A Full Eleven Warriors Blog on Rodriguez
So, I haven't been to Eleven Warriors, one of the better Ohio blogs, for about a month, or before the game in Columbus. I happened to run over, and whaddaya know, they have a full column by Johnny Ginter focusing on Rich Rodriguez and Michigan.
LINK: http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/12/17692/the-rodriguez-redemption#more
I guess this is what you can expect when they are going through a bowl ban and have nothing to write about in terms of Ohio football. The piece has been up for a day or so, is about Michigan, and actually references mgoblog and Brian several times. For some of you, it will be an interesting read.
I'm not going to put a whole bunch of quotes in: if you're interested, go to the link. If you're not, well, I didn't waste your time. Basically, Ginter goes through the whole thing of Rodriguez being a decent coach who made some missteps, was never given a real chance by Michigan, being both mistreated and having some rotten luck.
However, I'll put in two quotes that were intriguing.
So now you have a choice, Buckeye fans. Do you root for the guy, knowing that each successive victory angers the Wolverine fanbase in a vague, irritating way? Or do you root against him, forcing him to walk the earth as a shadow, forever branded with the mark of Cain that is Michigan football?
You can link to see which way Ginter goes.
The other quote is from a Michigan fan in the comments, regarding our blog:
You could send MGoBlog into a complete meltdown with this post. Not because it is in any way inflammatory; it isn't. But because anything related to Rodriguez now seems to divide Michigan fans. Through no fault whatsoever of Brian Cook (always fair to Rodriguez, and sometimes critical of Rodriguez such as when Brian Cook was about the first person anywhere to doubt the wisdom of Greg Robinson), the mostly anti-Rodriguez MGo readership -- with many notable exceptions -- sort of convulses in a denial of service attack whenever Rodriguez's name comes up.
I kind of agree with this analysis, and can see why Brian wants to just roll his eyes, disappear, and put his fingers in his ears when RR comes up . . . "LA LA LA LA LA LA I Can't hear you LA LA LA LA have you gone away yet LA LA LA LA LA."
Hopefully we'll be able to have rational and non-meltdown discourse on RR at some point in the future.
One thing for sure (unrelated to the Eleven Warriors Blog) is a terrible legacy of RR: his recruiting, even for the different "spread" scheme, has set Michigan back, and left Hoke at a disadvantage. It irks me to have heard the "cupboard bare" complaints about Carr, when Hoke and Mattison and Borges have not complained once (that I've seen) about the players they inherited, but have made do and coached them up.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:16 PM ^
They got fired from the pizza job for criticizing Luke Fikel's coaching, so they have plenty of free time now.
December 18th, 2012 at 7:35 PM ^
when DB ran Dominos into the ground and came here to be AD....
December 18th, 2012 at 3:39 PM ^
was worse last year than this year. They improved moderately. They literally have no athletes on the roster and had to play 5 walk-ons when almost every defensive players were hurt. Casteel have a great track record as a DC at WVU and it will stabalize once they get their own players.
December 18th, 2012 at 4:07 PM ^
Arizona is ranked 118th in total defense this year, last year they were 108th, so this argument doesn't hold up. The no athtletes excuse was played out by Rich Rod several years ago, especially when Hoke and Matisson came on board and turned it around in 1 season.
December 19th, 2012 at 2:32 PM ^
Arizona made improvement from last year where they're ranked in the 60s as opposed to ranked near dead last from the season before with Stoops
Michigan had good talent base on defense and didn't have to play a ton of freshmen.
December 18th, 2012 at 6:18 PM ^
Literally no athletes?? Vince Lombardi couldn't win under those circumstances!
December 18th, 2012 at 6:45 PM ^
Ugh. Please don't mention Casteel. It hurts too much.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:14 PM ^
Yes Hoke has somehow managed to muddle his way thru with the meh players like Denard, Kovacs, Martin, Roh, Lewan, Gardner, Ryan, Schofield, Demens, Countess, Morgan, Toussiant. RR had troubles with attrition and recruiting but it's impossible to judge since after the Freep disaster he had 1 armed tied around his back recruiting. To compare the talent he left to what he was given is mismatch considering the importance of a QB and LT to a program. RR inherited a solid defense and a disaster on offense. Hoke inherited an offense on the verge of going nuclear and a defense that consisted of Mike Martin, RVB, Roh and 20 or so freshmen or sophmores that had no idea how to play defense. Don't try and play that card.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:39 PM ^
Offenses on the verge of going nuclear win more than 7 games and score more than 7 pts on Ohio State...
Unless by nuclear you mean Fukushima.
December 18th, 2012 at 4:11 PM ^
It's true, all those players improved immensly once Hoke took over. Rich Rod shouldn't get all the credit, especially when you look at how and why our defense improved.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:15 PM ^
December 18th, 2012 at 1:18 PM ^
I don't root for Arizona because I am a Michigan fan. I didn't root for Florida when assistants went there, I didn't root for Iowa when Soup went there, I didn't start rooting for Harvard because Tommy wen there.
I root for Michigan, because I am a Michigan fan.
I will reserve judgement on how well RR will do at Zona. Looks to me that his teams still refuse to play defense, so until the day comes when they are winning with D rather than O, I will think his teams relivant.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:47 PM ^
Daughter Class of 2011 LSA, son class of 2014 University of Arizona. We root for Arizona (unless they play Michigan), went to the New Mexico Bowl, were not surprised by Nevada gaining 659 yards, but cheered for the exciting finish. We will see if the UA defense improves over time, or gets progressively worse.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:41 PM ^
There's only way direction that defense can go...
Kind of like our win total after RR's first year.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:20 PM ^
By my count, this post has been up for 21 minutes now and Section 1 hasn't commented. That's gotta be some sort of record.
December 18th, 2012 at 7:21 PM ^
in the mirror and say "Section 1" three times......
Also, I find it a tad ironic that the intent at snarkiness implies disdain, yet calling him out is sort of like an invitation for him to respond. If I was a shrink I'd suggest that, subconsciously, you actually yearn for his interaction.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:21 PM ^
If he loses from here on out it doesn't affect the Michigan football program, and if he wins from here on out it doesn't affect the Michigan football program. That's about all there is to say on the matter.
December 19th, 2012 at 7:56 AM ^
Unless we play them in the Rose Bowl next year.
I would love that game.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:26 PM ^
Wow, I disagree with that MgoBlog comment you blockquoted. This place had always been a bastion of Rodriguez loyalty. One would get neg-banged and howled at for daring to pipe up and question, oh I don't know, why our defensive staff didn't even use the same terminology under RR.
True, there's a contingent that is now just as fanatically loyal to Hoke, and equally unable to withstand any criticism, but it doesn't seem quite as fervent as the Rodriguez-fever this site had back in the day. Granted, that's likely because of stuff like the Freep and a part of the fanbase that never gave RR a chance.
Basically, what I'm saying is that if you really think that even MGOBLOG is somehow "anti-Rodriguez," you might be a little paranoid. This place has just moved on (well, except for His Dudeness).
December 18th, 2012 at 1:23 PM ^
All eleven warriors can kiss my ass. I couldn't care less if RR wins or loses at Arizona because Arizona football means nothing to me. The only time I will care about what Arizona does is if we play them. I do, however, find it interesting that Arizona's defense is a wretched tire fire.
December 18th, 2012 at 3:12 PM ^
December 18th, 2012 at 5:57 PM ^
I'm not aware of anyone making posts about SDSU basketball (why would they even do that?) or Eastern Michigan Football (Ron English?) on this site. Can you provide any examples?
December 18th, 2012 at 1:26 PM ^
when Brian Cook was about the first person anywhere to doubt the wisdom of Greg Robinson
I don't recall this being the case. In 2010, this site was really pushing the "Decimated Defense" idea (i.e., that the level of talent/experience on defense was too hopelessly low for any coach to make much of a difference). There were a few posters here who hated the Gerg hire right off the bat and were chastised away. (I know the poster who is a Syracuse grad was beside himself when we hired him.) It didn't become "acceptable" on this site to recognize that the man's defense was awful until the final weeks of RR's tenure, when it became clear that someone needed to be the fall guy.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:28 PM ^
Exactly, and then it became all about GERG, and not the inept defensive staff RR brought along with him.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:38 PM ^
December 18th, 2012 at 1:43 PM ^
But to be fair on this point I remember Brian being pretty skeptical from the very start about the hire. I don't know if he was the first, or being completely doom and gloom about it, but he rightly had some serious questions about it:
http://mgoblog.com/content/hello-defensive-coordinator-greg-robinson
http://mgoblog.com/content/greg-robinson-come-down
I don't want to get into how blame was divided or how it protected anyone. Just saying I have to give credit to Brian on this one.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:26 PM ^
December 18th, 2012 at 1:26 PM ^
I'd like to see the guy succeed. I think he's a hell of a football mind.
On the other hand, Scott Shafer's success at Syracuse irked me a good bit. I wasn't rooting against him, I just resented what that said about Michigan's program at the time.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:29 PM ^
"M Man" is the 11 Warriors version of RDT.
Every article I read over there seems to have a comment from him. I have a hard time believing that a Michigan fan spends that much time on a rival's message board.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:34 PM ^
December 18th, 2012 at 1:34 PM ^
Musings of the Day: Are there always 11 warriors on both Ohio's offense and defense? For example, would Terrell Pryor be considered a "warrior" in hindsight? If not, is that blog improperly titled? Also, shouldn't it be called the "12th Warrior" since its really a fan site and not a site used by the actual athletes themselves? Talk amongst yourselves . . .
December 18th, 2012 at 2:01 PM ^
Yeah, really it should be 22 Warriors, maybe more if you include the kicker and longsnapper (the only warrior punter I can think of is Zoltan the Great). Or maybe Urban's Circle of Trust is capped at 11.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:45 PM ^
See, now we can undertake some serious analysis. Technically, if you include the defense, placekicker, punter, longsnapper, and all the "extras" that play special teams only, it could be more like 30 special warriors. And if there are 30, are they really that "special?" I mean, if 1 or 2 or 3 rise above the many, the would probably deserve the "special" title. But if you include half of the team, are each of them really "special" technically speaking?
On the other hand, I assume the Ohio blog is calling the Ohio players "special" because they believe these players to be better than the players of other teams. If that's the line of thinking, isn't that inherently flawed? I mean, a lot of the kids that play for Ohio were recruited by other top-ranked programs but many were not. Some were recruited by lesser teams or not at all (walkons). So is the owner of the blog being dishonest or simply living in dream world?
(This is obviously "off-topic" to all those that want to rate it as such - I'm trying to get away from the F--- RICHROD or RODRIGUEZ RULES discussion.)
December 18th, 2012 at 1:35 PM ^
If any other school could win a national title other than M, I wish nothing more than for it to be a RR coached team.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:38 PM ^
One thing I do wish Hoke could have done was hire a spread OC to keep the Rich Rod offense intact. I realize that might not have been possible--but I'm not so sure. And if Hoke could have pulled it off, the thought of a 2010 type of offense paired with a Mattison defense still seems to me the best of both worlds. So as Rich Rod starts to rebuild his spread & shred juggernaut in Arizona, I do think there is some merit to the idea that UM fans will become envious--especially if we continue to struggleunder Borges.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:41 PM ^
'the thought of a 2010 type of offense paired with a Mattison defense still seems to me the best of both worlds."
Urban Meyer at Florida... 2 NCs.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:39 PM ^
I only talk about coaches who coach for Michigan.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:05 PM ^
...so he is just as a legitimate topic of conversation as Schembechler, Moelller, Carr, etc.
December 18th, 2012 at 6:02 PM ^
I think you missed the joke.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:40 PM ^
The cupboard was bare for RR because LC encouraged everyone to transfer. The cupboard was 80% full for Hoke because RR encouraged players to stay. Sorry if the truth "irks you," but it is parochial at best and petty/vindictive/ignorant at worst to compare the two situations as if they were equal.
RR left Denard and Devin at QB for Hoke. Carr "left" Steven Threet and Nick Sheridan. RR had to play a majority of underclassmen his three years, while Hoke inherited a majority of upperclassmen.
Are you really trying to say that the two situations were equal?
December 18th, 2012 at 1:59 PM ^
I didn't know that Carr encouraged everyone to leave. I thought there was debate as regards Mallett, because of his (lack of) fit for RR's system/scheme. But I didn't realize that Carr told the whole team to transfer out. I'm surprised, because I never got the sense that happened.
I didn't communicate well what I wanted to say as regards the players left for the new coach. I don't take issue with the thought that Carr left the cupboard bare, and was slacking on recruiting at the end of his career. More than saying that, I wanted to express that given both the paltry OL recruiting, and how many still remain from the class of 2010 (iirc,) RR also didn't do the best job of recruiting. In other words, the situation for BOTH incoming coaches was less than ideal. Comparisons are never "apples to apples." The difference in the QB situation left RR & Hoke, in particular, is stark. But I think some of the coaching, especially in the change from Gerg to Mattison, made a vast difference. Moreover, I do have the sense that RR, more than Hoke, threw some of his players under the bus. I think, with virtually the same guys on the kicking team, for instance, Hoke has done vastly better.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:14 PM ^
Just thinking in terms of QBs, would Hoke's first season been nearly as good if Denard had split town? Likewise, had Mallett been encouraged by Carr to stick around would that have been worth a few more wins in Hoke's first year?
Hoke is only two years into his tenure whereas Rodriguez had three seasons under his belt, but at this point I don't see a huge difference between the two except one having some good luck and the other having some bad luck.
It'll be interesting to see how things play out on a longer scale, say in 10 years. It's just as that possible Rodriguez gets his defense tighten up and has success as it is that Hoke's offenses continue struggle and he is forced into a downward spiral of OC hires. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
December 18th, 2012 at 5:23 PM ^
Carr Left RR:
Tim Jamison - Houston Texans
Terrance Taylor - Indianapolis Colts
Brandon Graham - Philidelphia Eagles
Jonus Mouton - San Diego Chargers
Morgan Trent - Cincinatti Bengals
Stevie Brown - NYG
Zoltan Mesko - New England Patriots
David Molk - San Diego Chargers
Stephen Schilling - San Diego Chargers
Mike Martin - Tennessee Titans
RVB - Carolina Panthers
Junior Hemingway - Kansas City Chiefs
Brandon Minor (Pracitice Squad: Bears, Saints Broncos)
Steven Threet: 208 of 336 for 2553 yards 18 td's and 16 int's before having to shut his carreer down due to concussions at Arizona State. Hardly Chopped liver (unless asked to run a run first read option spread)
I'm sure I'm forgetting other players that have played in the NFL or are now playing in the NFL that Carr recruited and left RR. The cupboard was far from bare. You have to be a complete Fck up to only win 3 games with that kind of talent.
RR in 3 recruiting classes will send maybe 5 guys total pro from Michigan. That's pathetic.
December 18th, 2012 at 6:05 PM ^
Strangely enough, Hoke and Borges might have actually preferred to have Threet over Denard at QB.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:42 PM ^
the cupboard being bare was the fact that he was under assault by Carr loyalists from the minute he took the job, whereas Hoke and Mattison were almost universally hailed as saviors. Also the restults on the field were completely opposite. Its not hard to see why RR would feel the need to be defensive about his work while Hoke did not have a similar need. Lastly, Brandon made it clear when he hired Hoke that he did not want anymore fighting between the factions so I would not have expected to Hoke to make any potentially disparaging comments and risk violating Brandon's call for unity.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:46 PM ^
All the Rodriguez years demonstrated was that no matter how strong or prestigious the athletic program, if you don't have the support of everyone behind you, it's very difficult to succeed. The fact that MIchigan is doing so much better under Hoke when everybody within the footbal program is pulling in the same direction as contrasted by the Rodriguez years, when people weren't, is not a coincidence.
December 18th, 2012 at 5:19 PM ^
No he wasn't.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:53 PM ^
Fuck Ohio State.
Fucking hillbillies.
That is all.
December 18th, 2012 at 2:09 PM ^
December 18th, 2012 at 1:56 PM ^
Why would RR's success irritate me? The whole premise of this article is dumb.