Miscellanea
After hearing all the arguments both ways and having some driving time in the Suburban to think about it, I think I am willing to defend Coach Rodriguez on the decision to call the pass play that led to interception late in the half. A couple of lines of thought sway me in this regard.
What is worse: the coach who gambles and calls the risky play, knowing by this time in the game it is likely that on this day, his freshman QB will not be able to execute the play; or the freshman QB who botches the throw? If he makes the throw and it results in a long yardage reception we all think he is a genius and the QB is on the verge of breaking out [maybe]. If it fails he is the goat.
I wonder if it about cultivating a mindset. Coach Rodriguez has a plan, a certain way he wants to play, a certain mindset he wants his team to be in. The only way to shift from one mindset [run, run, run, just don’t fumble, wind out the clock and play it safe] to a totally new mindset [attack, attack, attack, push, win…it ain’t worth winning if you can’t win big]. You have to make a complete paradigm shift and you can’t look back, especially when half your crew was recruited to play in the old paradigm. How do you send that message? Even if we fail, even if we come away with egg on our face, even if I look bad, we are going to play my new way, end of story.
I also think that Coach Rodriguez is big on his players, on actually coaching them and developing them. I think I remember him saying at one time that one of the things high on his list for recruits is not purported athletic ability, but their teachability and coachability. Will they let me develop them into the players that we can win with? So you push a kid. You trust a kid. If he is the QB you keep the offence simple enough to manage, but you press him to the limits and make him do everything you want him to do, including late half risky passes. You make him stretch himself, even if he falls short. After all Michigan football is all about the young men...right...or is this Nick Saban's Alabama?
I am postulating the mind of the coach and may be totally out to lunch, but everything Coach Rodriguez has show us thus far makes me think it is not far off the mark. I just think that Coach is too smart a man, too conscious of what his team and his freshman QB is capable of, not to have at least suspected the play would turn out badly. Ergo, it was an intentional learning/evaluation situation.
As for the fans wanting run, run, run, in my church leadership tenure, I encountered again and again where people would vote for changing an existing program or an old way of doing things and then when the change was enacted they would start wining and moaning if there were any teething problems. “This is not what I voted for.” “If this is what its going to be like, we would be better off going back to what was.” Change is painful. Get over it. Period. Let me say it again: change is painful. Get over it. Coach Rodriguez has done this before and knows what needs to be done. If anything, this, as much as the spread offence, has become his calling card. He has done it in the past. He is doing it now. Change is painful, deal with it.
Why I Want USC to Beat the Buckeyes This Coming Saturday
On an ordinary day if I did not have an allegiance to either of the teams playing, it would seem that you would pick Big Ten over all the others. Frankly, I think too much is made of this whole Big Ten or SEC or Pac Ten pride thing. In the case of the Buckeyes, I cheered Florida on when they beat them both times, in football and basketball.
Just think, if OSU beats USC people might have a reason to lay some regaining of respectability for the Big Ten at the feet of OSU, however small that gain. And being the selfish type, I want that glory to come to us, the Maize and Blue. I want people looking at the Big Ten to see Michigan again rising high and leading the way as the others in the conference rise with us, yet clearly in the position of following our lead. The only way that this can happen is if OSU keeps falling on their faces and choking on the big game as they have done in the last two years [even though Tressel’s BCS record is 3-2, if I remember correctly]. Then Michigan can step in and lead the conference back to glory with OSU clearly looking up to us to show them the way…and that is why I want OSU to lose Saturday.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 AM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:56 AM ^
Another good reason(s) to cheer for USC this Saturday.
Living in London, ON, few here care whether Michigan wins or loses. I got a big Miami fan in my office, but he is from that area. We talk college football whenever we get the chance. So I have always put football in perspective by taking care of work/career/family business before football...but if everything else is taken care of...unless it has to do with the game...I don't want to hear it. I am on football time now!
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 PM ^
USC isn't playing anyone this Saturday. The Buckeye-Trojan game is September 13th.
/Small point, but it was bugging me.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:07 PM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:03 AM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 AM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 AM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 AM ^
It's a Canadian thing. Just like "colour" "neighbour" and a whole host of other minor spelling adjustments. Blame it on Webster, of Webster's Dictionary, who, if I remember the story correctly, "simplified" a lot of spellings for his American readership.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:15 AM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:59 AM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 PM ^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Memorial_Coliseum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Bowl_(stadium)
They are playing the game, on the 13th and it is at the Coliseum not the Rose Bowl. I was reading once where a player, I forget what team, was saying why he thought playing in Los Angeles was tough. He said(PARAPHRASED) you land and get off the plane, go to your room and all is well. You do a run through at a high school and then go back and rest. Th next morning you drive through LA and see the exit ramps like Santa Monica and Hollywood and then you hit the Coliseum. It's at that point you realize what a cool football environment it is. Youre stoked, you know your fans are. There's pretty woman and celebrities and then a good, quality opponent in USC. What you do not realize though is this your last meal before the slaughter so to speak. You find yourself passive, almost in awe. And then when they start whooping your ass, you feel as if all of your football dreams are being crushed all at once. The fallout is horrific of a loss there. The less you take with you into the stadium,mentally, the better off you'll be.
When teams travel there, a lot of the youngsters try to hard. They get the whole Hollywood thing in their brain and it really does nothing for their game prep or performance. I am talking teams outside of the PAC-10. Do they put their pants on one leg at a time? Yes. Do they date woman who are different from the ones in your twon? No. You have to remind your guys of that when you go there. As Obi Ezeh said the other day,"It's just football."
The pass before half was ok. I liked the call in theory. Was it reasonable? I do not know. It was RR's call. He wanted to win, bravo. George bernard Shaw once wrrote,"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." I think that play call is summed up by that. Either way you pay a price. The question most asked was was it the right time to be unreasonable? Or is there ever a right time to be unreasonable? Tough to answer.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 AM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:36 PM ^
I disagree. I don't think RR was trying to either win/score or send a message. I think he has an inexperienced team - he needs every down he has to get them experience (especially the QBs and especially if our run game isn't good).
Sheridan learned more throwing that pick than he would have handing it off for three FB dives and a punt. And everyone's been cramming this schtik about RR needing to appreciate Michigan tradition (code for beating Ohio State) down RR's neck. He's going to take his chances now for learning reasons, so we have a shot against teams like MSU and OSU.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 PM ^
This isn't the NFL preseason. Rich Rodriguez wants to win games, period. Nobody's thinking about teaching their QB a lesson late in the first half of a game down by five. That's ridiculous. You honestly think Rod is standing on the sidelines thinking to himself, "Well, this is probably the best play strategy-wise but I don't think Nick's going to learn anything from a draw up the middle that gains 15 yards. Fuck it, let's throw deep."???
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:34 PM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:14 PM ^
That is it...and that IS the break from tradition...when all the rest of us have come to expect us to run, run, run...go safely to the locker room and re-group for the next half.
I think it bodes well for the future...and likely this will not be the last time when people will want the safe path, common sense will call for the safe path, but our coach will go for the strike and the jugular...and I am sure this will not be the last time it costs us.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 PM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 PM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:31 PM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 PM ^
I will concede the point...Coach Rodriguez wants to win games...but I also know he is building something bigger than one game...he is building a winning program...neither you nor I know the mind of the coach, but likely it is something of a both/and rather than and either/or...as in "Lets take the deap strike, if he makes it awesome, and if he doessn't lets hope he learns something..." or something along those lines.
If it is all about simply winning all the time, why do coaches put in the backups and the 2nd stringers when they have a big cushion lead or are impossibly behind? Program development and learning reps. Nothing like game time experience.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 PM ^
"If it is all about simply winning all the time, why do coaches put in the backups and the 2nd stringers when they have a big cushion lead or are impossibly behind? "
Because the game has already been won or lost, obviously. There is no more "winning" left to do that day. This isn't complicated.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:49 AM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 8:58 AM ^
HELLO
You play. To win. The Game.
HELLO
YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME
HELLO
YOU PLAYYY
TO WIN
THE GAME
You don't play it to just play it. That's the great thing about sports: you play to win, and I don't care if you don't have any wins.
You go play to win. When you start tellin' me it doesn't matter, then retire. Get out! 'Cause it matters."
College football hasn't been about anything other than winning since the 1940s, and if you think different, I suggest you open your eyes sometime. If it was about molding young men and blah blah blah, Lloyd wouldn't have retired, because it wouldn't matter if he was winning or not. But winning matters. Coaches want to win. Players want to win. This is not a difficult concept.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:35 AM ^
Of course you play to win...again...you miss the point...let me give a recent item from the front page of this fine blog to make my point:
"That Clearinghouse issue Marcus Witherspoon had did not go away; he isn’t going to be on the team this year or any other, it seems."
How many gifted athletes never get the chance to play because they cannot cut it academically? Why do graduation rates matter? Why does the overall academic success of a program matter?
Even from a football perspective, take the debate over at tOSU over whether Tressel ran Bennie Wells too much, subjecting him to injury. Yes, you need to do what you need to do to win, but sometimes the best player is not the best player. If a guy is a 15 carry a game guy and you run him 18 times and he pulls something and you lose him for the season, what then of WIN, WIN, WIN. This game is always about ballancing a set of comprimises that give you the best opportunity to win now and win consistently. This is what building a program is about. You put enough pieces in place so that you can overcome all the excegencies created by academics, athlete durability, player turnover and so forth.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:05 AM ^
No, my friend, you miss the point.
Going for a TD at the end of the 1st half is not some sort of grand building block in a scheme to build character, send a message to fans, and break from tradition.
No, it is simply a desire to get into scoring position, to score points, and win the game.
You and Ellipses Man have the same problem - arguing these vague, grandiose points that don't really relate to the matter at hand. How the hell do graduation rates matter in terms of a playcall at the end of the 1st half? They don't.
You said RR called the play for these immeasurable notions like tradition and message. I said he called it because he wanted to win the game and felt that was a good option. You are the one missing the point when you bring in 'Spoon, grad rates, Beanie Wells, tradition, and academics.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:45 PM ^
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:00 PM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 9:43 AM ^
BUT ACADEMIC ISSUES ARE NOT IN PLAY WHEN RICH RODRIGUEZ CALLED THE PASS WITH SHERIDAN. Nor are graduation rates.
Where is the compromise? You stated that the decision to pass was based on a desire to "send a message" or "teach a lesson" or shit like that. No, we said, it's because he thought thay play call gave him the opportunity to win.
Then, you shift the target - "But winning isn't everything! What about graduation rates! Marques Slocum! Witherspoon! Growing character!". Yeah, Rodriguez is concerned with that. BUT NOT WHEN HE CALLED THE SHERIDAN PASS. When a coach calls a play it's because it helps him win - not because it helps the graduation rate.
I can't believe someone can be so obtuse.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:41 AM ^
I don't disagree with you that most on field decisions are made with the goal of winning the football game, and frankly I like the idea that Coach Rodriguez is willing to keep pressing, keep fighting, keep taking risks to get his team back into the game even when one might be tempted to run, run, run, punt and go to the locker room to regroup. I like what I see. I like the agressive approach to play calling. I like what I see in Coach Rodriguez. In hindsight, I think it was a good call, on various levels.
My point, though, is that these in game decisions happen with a larger context of program and the game itself. In the case of Michigan Football we are in a building process with a new coach who brings a new system/philosophy with him. I have a hard time beleiving that the necessities of program are completely forgotten the moment that he steps onto the field turf. Frankly, we are not in a place where we can expect to win. We are not ready to win, as evidenced by last Saturday. Coach Rodriguez has to develop his players such that they are at a level where they can reasonably be expected to win. Even though the Coach himself has said that he hates losing, and I am sure that he calls plays and expects his players to execute to win, we are in a position right now where our games are as much training as they are competition. He does not have the luxury of giving freshmen players game time experience after having run up the score. These freshmen are being thrown into the deep end and told to win races when they barely know how to swim.
I may be obtuse, and as much as the moment of the game and desire to win is primary, I have a hard time thinking that at this moment in the process of building a program, that experience, learning and training are not a part of the game plan as well when the team hits the field.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:53 AM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 12:02 PM ^
It is more likely that in the heat of the game, decisions are made with the goal giving your team the best chance to win...it is when you step back and look at the "meta-issues" that there are other concerns...
It is a Jungian thing...part of what inflences our decisions go beyond merely the necessities of the moment, they include such things as pesonality and even cultural archetypes or symbols. Why do you think that people were upset by the call to throw? It seemed to volate a "Michigan" cultural archetype, an archetype that guides decision making. An equally valid argument could be made from two [or more] different football "minsets" as to what is the best game time decision with the goal of giving your team the best shot of winning in this moment.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:08 PM ^
Actually when I was in school, I had an epiphany...I came to see that my university time was giving me the opportunity to get a great education, gave me access to great minds from which to learn and a great library from which to read. I figured it was more important to get an education that it was to get a degree [although I have one of those].
And not everyone gets a girl's number with the primary goal of getting into her pants...sometimes a differing set of values dictates a different set of goals on the playing field...but hey I assume that these things are lost on someone whose only goal is to "score" and "get a job."
:-)
September 4th, 2008 at 11:48 AM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 11:50 AM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 11:53 AM ^
Does that mean I win....after all...its all about winning :-)
September 4th, 2008 at 12:15 PM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 1:01 PM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 1:54 PM ^
The same person?
September 4th, 2008 at 1:52 PM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 1:56 PM ^
September 4th, 2008 at 2:08 PM ^
September 5th, 2008 at 3:13 PM ^
Anyone who thinks that a coach in a game down 5 points is trying to do anything other than win is fooling only themselves.
Someone made a point that if was about winning, only the starters would play. a valid point only if you don't have any ability to think at any depth. And depth is key. If you run the same 11 guys out every play, by the end of the game, they will be worthless.
RR used more players in the defensive front 7 than I have ever seen during a Michigan game. Result (when combined with Barwis), our defensive front 7, in particular our DL, looked fresh and in complete control of the LOS.
All coaches desire to win during the games, some just take different approaches. Carr always believed that he had the best team on the field and tried to eliminate the variability to enhance the likelihood of victory. A logical approach given the talent he had for most of his tenure. RR looks at the offense he has and realizes that every point is going to be sacred, so he must try to maximize the point potential of every possession. A very logical approach given the current state of the offense.
To assume that anyone knows what a coach is thinking other than tending to the task at hand, and on Saturday that task is winning, is foolish. And then regurgitating that philosophy ad nauseum to everyone else is foolish and, more importantly, annoying to everyone else.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:51 PM ^
September 25th, 2008 at 7:40 AM ^
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