Michigan Museday Finishes That Thought
Michigan is 7-1 right now with four winnable games on the horizon. We have an excellent coaching staff and a team and fanbase united behind them. We have a top 5 recruiting class, yet one of the cleanest programs in the Top 25, and one of the hungriest. A victory over Ohio State this year for the first time seems at least 50% likely. The defense is young but competent, the offense scares people. We have all the Denards.
It took me three sessions to get through Three and Out, and after each one I had to repeat some variation of the above mantra to recalibrate. The book is about the program and the team from the perspective of Rodriguez, it has a hard Michigan bias and got at least one minor fact wrong,* but as an RR-era survivor I couldn't help experiencing it again as a fan. Reliving the Rod years is not a particularly enjoyable experience.
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* He gives the program credit for giving Kovacs, an out-of-state player, a scholarship despite out-of-state tuition being much higher, but the AD—and I'm 99.999% sure about this—pays the same (full) cost of attendance for every student athlete. Everyone costs the maximum whether they're suburban Toledo defensive backs, underclass volleyball strikers from Algonac, or intergalactic space punters in the B-school.
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What struck me most when reading Bacon's book was how important those years made this all seem. He mentions match points a lot; there were a lot of match points, and not just the football game ones. Like every article in every rag across the country that ragged on our coaches meant organizing a counter-defense. We were blogging for our very lives!
The second, and longest, of those sessions ended around page 415, or Location 8691 for you Kindle readers. Rodriguez was giving his speech at the infamous Bust, moments before the Great Groban-ing finally tipped the scales. 
I quote the passage:
"We all need to be ONE Michigan. One Michigan. Proud of every era. Proud of every young man, every student athlete who went through this program…
…
After giving a nod to Michigan tradition, he was now speaking of what his coaches were doing to turn their players into a team of Michigan Men. Now that he understood Michigan traditions, Michigan needed to extend him the respect he needed to lead the program…
…
The raw emotion of the speech went up a notch.
"Is this worth it?" Behind that question stood all the personal and professional costs of the past three years. "Is this worth it for your family?" he asked, getting choked up.
The answer wasn't clear-cut. It wasn't a matter of feeling sorry for yourself, he said, though the temptation was always there. It was instead seeing "the pain in the coaches' faces and worry and anxiety in your kids' faces." He wasn't speaking just of the losses but also of the personal attacks and the seemingly endless public trial he and his staff and players had been put through.
But, unequivocally, Rodriguez said, the answer was yes. Yes, it was worth it. It was worth it because the differences made in the lives of everyone attached to the program, said, and because of his unquestioning faith in the future greatness of his players and team.
And right there I had to painfully leave it for a day of work. I knew as well as you do where this was going, but without its infamous conclusion I got to ponder the content of the Bust speech and mentally fill in 
my own ending. In it I had him define "Michigan" and confront the idea of factions…
"If you ask me what side I'm on it's for these players, and the ideals of hard work, excellence, education, loyalty, and honesty which they embody—in a word, 'Michigan.' If you ask our own living legend, Lloyd Carr, who stood as a rock of integrity in a business that makes a mockery of it, what side he's on, it's 'Michigan.' If you ask our millions of fans and alumni what faction they're with, it'll be Michigan! Michigan! Michigan!" etc.
…and then come back to "Is it worth it," where "it" isn't just poor Rich and his staff but the players and the program. This is the thing that Hoke "gets" that Rodriguez didn't: there's nothing that can galvanize Michigan fans like talk about how great Michigan is, and the unity of the fanbase is all-important.
Of course he didn't take that tack but before he Groban-ed himself out of the job Rodriguez did give us a question worth pondering: "Was it worth it?"
Well was it? All the battles, all the interminable defenses, all the GERG and gimpy Gibsonesque defensive backing? The transfers, the divisiveness, the losing, the jihad—were these all worth it if that was the price to chip off the hubris from our program's unique idealism?
The RR years left us with a defense so bad it would literally need the Baltimore Ravens' D.C. and more than one outstanding freshman to even get to okay. It also left a team and a fanbase more united behind our program and our ideals than anytime in recent memory. We may have had to throw one of the rare good guys who can actually coach under the bus to get there, but we did get there. Other than a bit of whining last February, the mistakes made in the last transition have not been repeated, either inside Fort Schembechler or outside of it. The liars and the leaks were exposed. And these players, man. 
Can you remember a team more worth rooting for?
I got to the end of the book feeling more favorable toward Rodriguez than I was before, but ultimately, like Brian, still glad we've moved on from all that. But in some ways, I'm also glad he came. Because that subtext, the possibilities left unrealized at every match point, all the stuff that was on the tip of the tongue right before everything went Josh Groban, weirdly enough we got to keep all of that, and move on.
Michigan is 7-1 right now with four winnable games on the horizon. We have an excellent coaching staff and a team and fanbase united behind them. We have a top 5 recruiting class, yet one of the cleanest programs in the Top 25, and one of the hungriest. A victory over Ohio State this year for the first time seems at least 50% likely. The defense is young but competent, the offense scares people. We have all the Denards. Hoke and his staff have a lot to do with that, but a lot of that comes from what was built before them. In his own completely inelegant way, Rodriguez left a program in better shape than he found it. Perhaps that can be my last thought on him.
November 2nd, 2011 at 1:00 AM ^
I would rather have 10 returning starters than 1 who is a reshirt freshman. Also, Mallett in 2008 was not the same Mallett as in 2010 and 2011. The Mallett coming in as a starter in 2008 had a completion percentage around 40 and nearly as many interceptions as touchdowns.
November 1st, 2011 at 12:08 PM ^
Well, for one thing, RR recruited players who were willing to man up and work hard through a coaching change. Seniors who've played for no one but RR are leading the team instead of leading the revolt.
There were serious depth issues in 2008. The fact that there are still serious depth issues tells you just how deep the issues were. For the most part, RR recruited players where we needed them most - if you're thin everywhere, you can either shore up your worst groups or get slightly less thin everywhere. RR took the former approach, the wisdom of which can be debated (although Hoke is doing the same thing with the Oline), but with 3 full recruiting classes and a scheme change it's hard to get deep everywhere. It's a vicious cycle - you see a pending tire fire in one position group, so you recruit hard there. But your over-emphasis there leaves few players in another group for that class, and so on.
November 1st, 2011 at 5:11 PM ^
1. There is no excuse for the depth on the lines at this point. That is on RichRod. There are FOUR scholarship offensive linemen still on the depth chart from the last three recruiting classes. The list of defensive linemen signed by RichRod on this depth chart amounts to Roh, Campbell, Black, Ash, Wilkins, and Washington.
2. While the team may have lacked depth, the 2008 team was not universally thin on inexperienced talent. The offensive line and receiving corps had good young talent. There was certainly some major gaps in the recruiting leading up to Rodriguez's tenure, but it isn't true that it was thin everywhere.
3. What part of the team did Rodriguez choose to emphasize/
4. Brady Hoke is expected to bring in a HB, a FB, two WR, two TE, 6-7 OL, 6 DL, 4 LB, and 5-6 DB and already has a top QB prospect on board for next year's class. Brady Hoke is spreading the wealth around.
November 1st, 2011 at 11:33 AM ^
Very well said. Thank you.
November 1st, 2011 at 11:37 AM ^
I see many on here are saying they look at him differently and in a more positive light because of what's in this book. Many are also saying he was screwed over from the beginning and that, because of this, he was never viewed as a Michigan Man. He may have been screwed from the beginning, but he didn't help himself either. His problem was that he had to tell people that he was a Michigan Man. In my experience, if you have to tell somebody what type of person you are, you aren't actually that type of person. You need to have confidence in who you are and just BE that person. He spent too much time trying to convince people who he was. He always appeared to be desparate and unsure of himself. Like it or not, perception is reality.
November 1st, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^
RR was loyal to his team, fiercely dedicated to winning, an extremely hard worker, and apparently (at least with his players) well aware of the magnitude of Michigan's history. He was mentored by a Bo acolyte and grew up where Yost was from, fergodsakes. That such an individual was not considered a "Michigan Man" by certain segments of the fanbase says more about the fanbase than about the individual.
November 1st, 2011 at 12:06 PM ^
RR did pretty well financially by the University of Michigan. He was paid $2.5M per year coach's compensation ($1.95M cash + $550k deferred comp to retirement plan) for his three year's work. He also got $4.1M from the University to cover his WVU buyout ($2.5M to WVU plus the tax "gross-up" since the $2.5M was considered pay to RR even though WVU got the money). Plus he's getting $2.5M this year to not coach the team. In total, UM paid him $2.5M x 3 years pay + $4.1M for the WVU buyout + $2.5M for his UM buyout. That's $14.1M total for three years of work. And therefore why I, like Misopogon, have had my last thoughts about him.
GO BLUE!
November 1st, 2011 at 11:44 AM ^
Rumor: Manningham was not wanted back, even by Carr regime.
Hearsay: RR set 3 appointments to meet with Mallett, he never made one of them. He was yelled at at Wisconsin for changing the plays the coaches sent in. He would have gone to Arkansas to begin with, but did not like the coach. When that coach got fired, he transferred.
It is not RR's fault that some of the Michigan Men abandoned the Bo philosophy of the team to undermine him. Bo did not say the team, if you like the head coach.
So, we are not perfect, all in all, I would say we are better off.
I add the point that Hoke et al are better coaches now, than they were three years ago.
November 1st, 2011 at 11:47 AM ^
Haven't finished the book yet; not quite up to the Illinois basketball on turf game yet. I thought the book, because Carr and others weren't/refused interviewed, left somethings to conjecture. Epecially why Carr, after trying to get RR to come, became anti-RR. Why he let/pushed kids to transfer, etc.
I skip the RR debate. But it seems to me that RR's problem was he didn't understand that being a head coach is a bigger job than the X's and O's, breaking down film, or recruiting. Managing the program is a big part of it, and he had no interest or talent for it. It was all, "I just want to coach football, I don't want to deal with these distractions."
Wrong. It's about developing and running a program. That means dealing with administrivia, like paperwork on how much time your kids are practicing. It means dealing with past players and coaches. Dealing with alumni and donors. Fundraising, instead of begging for assistant pay raises and better practice facilities. Dealing with media, good and bad. Dealing with all kinds of crap that have nothing to do with X's and O's, but a lot about the quality of the program. A lot about winning happens off the field.
Bo understood that. I think Carr did. RR did not.
Charlie Weiss didn't either. Lots of great coordinators can't make that leap from coaching to managing a team. It's not just about the X's and O's, it's about the program.
November 1st, 2011 at 12:22 PM ^
I'm not so sure Bo understood those things either. The idea that Bo was a paragon of public relations is laughable. He was a fiercely loyal, hard-ass field general that (tough) loved his players and won games- nothing more and nothing less. The difference was 1) he won enough games that he didn't have to understand that other stuff 2) he coached in an era with less media and less money and 3) his AD had his back and handled that other stuff for him.
Also, RR was successful at alumni relations at WVU - go back and reread the book! He personally raised the necessary funds, for example, for a private plane for recruiting, but the AD shuffled the cash for another use. Begging for better things is exactly what a head coach should do, because he should care about his players and his staff having the best of everything. A coach is the public face of a program, but the AD controls the purse strings. Without a good AD backing him up, a head coach is doomed.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:08 PM ^
November 1st, 2011 at 4:33 PM ^
Cuz he was a West Virginia guy.
There are a lot of differences between here and there that he didn't understand. And didn't seem to bother to figure that out. He assumed that what worked there would work here, without bothering to understand the differences and figure out what he needed to do differently.
What did he do here? Success at WVU got him the job. Success at Michigan was needed to keep the job. Michigan was above his level of incompetence.
Bo ran the AD more than the AD ran him. Bo made sure shit got done and he had what he needed to win games on the field. Bo knew he needed to worry about more than the X's and O's if he was going to win games.
I like RR much better after reading the book, so far anyway. But his inability to understand and adapt to the environment around him, to simply keep doing what he'd always done, doesn't score high on the Darwin Scale. Adapt or get your ass fired. Welcome to the Big House.
Nice guy. Great football guy. But wrong fit for Michigan.
November 1st, 2011 at 11:52 AM ^
This is my favorite of the many commentaries on "Three and Out" that I've seen on this site, because I went through the same emotional rollercoaster you describe, and come to a similar set of conclusions.
Rodriguez was a good guy, a guy worth rooting for and a guy who got a raw deal. At each of the "match points," the pivotal moments where his teams sank rather than rose, things could have been different. I found myself, once again, hoping against hope that they would have turned out differently, that our 2008 squad could have won against Toledo, Utah and Purdue; that our 2009 squad could have pulled off the wins at MSU and Iowa, that we'd scored that TD in the 3rd quarter against Illinois, and that we'd held against Purdue. Things would have been so different; they almost were.
But then again, they weren't, and moving on was clearly the better thing to do. Hoke may not have been the coach everyone wanted last January, but he's mostly kept the things RR developed that worked, and shown that he knows how to do some things RR wasn't really all that good at, like getting a competent defensive staff together.
November 1st, 2011 at 12:10 PM ^
If I had to sum up Michigan in one word, it's tradition. So hopefully all the RichRod "Michigan Man" stuff can refocus the fanbase on where we came from and what "The Michigan Difference" is. It's not monetizing every aspect of the gameday experience to be financially competitive. It's celebrating Yost, Bo, Crisler and all the players that made our tradition of excellence.
How Dave Brandon can see that well enough to hire a guy like Hoke to unite the fans and not see it well enough to bust out new uniforms for the State game is beyond me. And I'm firmly in the camp that tradition supercedes what the recruits/players want. You are the team, the team is not you.
November 1st, 2011 at 12:49 PM ^
"We have a top 5 recruiting class, yet one of the cleanest programs in the Top 25, and one of the hungriest."
Is it just me, or does it sound a little strange to self-proclaim a 'cleanest program' when you're currently on probation? You can blame the Jihad or anything else that helps get you through the night but the reality is that RR came into an unblemished program and left it with a big wart.
RR didn't leave the program in better shape than he found it. The team wasn't on probation when he got here and it was on probation when he left. That answers the question by itself.
In terms of depth, I'd call it a push. Michigan was uncharacteristically thin when RR took over in 2008. It's not much different now. The offensive line needs to reload (Hoke has done that) and the the defensive line is a big question mark for next year.
Does anybody really think that it's a coincidence that Michigan will pull in a Top 5 class as soon as RR goes? It's not. He never exploited the true advantages of Michigan (Midwest recruiting, tradition, NFL pipeline, brand....). It's fine that he did things his own way.....we all see that he paid a price in the end.
I understand that RR didn't come into an ideal situation and some of the cards were stacked against him. At the end of the day, it was a failed experiment. Hoke has come in and we're magically seeing "Michigan football" again. It's time to let those three years go and move on.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:10 PM ^
Innocent after proven innocent, I always say. The only thing Rodriguez did that got Michigan put on probation is be the guy that Rosenberg and Snyder disliked enough to make accusations.
That story brought the investigators in here with an army of combs and all they turned up were a form that only Michigan used and which the coach was not supposed to be involved with, and the stretching thing for which the university was waiting on guidance from NCAA. In college football this is about as clean as it gets.
I've been through environmental inspections and safety inspections on the rare and rarer occasions those federal agencies actually send out inspectors (like NCAA, it only happens after there's a story). Or like your mother visiting your college apartment--even if you're the neatest kid on campus there's always something to find.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:18 PM ^
what's posted on this board? Did you read the book?
From the book, it is clear that the violations were not caused by RR and that, if anything, he had absolutely nothing to do with them. And, they were trivial. So, if you want to worry about their stain, go right ahead. I wish they had not occurred, but from the book, it is clear that everything that was discovered in 2009 went back to the Carr years and that the administration did nothing to help minimize the damage.
The book also makes it clear that Carr did nothing to help and quite a bit to harm. What a guy! He gets paid $400K by Michigan to be a figurehead and can't even do a reasonable job of that, instead doing everything he can to undermine RR and NOTHING TO HELP HIM. As the book makes clear, Bump Elliott did everything in his power to help Bo. Carr did absolutely nothing to help RR. Yet some people still want to believe that Carr is a Michigan Man and RR is not? Amazing.
As to teams, when RR came in, there was 1 returning starter on offense. Think that may have made things a little difficult? As you may recall, he started a walkon. Hoke got all of the offensive starters back from one of the best offenses in the country in 2010.
If you bothered to read the decimated defense articles from this board, you would know that RR inherited some players for 2008 with no one to replace them in 2009 and beyond. Hoke inherited a great many terrific players who, with coaching, are showing themselves to be able to hold down the fort.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:43 PM ^
It looks like you're drunk on MGoBlog Kool Aid.
RR inherited multiple experienced offensive players including Mallet, Boren, Schilling, Mitchell, Ciulla, Mathews, Minor, Brown and Butler and more than one of them started games in 2007. You can argue that some players left the program but that's irrelevent to the discussion. It's about the depth of the roster at the time of transition.
The Decimated Defense was the single biggest joke that I've read on MGoBlog. Graham, Warren, Brown, Mouton, Trent, Jamison, Johnson and Taylor all spent some time on NFL rosters. Almost the ENTIRE starting defense had NFL caliber talent to some extent. That's waaaaay more raw talent than Brady Hoke was left on defense for this year.
RR started a walk-on? That's your argument? That's even further proof of RR's failures as a coach. He was given Ryan Mallett. OK, so Mallett was on his way out the door. He was given Steven Threet. (a RS freshman). Threet was clearly a better QB than Sheridan. No, he wasn't the second coming of Chad Henne but he wasn't a walk-on either. RR did that to himself. It's not something that the previous administration forced on him.
RR chose his own path and it lead him to two sub .500 seasons and the three worst defensive teams in the 100 year history of Michigan football. He took the road less traveled and it lead him out the door.
November 1st, 2011 at 2:55 PM ^
It looks like you're just drunk.
November 1st, 2011 at 3:54 PM ^
I think you're being contrarian for the sake of it.
Like how you said you read the Decimated Defense series yet don't seem to know what it said (which is that you can have Penn State-like recruiting or Alabama-like attrition but not both). It didn't say anything about the 2008 defense and Carr wasn't called to task any more than RR -- it did say there were some major holes in defensive back and linebacker recruiting that would not have been a problem but for major, nobody-at-fault style attrition before and after Carr left. It applies to 2009, when half of the dudes you just mentioned were already graduated. And besides, it said anything that happens to the D-line is RR's fault -- D-line was fine.
As for Threet, we saw him as a (RS) freshman at Michigan and we have seen his career at Arizona State, and no, he is not a BCS-caliber quarterback. I thought Threet was better than Sheridan, but he was nowhere near serviceable. Guy couldn't throw a screen. He also would get thrown off when under pressure and that O-Line wasn't built to keep a QB clean. The O-Line was in the middle of rebuild mode no matter who took over the program; DeBord was shifting to a zone blocking scheme at the time (Molk and Huyge were recruited for it) and after whiffing on all of their best candidates in 2007 they were going for broke in the 2008 class (Mealer, Wermers, O'Neill, and Khoury were already in the fold when Carr retired). However this still meant a line in trouble with the graduation of Long and Kraus. Ciulla and Mitchell were terrible in '07. The loss of Boren didn't help matters, but it was really the injuries to Zirbel and Moosman that took the line from mediocre to bad.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:08 PM ^
These are just my comments as folks either forget things things or do not bother to read the author of mgoblogs articles.
There is this dispute about how good UM's team should have been in 2008. Some say the defense was good. The reality is the preseason polls put UM around 50th or worse. The Steele Magazine which is usually most accurate had us even lower. Regardless of how good a coach R^2 may have been, those who evaluate football talent thought the 2008 team was pretty crummy. The Manninghams and Mallets might have bugged out because they realized the team was not very good.
The author of this site has gone into excrucitating detail examining the other destruction of the 05 through 07 recruiting classes. Part of this was bad recruiting and some bad luck. The reality is even today the Hoke staff is having to make due with Carr's recruits. Ideally most of your starters should be 4th and 5th year seniors. With the exception of a few players in the 08 class, R^2 was evaluated based on the play of his 2nd year players. If the previous staff did a terrible job recruiting, of course the defense is going to be terrible. I believe the auther of mgoblog would agree with the statement Carr;s staff did a terrible job recruiting the last few classes.
There are those who say the program has improved. I would say this. What games has a Hoke coached team won that a R^2 team did not? WMU, SDSU, Minehaha, Purdue, and NW are all teams that would have been destroyed by the spread&shread. For whatever reason R^2 seemed to have ND's number. If R^2 got lucky against ND, so did Hoke. The Hoke staff inherited a team that went from one of the youngest teams in the Big10 to about average. I think it is reasonable to say that a genius like Mattison is better then the GERG. Yet I would also say the offense has taken a major step backwards. Borges gimicks seem to work against inferior teams but he was completely helpless against MSU. If R^2 were still coach I could easily see this team right where it is today at 6-1 and heading towards 9-3 or 10-2. Hoke has an opportuntiy this week with an Iowa team. Then again Iowa is pretty bad this year. I would like to see a victory against Nebraska or OSU before I say were better off.
College football has also changed even in the last few years. It is hard to consistantly stay good. Just in the last couple years we have observed powerhouses Florida and Texas fade despite on paper big recruiting classes. It seems to be harder then ever to consistantly stay good year after year. A few bad breaks and everything falls apart.
However, what bugs me the most is the destruction of my Camelot. I'm sure it was all an illusion. But I loved my illusion that Michigan was special and unique in the football world. Then Sir Lanecelot slept with the queen because the king was a boor and the Knights of the Round Table were jerks about it. The infighting and backstabbing made me realize that Michigan is no longer special. Its just the team I grew up rooting for and I can't say it is better then anyone else's program. I still root for Michigan. But the victories are no longer so special and the defeats so bitter. I will no longer do a happy dance around the living room after Michigan pulls out a great win, or threaten the TV with immediate destruction after a terrible lost. Lloyd Carr and his cronies disolved the illusion. Maybe it would come back many years later. But for me it is only a game. If we had all been united behind our coach it probably would have worked out.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:20 PM ^
Well, from your list...Northwestern for one. (Purdue 2 out of 3 times, too).
But I like the Camelot reference.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:13 PM ^
I think you mean "in awhile".
November 1st, 2011 at 2:14 PM ^
... is what it says, tho not the most carefully worded sentence in the piece I'd agree. I think it's meant to read as internal monologue, so run-on sentences might be appropriate for the style. I actually had to see the section repeated near the end before I took it's meaning.
November 1st, 2011 at 1:29 PM ^
.. that's a question we all have to ask ourselves.. mostly at the buffet table though
November 1st, 2011 at 1:49 PM ^
After finishing Three and Out I was so disappointed the way the University's Administration and Athletic Department handled the 2007 search, the hiring, the Freep mess, and the firing and second search, that I was literally stunned. But maybe the University will learn.
The school should never again hire an AD who wasn't a coach, or AD at another school with a successful record of hiring coaches and conducting coaching searches. We need to be through hiring amateurs who are merely businessmen or marketing professionals like Martin and Brandon, despite their good works. If things need to be built or marketed, then create a position for them for that purpose.
Michigan should never allow a retired coach to have a position in the athletic department unless he's the AD. This might have reduced Carr's influence and ability to reflect his displeasure. It should never offer the players a transfer unless they need it for individual reasons.
Finally, all this "transparency" regarding an investigation doesn't mean that the school leaves the coach to his fate in the media. It should offer reasonable support. The school, not just RR, suffered because it didn't do that.
The AD should have a professional PR consultant who works with a coach who's having trouble connecting with the media. Decent PR advice would have saved the school a few headaches and a lot of embarrassment.
Finally, those of us who took Michigan's greatness for granted for the last 42 years need to appreciate how difficult it was to achieve that greatness and sustain it. It took all that time to build and sustain, and yet only a few months for the program to go into the tank in 2008.
November 1st, 2011 at 2:41 PM ^
FWIW, I didn't read the reference to the $50,000 out-of-state cost of attendance as being the amount that the AD generously forked over, but that the scholarship was a big deal because that's how much Kovacs and his family were paying prior to the scholarship.
November 1st, 2011 at 3:24 PM ^
It’s hard for me to enthusiastically root for an organization that conducts itself the way the football program did the last 3.5 years. I know right from wrong and the way RR was treated throughout was wrong all the way to the end. They couldn’t even fire the guy in a decent way.
For DB to not give RR or anyone he hired Gator Bowl rings is petty and classless in my opinion. Even if he didn’t like RR or think he was a good coach no one can argue he tried his hardest under very difficult circumstances and to slap him in the face like that on the way out the door makes me sick.
Another thing that John U Bacon said at his book signing really stuck with me. He said RR made mistakes and Martin made more but there was no disputing they wanted Michigan to win every game and that is more than he can say for many other “Michigan Men.” He also said in the 100 plus years of Michigan Football he has studied there was no other time where people within the program were working against it.
These people (Michigan Men) are still alive and well within the program and some of them are now the biggest cheer leaders.
I personally can’t just forget all this and let it go like it never happened. It was wrong.
November 1st, 2011 at 3:50 PM ^
I can see it already. Four years from now, when "all is in place" and our John Narvarresque QB is standing in the pocket and Michigan is running off tackle 25 times a game, folks will be clamouring for the next RR to come to town - only they will be asking him to keep Mattison aboard.
November 1st, 2011 at 4:15 PM ^
RR will be leading a different university towards a national championship. I will be cheering for him, unless he is playing against us. The book makes clear what a good guy he is, full of integrity and loyalty, unlike the insiders who he was so naive as to trust.
November 1st, 2011 at 4:16 PM ^
While you are certainly entitled to your opinion that Rodriguez left the program in a better state than when he arrived, there probably isn't a fanbase that collectively believes that anywhere in this country. Michigan included.
November 1st, 2011 at 5:45 PM ^
Just finished "Three and Out" and it is worth reading. It isn't "Season on the Brink", "Education of a Coach" or "Our Boys" nor is it "Friday Night Lights", but is pretty interesting.
There is one small factual error which die hard Michigan falls should catch. On page 318 in the chapter "Eleven as One", the brilliant run of DR against Notre Dame in 2010 is described - but erroneously describes him as starting from the IRISH 13. He was on the MICHIGAN 13 - allowing him to make that 87 yard burst for a TD.
For now this is the closest most of us will come to ever knowing what happened behind the scenes. Unless Martin, Brandon, Coleman or Carr write about this time in the future, we may never know much more.
The book should be read by anyone who is stepping into a large managerial job laden with tradition and legacies. Developing relationships with the many factions and powers is part of that job.
Winning more and winning more against certain teams would have probably saved RR. But if he had a better relationship with the various power groups, he probably would have gotten another year.
Doubt very much that we'd ever see something like this come out of other FB powers. Does anyone for a nanosecond believe we'll ever learn anything close to the truth about Tresslgate?
November 1st, 2011 at 5:51 PM ^
Appreciated your reviews and thoughts... They've definitely made me want to get the book to read the details and help crystalize my own thoughts about the RR era. I went to pick up the book from Barnes & Noble but it's currently back ordered.
I've got an almost tangential question from your posting - Do you really believe that the OSU game this year is at least a 50-50 proposition? For me, I believe that it's the first time in a long time that it will be non-zero, but 50%? Just curious why you think our chances are that high?
Like I said - tangent to the main thrust of your post. Thanks for all the review work and sumary on the book.
November 2nd, 2011 at 11:16 PM ^
I think it's 50-50 because:
- At the Big House, which has been all kinds of loud this year and where Michigan has beaten the spread every game so far.
- Michigan has played better than Ohio State thus far this season.
- The QB edge. We have a junior QB who was a fringe Heisman candidate last year, while they're probably going to start Braxton Miller who is not all that different from 2008 Terrelle Pryor, i.e. scary on the five rollout runs but also very hesitant and freshman-y.
- The defense keeps getting better every game.
- The offense is just plain good.
- Hoke "gets it" stuffy stuff. They're saving packages, doing the psycho things that you do to overprepare for a rivalry.
- OSU has little to play for and a lame duck coach loses his team as the season goes on.
- Karma. It's been building up inside-a-me for oh I don't know how long.
- Cats.
Michigan's one loss this year came at the absolute worst time, but that was a very competitive game despite Michigan having Denard throw a billion back-foot duckies in a trash tornado. At Michigan State is a tougher game this year than Ohio State at Michigan.
November 1st, 2011 at 6:42 PM ^
I like your parting thoughts. They somehow give it all closure. Thank you.
November 1st, 2011 at 6:45 PM ^
There is a lot of anger at Carr and some at Brandon that I just don't get. There are at least 4 people/goups who I'd give more resposibility for RR's problems
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<br>Martin - not only did he screw RR, but he probably screwed Carr too. If he'd let Carr leave when he wanted too, Carr wouldn't have the Horror on his record (and Michigan might not either. Given the demands of the position, it isn't surprisiing that both recruiting and preperations suffered a bit in 2007. In a job where you are probably falling behind putting in 12 hour days, a coach that isn't all in isn't good for him or the school.
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<br>The Freep - what more needs to be said
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<br>Parts of the Michigan Compliance staff - wow, what were rhey thinkin
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<br>RR himself
<br>- 2008 - to a large extent I think his belief that his system takes years to get in place was a self- fulfilling prophecy - when a bunch of seniors feel that you are really playing for the future, is it surprising they aren't all in?
<br>- the defense - despite all the other setbacks, if his defense had merely met expectations, I think he'd still be here. It is shocking how little thought went into his DC pick, not pnce, but twice. And how did Gerg stick around for 2010?
November 1st, 2011 at 9:44 PM ^
Martin is absolutely the number one villan. When he did his media blitz after hiring Rodriguez he said the football team was in need of a change. He had no idea what he was talking about, no idea what he was putting at risk (no appetitie for losing/rebuilding at Michigan), no idea of the former players he was alienating, no idea of what plank he was walking Rodriguez down, no idea what even made the program.
November 1st, 2011 at 9:31 PM ^
dynamic. What did GERG say after 2009 to get another year?
What were the weekly discussions like between RR and GERG with the dumpster fires burning in the background?
What efforts did RR take to extinguish the special teams dumpster fire in particular?
Ultimately RR was " 3 and out" because of the tremendous underperformance and mismanagement of the defense, not because of the Freep hatchet job or Lloyd "Braun" Carr's conspiratorial plotting. Yet there is basically no insight into this in the book, I understand Bacon and his sympathies towars his leading man but leaving this pertinent information out of the book does his readers and the Michigan fanbase a huge disservice.
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