Is it the rest of the staff (Basketball vs. Football) ?

Keep all offensive coaches and get rid of all defensive coaches.  Start from scratch and stay hands off.  Let's beef up the defense and run a 4-3/3-4 base with an experienced staff.  That's my two cents anyway...

So let's toast to my FAIL!

I think basketball and football have enough differences coaching-wise that this analogy doesn't carry enough water to draw a conclusion.

It's also not as simple as just firing and hiring coaches. I personally think the position duties split between GERG and Braithwaite is a little awkward. Part of that is the overload of S/LB tweeners on the team, but I feel splitting up linebackers between multiple coaches regardless of their hybridity (is that a word?) puts them at a disadvantage towards working as a cohesive units. Same goes for safeties and corners.

Bruce Tall has done a fine job, especially when you consider the personnel. RVB especially has blossomed beyond expectations. Jibreel Black is improving fast.

In short, I feel coaching reassignment (at least among position coaches) might be more effective than cleaning house.

But there's nothing to say that the team wouldn't be succeeding with the previous coaching staff!!!!  There's a logical falacy at the heart of your argument and it verges on completely discrediting Beilein.

The hoops team's early success is the result of many, many factors.  Not just the coaching changeover.

I personally think that RR is too loyal to the 3-3-5 guys he brought over from WV to let them go by choice.  The only way I see a total change happening is if DB orders him to clean house.

RR doesn't want to be fired. If blind loyalty means that the defense continues to flail and fail, resulting in his firing, I think he will see the writing on the wall and change his coaching staff. DB will give RR enough freedom to both succeed and fail.

Now, it is possible that RR & Gerg think they are really close to succeeding on defense. As much as I like RR, I'm willing to let him make that call, good or bad, even if it eventually leads to his demise. From the outside, it doesn't seem to make sense, but hey, I'm not a coach, and I really don't know how far from success the defense is.

Its definitely the defense, don't know that robinson himself would necessarily have to go, but him being allowed to bring in his own coordinators and running his system (or at least something he looks comfortable running) could provide enough change to think of 2011 as a successful season for UM.  I don't see changing the DC alone as being capable of bringing about the change UM needs on defense, if that is all that changes I expect RR will be in the same position of limbo next season.

I may be a perv, but Brian should have totally used this when talking about reformatting (the infamous BSOD message.)

You say that Beilein "axed" the entire coaching staff, but that's not anywhere close to correct.  I won't go down the entire list, but just to list a couple...he didn't fire his son, Patrick.  He also didn't fire MIke Jackson, who chose to leave and moved on to Purdue, where he puts himself on possibly a faster path to a head coaching job.

The main "addition by subtraction" was in Manny's departure.  I love Manny's game, but the friction he caused within the program became a problem.  Manny might have "decided" to go pro, but I have it on excellent authority that he wasn't exactly encouraged to return.  I think the removal of a problem player, combined with Coach B's flexibility in stepping away from "his system" has greatly benefitted the team.

the whole defensive side of the ball needs a performance assessment.  Each individual coach should be graded.  I don't know what the grades would be, but we know what areas are lacking.  I feel that Gerg is gone.  It's his defense.  It may not be his scheme of choice, but he's the DC and needs to take responsibility for that side of the ball.  I think sweeping changes need to be made similar to when RR was brought in.  Michigan hired him and he chose to retain Fred Jackson only.  This should now be done on the defensive side of the ball.  A new DC comes in and gets to choose his new staff.  This could include some of the old staff, but most likely not all.  The scheme is then tailored to the players.  At this point, I believe a 4-2-5 or similar fits the current players.  The D will have a good amount of experience in 2011 and I would hope for an agressive style of play.  The youth excuse is out the window in 2011 and it's time to stop playing bend but don't break and letting teams steamroll the Michigan defense.  Looking at the 2011 roster, a full defense can be fielded with zero freshmen and many juniors and seniors.  By then it's time to start playing some man defense because clearly there is some sort of disconnect with the zone coverages.  I digress slightly, but you get the point.

In football, more than basketball, there is no substitute for having older players on your team.  The Fab Five proved long ago that a starting lineup consisting of all freshmen can get a basketball team to the Final Four.  There is no way that a football team could start all freshmen and even win a game in the Big Ten.

Alright would be all right for a tUOS grad. For a Michigan Man, all right is better.

If you want to compare seasons, could it just be that Michigan Basketball at 9-2 is like Michigan football at 5-0?

There's still a lot of season left before we can consider this year a success.  Although if we make it to .500 in the conference, given preseason expectations, I'd say we succeeded.

And then we'll pull a Michigan Hockey '10 and go into the tournmanet 7th seed and win it.

A couple comparisons that have been touched on in the responses could be promising for the D (in reading this, remember, I know basketball, I enjoy football):

- Coaching changes: Forced or unforced.  Beilein has publicly stated the improvement in D is a direct result of the addition of the new coach from Butler.  He has also publicly commented on the benefit of the new S&C coach.  Not publicly said, but from what I have seen, Bacari has had a great impact on the development of post play. D & O. 

- Let the football experts comment, but from my years of watching college football, a change in defensive coordinators can make an immediate impact.

- Personal development (coaches play a role here, but...) The one thing Beilein has stressed is that he now has enough  depth of quality players that if someone isn't working hard, they will go to the bench.  No matter how good a kid is, they always try harder if they truly believe they could lose playing time. 

- The football team should see a similar impact.  There will be much more quality depth on the D next year to go along with continued development.  This should lead to a bigger impact than just another year of development.

Hopefully all of this speculation leads to real improvement next year.

I took four years of German in high school. I had four different teachers, not because my high school had such a large German program, but for various reasons. I learned some things four times, and some things not at all. As a result, ich kann nicht sprechen sie deutsch, or something like that. There is something to be said for continuity. I really questioned what GERG was doing out there sometimes, but he had a very inexperienced cast to work with. I suppose he's got to go, but I'd like to see some guys retained so we're not starting over every where on the defensive side.