Known Unknowns, Hoke, And Guys From West Virginia
right: Will Moeller/Daily
Nine months ago Michigan fans were suspicious of both of their West Virginia coaching heists. Today one is sitting next to Billy Packer and Jason Whitlock in a suit; the other is a season away from establishing himself for the long haul. Both undertook program-changing measures after a disappointing start, but only one successfully delegated his way to success.
You know who is who. Rich Rodriguez:
- fired Scott Shafer after one year as defensive coordinator,
- hired retread Greg Robinson, and
- forced him to run a 3-3-5-ish defense that incorporated the 3-4 and 4-3 with freshmen everywhere.
He got the sad firing box.
John Beilein:
- literally fired or replaced every one of his assistants,
- hired two up-and-comers from smaller schools, and
- all but abandoned the 1-3-1 defense that was his trademark at West Virginia.
If he can wring the expected improvement out of his 46% freshman usage he'll have Michigan's basketball team in the Big Ten title picture for the first time since Fisher was run out of town.
Both coaches tweaked their specialty offense for different players. Rodriguez coaxed an NCAA-average performance out of true freshman Tate Forcier by relying on his scrambling ability in the pocket and using him as a decoy in the run game. (Or at least trying to—Tate had a bad habit of keeping the ball when his read said hand off.) He improved the offense further with sophomore-who-would-have-been-redshirt-freshman-if-Michigan-had-any-options Denard Robinson. Even the Robinson offense wasn't going back to the old Pat White well. Without a Slaton to put oomph in the read and with defenses far more prepared to deal with it these days, he implemented a rushing game that revolved around the quarterback instead of using him as a "gotcha" thunderbolt. He used the QB rushing staples to implement a terrifying play-action game that often saw receivers open by ten yards.
Terrible defense put Michigan in long-field situations (Michigan led the country in TD drives of more than 85 yards), there was no field goal kicking, and the inexperienced Robinson was a turnover machine. The thing was a bit rickety. It was erratic. It put too much load on Robinson's shoulders. It was also incredibly young and promised infinity when Robinson was old enough to cut out the turnovers. It finished #2 in FEI, which you know because I say it every ten seconds.
Beilein lost his only two upperclassmen from the immensely disappointing 2009 team and returned a collection of role players and youth. He had to know his best player was a point guard who couldn't shoot to save his life. He still had a perimeter four and a spread-the-court offense, but he implemented a ton of ball screens that gave defenses a choice between open threes from guys who shoot at a 38% clip or getting pick-and-rolled to death by Morris and Jordan Morgan. Morgan shot 63% as a result and Michigan vastly exceeded expectations.
This lived up to their rep. Both were regarded as innovators. "Genius" is definitely not a word you want to throw around when you're talking about coaches but their peers seemed to regard Beilein and Rodriguez as people you want to talk to. Beilein doesn't talk but gets the most votes when his peers are asked to judge solely on coaching acumen; Rodriguez does, so he pops up at Oklahoma and his coaches get snapped up two seconds after they're let go. Carr's coaching tree is Brady Hoke and Scot Loeffler, end of story. It's tough to throw a rock in college football without hitting someone inspired by or directly associated with Rodriguez.
But he's not here because he couldn't let go. Of all the numbers associated with his tenure at Michigan this is by far the most damning:
It's the 37 next to Syracuse in the FEI defense ratings. That is a schedule-adjusted, I-AA-ignoring measure of defensive competency featuring Scott Shafer and absolutely no talent a few spots off the defenses of Michigan State and Wisconsin. Last year (Shafer's first) they were 72nd, the year before that 80th when Greg Robinson was the head coach and functional DC.
Maybe that wasn't possible here what with Never Forget…
…and all that. But we do know Shafer, a very good MAC coordinator who Harbaugh picked up and then made Syracuse better than anyone thought possible very quickly, is a good coach. And we know he was undermined and pushed out. Evidence suggests Greg Robinson is a terrible coach but he was undermined, too, and instead of a vaguely worse defense than two BCS teams coupled with Denard Robinson—good for 8-4 at least—we got something that was literally the worst ever in various categories.
Beilein had already scrapped the 1-3-1 before the total program reboot and was rewarded with an uptick in his Kenpom numbers from 67th to 53rd. It's a lot harder to tell who's responsible for what, but Beilein seemingly felt everything was insufficient and blew it all to hell. He still teaches the 1-3-1 but only uses it on occasion; he's left the defense mostly to his assistants. His reward: 35th nationally this year. That's better than his previous three years at Michigan. It's better than he ever did at West Virginia, because he knew what he didn't know.
Rodriguez's problem was never his selection of defensive coordinators, it was his refusal to trust them to do their jobs. The thing about Hoke is this: he does. At SDSU he hired Rocky Long to run a 3-3-5; Rocky Long ran a 3-3-5, and it was pretty good, and now he's the head coach. He hired Al Borges to run a passing-oriented West Coast offense; Borges ran a passing-oriented West Coast offense that wasn't quite as good as Michigan's in FEI's eyes but was still top 20. If he "gets" anything it's that he's a former defensive lineman with a narrowly defined set of assets that does not include being a genius of any variety—he's never been a coordinator. So he's hired two guys with very long, very successful resumes to do that stuff for him. That's an upgrade over Rodriguez, who had one—himself. It's an upgrade over Carr, who had zero*.
When I am trying to be cheerful in the face of Hoke's indifferent record I think about the vagaries of MAC budgets and what Hoke did the instant he escaped them. Mattison is the third excellent hire Hoke's made. That's a trend, one that suggests he, too, knows what he doesn't know. Since I'm a Michigan fan I'm bracing for a fatal flaw, but at least it won't be the same one that sunk Rich Rodriguez.
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*[Ron English masterminded The Horror and does not count. Before his elevation at Michigan he had never been a coordinator. After he left he led the weak unit on the last Kragthorpe Louisville team and has started the slow process of dying at EMU. The only thing he's proven is that he can yell at several future NFL stars effectively.]
Title disclaimer: hate on Donald Rumsfeld all you want—just not here—but the bit about known knowns and known unknowns and unknown unknowns is a useful bit of language. Not intended to endorse or unendorse anything about Rumsfeld. Disclaimers uber alles.
But do you think Brian was level headed in his reaction to Hoke's hire? Seemed like a hissy fit to me. Truth be told Hoke wasn't my first choice either but we should focus on the positives like Brian is finally doing. This isn't to say that we shouldn't take a look at the negatives as well but as the saying goes "it's not what you say but how you say it".
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt that Brian has an editor read his posts before publishing. As such, the feedback he receives from his audience "may" serve as editorial review and influence his future posts. I disagree with the way Brian has voiced his concern over Hoke becoming Michigan's HC (to use gbdub's expression it is misguided and obnoxious).
We can all agree that Brian Cook has created a great blog. But it is fair to question whether he wants to see Michigan football succeed with Brady Hoke as coach. Brian's use of the MGoBlog platform to rant for months about the "Process" and Hoke's hire supports my concerns.
As I said in a previous post I'd like more content from TomVH (it is informative and factual) and less of the pissing and moaning.
Pretty sure Oregon and Auburn went to the championship game because of superior athletes, rather than their love for their teammates. It hasn't been four months since Hoke has been hired, and the "Hoke 'gets Michigan football' and will win BIG b/c of emotion alone!!" is the most tired meme in the history of the internet.
On the subject of RR's playcalling.. one excuse people come up with for the poor RB play is that we didn't have any good backs last season so RR was forced to run Denard more often...
I don't understand how any of the RBs are supposed to "break out" (for lack of a better term) or get a rhythm if they don't get reps! Now trust me, I'm not saying any of our current backs are as good as Mike Hart, but wasn't he #3 on the depth chart going into 2004? We didn't have a clear starter and he had a couple of breakout games early in the season- boom, problem solved. We then had a "go to guy".
Instead of running Denard all over the place against the MAC schools, it would have been smart to give the RBs plenty of reps to start the season so we could find a competent #1 guy. Hindsight is 20/20, but that's always something that bugged me about RR's tenure... it seemed like he used the out of conference games to score 60+ points and pad stats instead of finding the right players, figuring out schemes, etc. I'm sure someone disagrees but that is my two cents
Part of the problem was that Michigan didn't dominate any of the out of conference teams, aside from Bowling Green. None of those games were blow-outs, (except Bowling Green, which Denard came out of pretty early on). Basically, Rodriguez never really had a game for him to see what was what with the RBs without potentially putting the game on the line to do it. Given that it was very much a do-or-die season for him, I can understand why he didn't want to mess too much with what seemed to be working.
Don't get me wrong, I think it really hurt Michigan in the long run, but at any given moment in any give game, I can see why he was reluctant to use games as RB testing grounds.
I think Rodriguez had plenty of time to figure out that Vincent Smith wasn't the guy to dive into the line on short yardage, but he never did. Nothing was more frustrating last year than to watch that over and over. The kickers sucked and he had no capable backups there, but there were other options sitting on the bench at RB that could've at least platooned as short yardage backs and made the defense play honest on third and short. I don't know if it was out of stubbornness or frustration and/or distrust of the other RBs, but he (once again) failed to adapt.
to some other blog listing the 3rd & short and 4th & short plays this past season. I can't find the link. But I distinctly remember there not being very many "Smith fails to get a first down" on the list. A few out of dozens of those down and distance situations.
And what do you mean "there were other options sitting on the bench at RB that could've at least platooned as short yardage backs and made the defense play honest on third and short"? Define "play honest" in your mind. "Playing honest" is not being able to load up on a specific play because you know what's coming. What exactly does that have to do with using Smith as opposed to someone else in those situations? Are you saying the defense knew what was coming when they saw Smith in the backfield on 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1? Are you saying the defense would be less likely to know what was coming if somebody else was back there?
Don't use terminology you don't understand.
Even being able to say "I'll make you the next Slaton, come to Michigan", in 3 years he couldn't get a go to back (no more a great one). Sure, toss the first class out...but when you're getting Denard and Tate, you can get a running back. Of ALL the positions, this is the one you should be able to step into immediately, and sell instant playing time. But it never happened.
Well, he was going after a top RB, hard, in the 2011 class (Dee Hart), and probably would have landed him sans job security issues. Prior to that, we had a ton of RBs with promise on the roster, but none were panning out as go-to guys (isn't that Fred Jackson's responsibility? How come he never shares any blame?) or were hurt (Minor, Shaw, Touissant...).
Jackson probably doesn't get blamed for two reasons. One, he's awesome and everybody loves him (maybe not a legit reason to absolve him). Two, he's overseen some amazing Michigan RBs during his tenture (probably a pretty legit reason).
That scared Hart more from talk, or going 7-6 and getting killed towards the end of the season? I'm not sure even if we win more he comes the way his interests bounced from school to school, so counting him as a lock is something I'm not really positive about. But in any regard, it's too late at that point.
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<br>If he knew he had to land a QB in 2009's class, he should have known he'd need a RB. Maybe Fitz turns into a beast like Freddy always talks about, and it gets chalked up to more bad Rich luck.
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<br>While the post above answers the question well, I'd put a finer point on it too- Most of Michigan's backs have done really well in college, but not had the talent to rip it up in the pros. Rich has had one really good back, and he's a beast in the NFL. Talent. So the track record is Fred can coach up good running backs, Rich rolls with a great running back, and neither can do much with injured or just not very good backs.
One of the thousands of things I will never understand about th
One of the thousands of things about the world that I will never understand is that once Nick Saban decides to sign a player, he signs him. Dee was, unfortunately, a lost cause once December rolled around and Saban decided to sign him.
that injuries have kept us from seeing a breakout back in the group we have right now. How many of them had injuries that plagued them much of the season? Fitz? Shaw? Hopkins? I thought Shaw looked pretty good when he was healthy. Pretty good in a "better than Vincent Smith, anyway" kinda way.
revisionism. Homers: open yr arms, Brian is coming home. The other job options must not have worked out.
P.S. Hopefully, he's right about Hoke. And yeah, OF COURSE RichRod is smarter than the new guy.
The fact that the people who love the Hoke hire and the people who hate it are both mad at this post means Brian's probably found a bit of truth on both counts.
Personally, this is easily the most I've ever agreed with Brian on the Rodriguez/Hoke front. This is pretty close to my own opinion. Which means it's probably misinformed and more than likely wrong.
Welcome to the Internet!
I have an opinion, damnit! Now you're going to listen to me tell you about!
There are like 9 snarkisms in here and I don't have a clue to whom they are directed. What is the revisionism? Who are the homers? What is Brian coming home to? Given that Brian has mostly been negative about Hoke, what do you hope he's right about? I presume the line about RichRod OF COURSE being smarter than Hoke is sarcastic, but who or what is the object of that sarcasm?
I know Magee and Dews are both at Pittsburgh and Fred's still at UM, but where did the rest of his assistants end up: Gerg, Adam Braithwaite, Greg Fry, Tony Gibson, Rod Smith and Bruce Tall???
The offensive coaches got jobs and with the exception of Gibson, the defensive coaches are still sending out resumes.
IU, Kevin Wilson -- Wilson has known Rodriguez for over a decade. When Wilson was the offensive coordinator at Northwestern, he and Randy Walker went down to Clemson to learn the spread from Rodriguez (see: Northwestern 54, Michigan 51). Since then, Rodriguez has been close with Bob Stoops and his staff. So it's no surprise that Wilson, in his first HC job, hired two available Rodriguez assistants with Big Ten experience. Smith and Frey are, IMO, the two Rodriguez assistants most deserving of AQ-conference jobs. Both the QBs and OL made noticeable progress during their tenure.
Pitt, Todd Graham -- Graham was an assistant of Rodriguez for three years at West Virginia. He has already worked on the same staff as Magee and Gibson. Graham and Dews never worked together, but it is pretty obvious that Dews would come with high recommendations from people that Graham trusts (Rodriguez, Magee, Gibson, etc.).
...response that demonstrates why it's dangerous to make sweeping conclusions about the strength of HCs based on the hiring rate of their former assistants.
Enough about FailRod already! It's beyond time to move on. He didn't get the job done and he got the ax. Get over it. He wasted three years of football for this program. I am pissed that I spent my hard earned money and time to watch the garbage he produced. I love the kids but hated him for what he did to my passion. All that being said I am excited to see what the new staff can bring to the table.
Edit: This is just me venting about all the rr apoligists.
This has such a fantastic RCMB quality to it.
I wouldn't consider the two seasons I spent watching RR's home games in person wasted time (2008 and 2009). The gameday experience was still great, I was still painted blue, and me and my friends made idiots out of ourselves just like any other college kids would. More wins would have been nice, but that's not the way it worked out for any of us.
Brian has a unique take on the whole RR era because he was the last warrior defending Rodriguez Hill. If anyone's earned the right to dissect the RR era and keep track of the ongoing changes to the program (the still-Decimated Defense, the renovations at all major sporting facilities, the rise of DB and the Corporate-style AD), it's him.
The theme of Brian's post is about how Hoke is succeeding in places RR clearly failed. I don't know how anyone read this post as an RR apologist viewpoint.
The positives mentioned about Hoke (and JB) are the difference between a successful head coach and a gifted offensive coordinator. One is a leader who gets the right person for the job and lets them do their job. The other gets a yes-man who will do what he is told even if it garbage.
I had the same "apologist" impression.
Brian talks about great FEI under RR (yet again). The defensive was blamed exclusiively on GERG (although it was acknowledged that GERG was forced into the 3-3-5) with no mention of "the buck stops here" or weak recruiting on that side of the ball. Remember, the defense was horrible in '08 when it had some NFL caliber talent on the roster (or at least better defensive talent than eight other BT schools). Then there's the talk of RR's coordinators getting scooped up while Hoke was never even a coordinator prior to his first HC job.
The real story is that Brady Hoke will be a better HC at Michigan than RR was. That's all we need to know. The snarky stuff should be left out the discussion.
you mean "hope."
For him to be worse. So the odds are kinda with him.
Fair enough.
Worse than 3-9? Very hard. Worse than 7-6? Unfortunately, quite possible. I don't think it's likely (and I hope it isn't), but it's not really hard to see a scenario where that's the case.
It was somewhat funny to see youth (once again) getting blamed for the one guy from West Virginia's turnover problems after seeing what the other guy from West Virginia's team was able to accomplish this year in spite of their youth and inexperience. According to statsheet.com, Michigan basketball finished 10th in the country in turnover percentage, which is especially impressive when you consider that they were the 10th least experienced team in all of college basketball.
As for the effect of experience on RR's offenses, consider this: According to scout.com, the 2007 West Virginia Mountaineers, RR's last team at WVU, returned 8 starters on offense, including juniors and seniors at every skill position. Despite this vast amount of experience, West Virginia still led the Big East in fumbles that season, and finished 105th out of 119 teams nationally in the same category. Is age really the issue here, or could it possibly be style of play?
I don't care about the efficiency of RR's offense, or his "offensive genius"... the fact of the matter is that the man didn't produce. Why must we dwell on comparing RR to Brady Hoke? I'm quite tired of seeing/hearing about RR and what he is up to. Don't get me wrong, he seemed like a great guy, but he was absolutely the wrong guy at the wrong place. Regardless of his X and O apptitude (and by that I mean entirely Os) he was the wrong hire. Let's put that sad era of Michigan football behind us and embrace our promising future. I understand that Brian doesn't believe in the Brady Hoke hire, but to assert that he is not knowledgeable about football scemes and gameplans before having seen what he is capable of is irresponsible. It is the same blind disapproving stance that he constantly complained about people having towards RR. These backhanded compliments (give BH props for understanding he doesn't know football) are unfounded and uncalled for. Give the man a chance to show you what he is capable of!
If this wasn't the leading place to (rightly) point out how dumb it was to dislike Rich for stupid, non-fact based reasons. But it's just proving to be the other side of the slant.
he produced exactly on parr with the way he has always produced throughout his coaching career. The only difference is that this time he was cut off before we (you or I or anybody) could see whether or not our opinions on what he was likely to produce in the future were realized.
You hire Rich Rod, you are signing up for pain in year 1, then methodical progress over the next few years until you win conference titles yearly. Honesly, if you expected the guy to do anything but what he did, you were only kidding yourself.
And not knowledge? Because if you're going off track record, at major Universities, you have one success, and one failure. To think Michigan was following the same progress as other programs he coached at is just wishful thinking. Because the evidence (and all we heard about) was the "second year jump" Rich Rod teams make. Except, it still hadn't come in year 3. There was nothing about "methodical progress". The truth is, that if everything you saw told you success was just around the corner, you were the only one kidding yourself. Maybe if we moved to the Big East those annual championships were ready to roll in.
Rich Rod, the whole "this isn't the Big East" thing is easily the biggest dungpile.
Hoke is from the MAC and MWC, but nobody is holding that against him. When it even comes up, it comes up in the form of "he won at crappy programs, so he can obviously win here at Michigan!" You don't see anything fucked up about that?
And the only methodical progress that matters in wins/losses. There is no arguing against that progress. 3-9 to 5-7 to 7-6 is measurable progress.
Let me ask you two things. In your opinion, with the second most returning starters in the country this season, do you think 9 wins wasn't a reasonable expectation? And secondly, do you think Rich Rod would have been fired if this was, say, Illinois instead of Michigan?
You can't succeed in the Big Ten. The point is that just because you succeeded in the Big East, doesn't mean it's translate to the Big Ten. Likewise, winning in the MAC or Mtn West doesn't mean you'll win at Michigan. (And actually, I think the more apt Hoke defender comparison would be to Glenville...just because it took a long time to get those teams better, doesn't mean he's bad in a bad situation). And if Hoke doesn't win at Michigan, he won't be around either. Having won a bowl game at SDS isn't going to save him. I'm just saying, it doesn't matter much. You can find coaches who have had great success at high (but not as high) levels who fail, and coaches who comes from smaller backgrounds, and succeed. The key is to win, and not be Peter Principled.
Yes, wins are what matter. But methodical process is not always enough to quantify success. And progress is no guarantee of a continued trend. You have to look at other factors (which was all the rage when Brandon said he was going to do this..."it's not just wins and losses, he sees what Rich is doing, he's going to be back"...until the point that it turned out Brandon must not have liked SOMETHING he was seeing. Part of that is with all the outside stuff, would that trend likely continue?
I think 9 wins would have been a probably expectation. And perhaps reasonable given what we've seen. The problem is it's only reasonable because the expectations have been so lowered by the bungling of 2/3's of the team. It's great to make 9 wins seem like reasonable expectations in year 4 when you go 3-9 the first year, then 5-7. But really, at Michigan, it shouldn't take 4 years to get mildly competitive. We're not talking Big Ten Titles. (And really, go back and read the dreams of the future....struggle year one...the year two Rich Rod leap...compete for Big Ten the 3rd year...and National Titles every other year from there on out). You like Rich's track record, and that's a fair metric. But look at coaches at other MAJOR programs around the Country, who were just as down. The successful ones, it doesn't take more than 4 years to get really good. Sure, they may have some lack of morals advantages...but no one was asking for Rich to go undefeated in year 3. Maybe have a program that could compete in the Big Ten. Or at least stay close to good teams in the Big Ten.
Would he have been fired at Illinois? Considering they still have Zook, I doubt it. But then, Minnesota just went through a coach pretty fast too. So it's program to program. In a lot, no. But the fact is, he's not at those schools. He's at Michigan. That may sound an arrogant meme, but it's true. He has advantages over those programs. And he gets paid well to coach there. He's not earning a Glenville St. salary, and painting his own hash marks. And that's really it. No one ever really killed him for not beating Ohio State, where there's some catching up to do. Maybe for not even staying remotely competitive with them. But really, struggling to beat Illinois, and Purdue, and losing to some pretty average PSU teams, and only coming even close to MSU 1 out of 3 years....that's going to do anybody in. Bo once said all it would take for him to be out would be to lose to OSU 3 years in a row. LLoyd managed to prove him wrong, but he never even though about losing to MSU three years in a row.....or any of the others. He didn't even have to think about that.
But really, if Brandon had really thought everything was perfectly right with the program, and after observing it all year long loved what was going on, and thought the future was bright, he would have kept Rich, and told the fans to F-off. Obviously he didn't feel that way. I don't know if it was football stuff, off the field stuff, or most likely, some combo of it all. So if all he saw was the progress you saw, we wouldn't be here today.
and I don't think I have anything to say beyond that. So, yeah.
I truly feel that it was 80% off the field issues and 20% on the fieldissues that did RR in. Brandon could have made a case to keep RR simply by sighting all the returning starters, most notably Denard. That would be the main reason for someone to legitimately expect 9+ wins next year.
On the field issues can be solved simply by winning.
However, the off the field issues, or the perception of off the field issues, is something that could not be overcome. I know countless older people who feel that RR is a “bad guy” for whatever reason and wanted him to lose every game. If you asked why he/she felt that way the response would be based on personal opinion/assumptions rather than fact.
Therefore, 9 wins this year, 10 wins next year, and even multiple double digit win seasons after that would not change the perception that some, or alot, of the fan base has/ had about RR.
It is clear when you hear the players say that Hoke is the best person for Michigan, it is not from a win loss standpoint but purely a PR standpoint. The players understand this, Brandon understands this, the media understand this, but for some reason – the blind love for RR and the what could have been meme- RR supporters, myself included, have a hard time understanding or better yet accepting this.
I don't think that given our defensive scemes we would have sniffed 9 games. Even with a GERG firing, we would have just hired a new defensive coordinator and imposed a piss-poor sceme on him. The most important thing is that this is not a run of the mill program. 9 wins should be a minimal expectation! How many of these RR supporters were the same people callling for Lloyd Carr's head when we were having 3-4 losses a season! Complacency is the fastest path to mediocrity. That in my opinion is the saddest aspect of the RR era. Not only did we experience some really bad seasons, but people became happy with just making a bowl game. 7-6 with losses against MSU, OSU, PSU, and squeeking past Illinois and Indiana is NOT a sign of progress! It's a sign that things have gone horribly wrong and that a change is desperately needed. I never said that I think RR is a bad coach or a bad man. I return to my statement that he was the wrong coach at the wrong time. He tried to implement the wrong philosophy on the wrong players in the wrong conference. Doesn't anyone notice the difference in attrition between RR and BH? Very few people (the fans, the players, etc.) were able to buy in to his system... and that lead to the biggest black eye our program has ever experienced. Let's move on people.
If you look at RR's history and success in conference play at his previous stops, he quickly had his teams competing for conference titles. Unfortunately, that was not the case at UM.
At Glenville in conference play his first 3 years went: 1-5 for 6th, 3-4 for 5th, and 5-2 for 3rd.
At WVU in conference in his first 3 years he went: 1-6 for 7th, 6-1 for 2nd, 6-1 for 1st.
At UM in conference play in his first 3 years he went: 2-6 for 9th, 1-7 for 10th and 3-5 for 7th.
you want to refute someone with facts and numbers. Sometimes you just want to tell them to eat a dick. The latter is in my head and heart right now.'
EDIT: Ok, damn, if the post I respond like this to is removed, I just look like an asshole.
Even if it is heavily qualified optimism...
Rich Rodriguez is going to get a Division 1 coaching job next year (Clemson, Virginia, Tulane, Washington State). And he'll most likely do a very good job wherever he lands. It will never be quite as good as his first stint at West Virginia. It will probably not be quite as bad as it was for him at Michigan. Kudos to Hoke for acknowledging his own limitations and hiring talent well above him on both sides of the ball.
Wins are indeed all that matters. But consider this:
If Rich Rod had been fired at Glenville State after 3 years when his overall record was 11-16 (1-7-1 his first year), he wouldn't have been able to win the next four conference titles with an overall record of 32-12 during those years.
If he had been fired after 2 years at West Virginia when his overall record was 12-12 (3-8 his first season), he wouldn't have been able to win 4 conference titles in the next 5 years with a record 48-14.
He actually was fired after 3 years at Michigan with an overall record of 15-22. Just like his first 2 stops, his win total was on a consistent upswing (and that's all that is important, right? Not offensive numbers, not defensive numbers, not winning/losing margin? Per your standards?) The only measurable difference between this stop and the first two: entitlement and a lack of patience because of it.
Some of us, as crazy as it sounds, thought maybe there was a pattern developing with his coaching resume in regards to wins and losses as he built his teams and that all the pain would be worth it in the long run. But as it stands, we just endured the worst 3 year stretch of Michigan football in our entire lives for what now turns out to be no reason at all.
We wish it wasn't so. Sue us.
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