RichRod and Tressel
so now that we know what was really going on, I feel for RichRod.
Lets put the defensive implosion aside for a moment, and reflect on a guy who went down with his morals intact.....and our cheatin' bastid of an opponent, who paid for and lied for his success.
Lets reflect on RR's handling of Tate (lookie, no wings!), his concern for Denard vs Illinois, when his job was clearly on the line......even suspending the punter for the OSU game for violating team rules.......did I hear that Tressel once punished an offender by "suspending" him for the first series of the game?
How 'bout the story about Tressel rigging raffles so the big-time recruits win the goodies at a kids summer football camp? We learned plenty about RichRod in his time here.....and he certainly seemed a "stand up guy" to me.
So if you were a college athletic director looking to elevate your bs school with a higher profile in football, who would you hire if the choice was RichRod or Liar Liar Vest on Fire?
You should try to get the shirts taxidermied as well.....
Might be taking this a little too far...
<br>
<br>Oh, the SHIRT. Nevermind.
Dudeness could be your court jester.
The power of the BISB Corollary.
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/character-issues-tressel-carr-rr#comment-1102169
It's science.
RichRod is a Michigan man. He was our coach, and while it didn't work out, he tried and tried hard, and seemed to have done so on the up and up. Were there alot of things going against him that were unfair? Yes, but he is a big boy and this the biggest stage there is.
The best thing the M nation can do, is I hope Hoke after he beats OSU this year, presents RichRod with the game ball, just as Bo did, giving the ball to Chalmers Elliott. Bo said that he won with Elliott's players, and Hoke will have done the same with RichRods.
I also hope that RichRod attends many of the football events going forward and is not treated as a persona non grata. THIS is where the Michigan family may fail going forward. He needs to be welcomed with open arms, because he is, in fact, part of the family. After Coach Moeller's incident, I heard for the longest time he stopped going to the events, likely felt ashamed, until alot of them forced him to go. It takes leadership to get someone to go against their will, for the bigger picture, and I sincerely hope they do the same when RichRod likely scoffs at returning.
I think the program is in real trouble if we can't accept someone other than a "Michigan Man" as our coach. It's like we're being racist. All we're really doing is limiting the talent pool. I think Hoke is great, and I think he'll do a fantastic job. I think he was actually the best man for the job after seeing the job he's done already, but I think that's a little bit of luck (that he's a Michigan Man) and a lot of David Brandon being a good judge of character.
You're right, to the extent that if there were no good "Michigan Man" candidates out there and it limited us to hiring Notorious MDB or his ilk we'd be screwed.
But there are real benefits to the Michigan Man attribute. First, there is the fact that the alumni and the media eat that shit up and will trip over themselves giving said Man some extra slack. Related to the alumni angle, Michigan Men will be more plugged into the alumni network (both football-specific and university wide), which can only help with recruiting, donations, etc. In Hoke's specific case, being a Michigan Man is what connected him to Greg Mattison and convinced the man to leave the Ravens and come to Ann Arbor. Finally, I would venture to guess that having deep ties to the university and the football program can only help on the recruiting trail - Hoke will always be a little bit more credible when talking about how sublime Michigan is than someone like Rodriguez.
Of course, if said Michigan man doesn't know how to coach, or how to hire assistants, he'll still be useless. Also, it might be more important to have ties to Ohio and Michigan high schools than to Michigan alumni specifically. I Just wanted to point out that the idea might not be totally vapid when it comes to coaching hires.
There is no putting the defensive implosion aside. That represents half the team! That is- unless you want to include special teams, but do you?
Rich Rod is not a genius. His weaknesses as our coach during his three year tenure are obvious and do not need rehashing. Nor was he a "victim" of the UM alumni, the entire fanbase, or the media. Even the most loyal MGobloggers now acknowledge that the program was not headed toward a major turnaround this year or next.
As a Michigan coach, he is not in the same class as Gary Moeller or Lloyd Carr. He strikes me as several levels below Bump Elliott, who enjoyed a modicum of success in the Big Ten.
Thank you sir, may I have another?
Amen to that. I've grown weary of the "genius" title or even the "offensive genius" title being thrown around in reference to RR. His version of the spread option offense was innovative in 2005 but did not evolve to meet the defensive responses to it. It reminds me of high school, where often the QB is the best athlete on the team and his passing ablility is secondary to his athleticism. Others in the coaching ranks have taken what he created and modified it to great success, this I do not dispute. However his system as created at Tulane, refined at Clemson & WV & attempted at Michigan has, IMO, lost its advantage.
I know others here will trot out Oregon, Auburn, Florida & others to defend the merits of the spread offense, however as I've posted before. None of those systems come even close to RR's in terms of QB running attempts. They all modified the spread to counter the defensive adjustments to the straight read/option spread. Lumping all of those offenses together and coloring them with the same brush is equivolent to saying any team that uses short passes in their scheme is a "west coast team" when thats just not accurate.
We hire Hoke as the head coach, get Mattison as a result, and let RR be the offensive coordinator? Not that RR can't handle being a head coach, just that clearly he has no contacts in the defensive world.
To at least set the record straight(er) about Tressel, Santonio Holmes was suspended the first couple series of the '03 Michigan game and Robert Reynolds was suspended for the first game after his choking incident on Jim Sorgi of Wisconsin (though it could certainly be argued one game wasn't enough).
Those are off the top of my head.
What would you rather be, a pencil or a Q-tip?
Was a mess and UM will suffer for hiring him for a couple more years.
You can be all self righteous and uppity (and why wouldn't you? You are a Michigan Message Board Guy)--but Rodriguez has left a stain on the brand new couch cushion known as Michigan football. He was a waste. The program would never have gotten better under him. He was poop.
Of Rich Rod was a mess, he made mistakes but M arrogance was the ultimate demise and if you all can't see that after the last 3 years then you are blind nothing more nothing less.
I knew I shouldn't have looked at this thread. Dammit.
We're still actually discussing RR vs. Tressel. The man was fired five months ago. You can't even recognize the horse. It doesn't matter if his cheating was less than or worse than Tressel. Doesn't matter if he's an offensive genius, or football genius, a good coach at smaller schools, a bad coach at traditional powerhouses, or anything inbetween. It doesn't matter if he's a sloppy record keeper, a snake oil recruiter, a poor recruiter, or anything else.
He had one winning season at Michigan, two losing seasons, went 0-6 vs. tOSU and MSU, and got hammered in the only bowl game of his time at Michigan. Thank you for the effort, good luck in your next job, and the comparisons are done.
Let's move on, there is nothing to see here.