 and 9th in 2009. So others improved at scoring points but we didn't move. Sure we felt more confidence in our offense, but it didn't translate to an improvement in points scored (which is the goal of the offense).
For defensive points allowed in the Big10 and measuring the Defense, we allowed 33.5 in 2008 and 33.2 in 2009. Actually, we improved purely on the basis of points allowed from 2008. However, relative to conference we went backwards here to from 10th in 2008 to 11th in 2009.
So, strictly speaking we went backwards on offense relative to Big10 and backwards on Defense relative to Big 10 from 2008 to 2009. Since my initial point was it is all about the wins, that is consistent with the story of offense and defense, We went from 2 wins in 2008 to 1 win in 2009.
No matter how we hard we try to explain that our offense improved and our defense did not, strictly speaking the improvement in offense really only shows up in the warm and fuzzy feelings we had from the 4-0 start. Relative to the competition in the Big10 we did not show improvement on either side of the ball.
Link to 2008 stats
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/stats/2008-2009/confonly.html
Of Note:
We finished 8th in Scoring Offense in 2008 and 9th in 2009 relative to the Big10.
We finished 10 in Scoring Defense in 2008 and 11th in 2009.
Relative to the rest of the Big10 we went backwards on both Offense and Defense. How crazy is that?
Turnover Margin number 11 in B10 -.62 in 2008 and number 11 in 2009 -1.62. Worse in 2009, the next closest in Big10 is Michigan State at -.88.
We averaged an extra turnover per game this year.
Our scoring was 2009 - 22.125 on average against Big10 and 20.375 if you take out the 2 defensive TDs. In 2008 our scoring was 22.125 on average and we also had two defensive scores so same.
It looks like in the Big10 we are exactly the same place as we were last year 177 points scored.
Link to Conf stats:
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/stats/2009-2010/confonly.html
But look at the results. Worse record in the Big10 this year than last. Lower points scored in Big10 this year than last. And a defense that up until OSU looked worse than last year.
I've seen all the arguments about lack of talent and I believe there is more to it than that. First we never go back in history and look at it this way primarily because it usually comes down to performance on the field. You would have to also compare our defense to other schools and if you look at Stanford, Cincinnati... others; their talent level is certainly below that rated coming into Michigan.
I also went to a highschool with a terrible football team. We then got a new coach and everything has been different. In fact Lowell (my school) now will play another game at Ford field against Inkster (Devin Gardner) next week. My point is the talent at our highschool didn't change, but the coaching developed that talent. I agree we have a lack of depth, but talent development is on the coaches and I just don't see it yet. Football is about execution not just strategy and our execution is inconsistent at best under RR.
It would be interesting to poll the football team and see if they agree that they lack talent.
You don't take a program that was the winniest in history and turn in two of the worst years in its history without criticism. I haven't seen anything yet that tells me RR is a great coach.
That said, he will get a chance next year to turn it around and I really hope we see some progress.
Having gone to Michigan I meant that 90 plus % would not revert to "Go Fuck a Goat" response.
I believe and I haven't looked into it myself yet, but I heard we were 21.something points per game in the Big10 versus last years 21.somthing. Virtually identical going into the game against OSU. With 10 points it's likely we finished with lower points in the B10 than last year. From a perspective of confidence I felt better about our offense but for points and wins in the Big10 we went backwards.
Second year with no bowl game sucks.
If we don't go to a bowl again next year my money says RR gets fired. And at that point this year might be called "The year Michigan should've fired RR". That is if Harbaugh, Kelly, etc move on to bigger and better things. Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating firing him now (he needs next year to prove himself) and I'm not sure how good Harbaugh really is, but a good coach is a good coach and we should be seeing more improvement, less mistakes, etc. and I haven't seen that yet.
It seems some, not necessarily you, don't think this even has a place on the blog. I would point to two things. 1) This is Ohio State week so what they are saying, I feel is relevant and worthy of a link. and 2) The board already links to other Big 10 blogs, including Ohio State. It's not like it was linked to the Detroit Free Press website.
And in fact you are correct; it is somewhat of a continuation of the discussion you don't like. I understand how you don't want to participate and continue the "who's at fault for the current predicament". This does fire a shot in that debate and also from an OSU perspective. I don't like to place blame in the debate and I won't but I do think that Lloyd is getting shortchanged in the debate. And, I tend to agree with the writer's satire in that 1) Lloyd Carr doesn't get enough credit for what he did at Michigan; 2) Lloyd Carr didn't purposely leave a horrible defense to RR, and 3)it is kind of ridiculous to believe that Lloyd Carr wanted to sabotage the Michigan Program.
Also please note for Tags on this, I labeled as: O-How I Hate-Ohio State.
I guess I should have explained further in the post instead of just saying "Nice Satire".
Normally I wouldn't post links to OSU websites, but I actually do read Michigan Monday weekly to give me at least a little perspective on what the enemy thinks. This article caught my eye, and I thought it was well done for Satire.
Just to be clear: It is satire and the writer is praising Lloyd Carr in a back handed sort of way that is either a shot at RR or the fans who still don't give Carr much credit. Either way it is a good counterpoint to what we see on this board regularly as long as you know it is Satire or realize it.
Although clearly it is confusing that an Ohio State blogger is actually praising Carr is some fashion.
This is a post on an Ohio State website. If you dont' care what they are saying then don't click it. If it makes you angry then all the better for the game. Or are you so beat down at this point that you want to bury your head in the sand so be it.
We had the same talent in both the first and second half. It was 17 - 21 at the half. In the second half we scored 7 and they scored 24. It is a combination of problems for us on D... both talent and coaching. coaching can't completely make up for lack of talent and talent can't completely make up for coaching problems, but certainly they feed off eachother. We look horrible on D and it is the coaching that should have our guys ready to play and be in the right space. Our guys rarely look like they know what they are doing.
If you disagree why don't you start by telling me the coaching and scheme moves that Michigan made in the second half to prove that it is obviously about talent and not coaching. I eagerly await your response.
Isn't really reading the whole post. At least I think the point was that we wouldn't have had as much attrition and we would have developed our players more consistently. No one can say we wouldn't have been in a much better postion keeping English, just like no one can say we wouldn't be worse, but I suspect all the factors that the post discuss would have made us at least better.
Great point about last year, the expectation was we were going to be strong defensively last year, but that was not the case and yet the talent was basically the same as the previous year.
I do have to say the one problem with having kept English is that he was discussed as a potential head coach... I think RR had no choice but to clear house if he really wanted to make this his team. Hopefully he at least spoke to English to see whether he was interested.
Thanks Troy. I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. If we finish with a worse record in the Big 10 than we did last year, I don't see this as progress. With 1 win in the Big 10, I would say we have regressed based solely on win/loss record alone. Of course it looks like we have made progress on offense, but until that translates to lots more wins in the Big 10, I can't imagaine it is true that Troy Woolfolk is "not [too] disappointed" because they have a better overall record than last year.
I just posted the article from the detroit news:
U-M's lack of success under Rich Rodriguez is mystifying
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091107/OPINION03/911070389/U-M-s-lack-…
The post was removed after a number of people statrted negging it. It seems strange to me that anyone who is not happy with how things have developed under RR are immediately attacked by RR Fanboys.
I don't advocate getting rid of him at this point, though next year is really my personal limit. Just like in politics having fanatic fanboys who defend you and blaming the previous coaching administration will only get you so far, and next year is as far as I think it will get him. I hope we can somehow turn things around, I just don't yet see how there is hope for our defense and it is difficult to win games when your defense can give up 30 plus to any team on any given Saturday. That's more pressure than the offense should have.
I believe we have to at least give him next year, but what if there is no/or little improvement in the Defense next year? Can we afford to stick with him...
He has connections to the State of Michigan and he is famous for winning right away with sub par athletes. Look at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, and now Cincinnati.
I can't help but feel like the Michigan Coaching situation feels a bit too much like Republican/Democrat politics where Lloyd Carr is the staunch conservative replaced by RR who is a liberal democrat bringing hope and change. We all wanted (or I should say many of us bought into hope and change) and now any criticism of what that means or the job that is being done is immediately defended blaming the previous administration. You are very correct that these two coaches appear to be, in many ways, polar opposites.
I recall being very pissed when people abandoned Lloyd and called for his head for any mistake and rarely gave him much credit for the success. The App State game was one where I could hardly defend him (but what he did with the team after that loss deserves lots of credit) In our new world of hope and change it seems to be the opposite for RR. Any success receives adulation and hype (at one point coach of the year) and any mistakes are explained away - personnel, cupboard half empty on D, 3-DCs in two years.
Great analysis although I might disagree with a few points for the most part this is a home run. As you indicate, part of the problem with the D-fense is purely continuity. Possibly, our attrition rate would not be so bad if RR hadn't run Ron English out of town and if we were not on our third DC in 2 years. I don't have stats to back it up or to look at when we lost that 46% of the recruits on D. I don't and never have bought into the theory that our recruits were over hyped. To me the rankings out of high school are a rough barameter of talent, but that the real work comes from developing the players in college. That is why I think one of our biggest issues is the lack of continuity at DC. As bad as we are on D-fense I shiver to think that we might lose another DC after this year and start over again. If he had to do it over again, I wonder if RR would have kept on Ron English. All RR should need once his offense is in place and working as expected is a servicable defense. At this point we are a rudderless ship on D and I'm not sure when this will be fixed.
Thanks, that is interesting. I do see that we don't have much left in terms of juniors and seniors, but when I look at the recruting classes from 2005/2006/2007 they look strong and we seem to be missing a lot of the players that were recruited. I'm not assigning blame, just pointing out the inconsistency between recruiting classes, what we have left, and that somehow Carr is blamed for leaving no talent when Carr's critics always said he had the talent but didn't deliver on the coaching side.
The criticism I always heard about Carr was that he always had the talent but that we didn't live up to it and thus any perceived underachievement was blamed on the coaching. Carr leaves and now somehow people defend RR saying we didn't have the talent either.
I'm not a RR hater but I have had certain expectations from Day 1 and I have been extremely disappointed so far. What I really don't understand is how understanding everyone seems to be for RR when they were calling for Carr's head when all he did was produce winning teams. If we end up with only 1 win in the big 10, then I'm not sure we can even consider this season an improvement from last season.
I understood there would be a transition and that RR needed to get his players in place, but I also know that other schools go through the same and when they get a good coach (Meyer, Saban, Miles, Stoops, etc.) they don't go through the growing pains we have seen.
I don't know how people are judging the cupboard empty for RR. It seems to me that our recruiting was never really down so the players that are on the bench or not playing have just not been developed which is the job of the coaches. Also, other teams (Cincinnati for one) has done far more with far less talent.
I also expect that a coach that has a system that is going to drastically change the nature of the game for the players he's coming in to coach should be flexible enough to design the implemenation of that system to take advantage of the players he does have.
Probably one thing that might have helped in this transistion would have been to have held on to Ron English at DC. It was RR's decision to clean house and that clearly hurt us on the defensive end, including our recruiting. So our defensive struggles are linked to RR as well, and he shouldn't be given a pass just because people want to say we have no talent, or that it is because we are on our third DC in 2 years. That was something completely in his control.
Again, I'm not a RR hater, but I can't just give him a pass on what has occured over the last two seasons. I support the team and I support letting him have a chance to turn things around, but if this doesn't occur by year three, then well I don't want to Amaker it around for 6 years of misery. That being said... even Amaker was showing progress.
However, because of our choice in head coach and his "unique system" the next head coach will likely have an even more difficult job of making the transition (at least by then our expectations won't be so high).
But, as I have always maintained. I've never bought into the RR hype especially early in the season and got negged pretty bad for expressing that opinion with facts to back it up but oh well.
For all of those who wanted Carr to go this is what we have to live with. Wasn't so bad before now was it.
I am really looking forward to being at the game next weekend, because this is the kind of blow up that we won't be able to see what was learned from this and what kind of coach we have until we see the performance next week. A loss to Purdue at home next week will pretty much righ RR off in my book.
I do agree with most of your points, and appreciate your calm reasoned position. Just to be clear I was only using the announcers comments to back up what I was already seeing and feeling during the game. I wasn't frustrated with Tate at any point in the game. That is a great Iowa defense and on the road in that environment, we are lucky there were only two situations with the play clock. Personally, I think it was Minor's mistake to call the timeout on the 1 yard line (not much of a penalty if we don't get the play off).
That said we had plays called back with holding where Tate had 5-9 yard gainers that put us eventually into third and longs which are the worst position for this offense to be in. I agree Tate wasn't having his best game, but I think it was about the equivalent of the first 3 quarters against MSU.
It was great to have DRob in there with 8 minutes left, because they had to play the pass and we were basically running the ball. But, with a 1:45 on the clock and needing to get into field goal range, you know Iowa has to play for pass and we had to pass, that means your QB has to go through his reads and maybe even make some throws to guys who are covered. I think Tate is the only option in that situation, at least this year.
I don't know why there seems to be this universal sentiment that Tate struggled. For much of the game, the announcers could do nothing but praise him. He also got us a number of first downs with his feet and with his passes. He was certainly key to the two offensive touchdowns with key conversions on third down. He was throwing some really accurate passes (darts on the run) like he usually does. Many times to a guy who was completely covered. There were a few drops, not as many as last week. I also can't fault him for the slippery football fumble (it happens to even the best). The interception didn't look good, but the usually don't. Also, Iowa has an incredible defense. Tate has been instrumental in our 4th quarter productivity. Losing the series because of Mathews fumble on the punt hurt because we lost a series. Struggleing to run the offense on the 2 yard line with 98 yards to go can't be evidence of him struggling. I mean Iowa is a great defense and that is a difficult hole to try to dig out of. I heard again the analysis by ESPN of the conversation RR had with Tate and I understand why RR would bench him when he said "I don't know what you want me to do?" But that came after the series on the 2yd so I also understand why he said it. He clearly wanted to be in on th last series and it was in my opinion RR making a point rather than really thinking DRob was the hot hand. Certainly if Forcier was really struggling then there was no reason not to get DRob a series earlier in the game. Regardless, in my opinion, Forcier can make that pass to odoms at the end of the game, whereas DRob is not there yet. That was a horrible decision to throw it deep there... you don't thrown that pass unless you have your guy wide open, we only needed the field goal and the underneath throws seemed obvious, but he was not ready for that situation, whereas Tate is and has proven such. I'm not blaming the loss on RR, clearly there were many reasons we lost, but I don't think Tate was one of them. I've also seen on here a numbe of posts claiming DRob lead that TD drive in under 3 minutes. I watched again and as far as I can tell over 4 minutes came off the clock during that drive. Certainly this was a situation where RR thought he would rather try to send a particular message rather than make the logical choice on the last series. I think he let his emotions get the better of him when dealing with 18 year old kids.
i would not have been happy to see Sheridan, but putting in DRob in that situation was a mistake in my opinion mainly because of the clock. Also, I will have to go back to see the DRob drive thought it was more like 4 minutes, but felt like 5. I guess I need to really watch the game again with some perspective. During the game, I didn't really feel like it was something wrong with Tate, but rather with the rhythm on offense, it was disrupted too many times by turnovers. I also think that RR had already made his point with Tate and if does seem to be a little bit childish on his part if his decision was in any way because of his feud with Tate. i don't know what has gone on behind the scenes though, maybe there is a valid reason he needs to show he is in control even if it doesn't give us the best chance to win the game. I certainly don't blame anyone specifically for the loss and was happy to even be in the game, but I do wish I could have watch Tate run the two minute drill.
I agree that the clock was the key. The Minor time out was costly, I know that Tate wasn't going to get the play off, but really it would have only cost us 1/2 yard penalty. There were certainly a lot of reasons we lost the game, number one being turnovers. But, DRob shouldn't have been in on the last drive because of the time on the clock, decision making, and his passing ability. I don't know what happened with Tate and RR to get him benched and there might very well be a very good reason behind it. I mean if he was changing plays or not doing what he was told to do etc. If there was 4 minutes remaining I would likley feel differently about the decision. I had no confidence that we were going to get into field goal range in time with Denard. The pick was almost a foregone consclusion based on the situation.
But it is a bit ridiculous for everyone to neg people who complain about Tate being benched for the final drive. It was a horrible decision and it was all RichRod. It is what it is at this point, but you don't put a running QB in with under 2 minutes left. I would have rather have seen Sheridan at that point.
this is exactly where I am leaning. There is enough talent on D-fense that we should be better. I think a majority of the problems we see are due to underdevelopment of our talent. This is partially due to 1.) focus on the offensive side of the ball 2.) third defensive coordinator in 3 years. and 3.) ineffective position coaches.
I guess my overall point, to keep succinct, is that Carr's recruiting classes were generally highly rated. We never had a horrible defense under Carr. We should be able to transition the athletes recruited to fit our schemes. Can't you take a highly recruited athlete at another position and teach him to be a saftey. I only have the one example, but I really don't understand why the coaches haven't made Cissoko into a decent player, he has too much talent to turn so horrible, I think it is coaching transition/techniques (to some extent; certainly not all) that has contributed to an underdeveoped incohesive defense that is the worst I've seen at Michigan.
Indiana's only loss was against us. This fits his described methodology. I don't know how you could say Indiana is horrible until they lose a game to a team with a lot of losses.
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