Three And Out Q&A: Part Two Comment Count

Brian

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[ED: Make that three parts. Coming Friday: “What does ‘Michigan Man’ mean anymore,” and “What’s next?”

If you live under a rock, John Bacon was embedded in the program the last three years and has written a book about this. It is called Three and Out.]

First, thanks to everyone for your interest, including some 400 readers asking more than a thousand questions. (And big thanks also to Brian for sorting through all those questions and combining them into the most popular categories.) I was not surprised to see they were very smart and often got beyond the surface of the situation, frequently forcing me to re-think the whole thing, when I thought I was long done thinking another thought about the last three years.

 

3. Were the "fit" issues real?

One of the central questions that came up in various forms was the “Fit, or Lack Thereof,” as Brian reduced it.

I’ll start by working backward, from the final seconds of Rodriguez’s regime. On January 5, 2011, the assistant coaches, staffers, and yours truly were all sitting in the coaches’ meeting room, when Rodriguez walked in, laid a file down on the table, and said, “Well, as expected, they fired me.” He later added, “It was a bad fit here from the start.”

And in many ways it was. I’m not certain it had to be.

People who were living in Ann Arbor in 1968 can tell you about the last outsider to take the reigns: Bo Schembechler. His predecessor, Bump Elliott, was a former Michigan All-American who was smart and humble, with an urbane, conservative manner. He didn’t yell at his players, he rarely swore, and if you said you were hurt, that was enough for him.

When Schembechler’s crew arrived with their wives sporting beehive hairdos and stiletto heels, some Michigan insiders took to calling them “The Ohio Mafia.” The players quickly learned the new guy yelled, swore, grabbed your facemask and literally kicked you in the ass. If you were merely hurt, not injured, but didn’t want to practice, you got left behind when the team plane took off.

Instead of turning his back on the new regime, however, Elliott embraced them, hosting parties for their families and introducing them to important people around town. He did not allow players to come to his office in the Athletic Department to complain about the new guy, either. And when Schembechler delivered what today would be an unforgivable comment about changing “Michigan’s silly helmets,” Elliott, Don Canham, Fritz Crisler and Bob Ufer quietly taught him Michigan tradition.

And, to Schembechler’s credit, he was wise enough to listen, and even seek out their help.

When Michigan upset Ohio State that year, they gave Bump Elliott the game ball, and there was not a dry eye in the room.

That’s Michigan at its best. The last three years were not.

Rodriguez had never been to Ann Arbor before his first press conference, and it was clear he had not prepared, nor been coached – a noted contrast to Brady Hoke’s introduction, when his rehearsed lines won over many doubters.

To cross this chasm, neither Michigan nor Rodriguez did enough, soon enough. I believe Rodriguez should have learned more about Michigan faster than he did, but I also believe he received little guidance. Readers will likely be struck by how often Rodriguez invoked Michigan’s traditions – the helmet, the banner, the rivals – when he talked to his team. And he could have helped his cause by reaching out to sympathetic Michigan groups like the M-Club, filled with loyal supporters who could have helped him when trouble hit.

Both sides of this marriage could have learned a lot from the other. Rodriguez could have gained the kind of polish Michigan usually applies to its players and coaches, much as it did for the initially rough-hewn Schembechler. And Michigan’s famed arrogance – occasionally succumbing to rank snobbism during the Rodriguez regime – could have been softened with some of Rodriguez’s down-home friendliness.

I suspect both sides have learned a great deal since, manifest in Michigan’s almost universal support for Brady Hoke. He isn’t exactly Bump Elliott, either, but he’s been accepted as a true “Michigan Man.”

(More on that Friday.)

 

4. What was so hard about the transition?

Everyone knows the transition was poorly handled – but it was actually much worse than you think, marked by a lack of preparation, communication, and transparency, not to mention severe undermining of the process and the candidates. It resulted in the famously unified Michigan football family fracturing before Martin named Rodriguez Michigan’s next coach – and it only got worse afterward. For his part, Rodriguez naively assumed he was walking into the same program Schembechler had created.

Rodriguez also made a crucial miscalculation: He honestly believed that the bigger the program, the less time the head coach has to deal with peripheral duties like connecting with former players, alumni and fans – when the opposite is true. The head football coach at Michigan, Texas or Alabama, is, in a very real sense, the leader of that school.

That said, it’s worth remembering: Michigan was hiring Rodriguez, not the other way around. It is the employer’s job to set their employees up for success, and at that central task, Michigan failed badly.

But I still believe that nothing would have helped more than Bo Schembechler continuing to lead the family. When he passed away, Michigan lost more than a coach. It lost its spiritual leader – and five years later he has still not been replaced.

If there were any doubts before that Bo did more than anyone to keep Michigan football at the top, even long after he retired, his absence erased them for me.

 

5. PRETTY MUCH THE Q: Who does John Bacon blame for the last three years?

I know: you want to know what happened to the defense, and who is most to blame for the disappointing last three seasons.

It’s not hard to identify a handful of contributing factors, all of which were necessary, but none sufficient to guarantee failure. We have a dozen variables in both cases, but no control group, so it’s ultimately impossible to be completely certain what, precisely, was the most important straw.

Nonetheless, if I don’t feed the bulldog something I’ll probably get my hand bitten off, so here goes.

Let’s start with the defense. When people ask if the shockingly poor performance was the result of inheriting weak talent, transfers, a stretch of freak injuries, youth or coaching, I say: Yes. It is simply impossible for your defense to drop to 68th then 82nd then 110th without all those factors playing a part. But the hardest to tease out is coaching.

We do know a few things, however. Failing to get Jeff Casteel was much bigger than probably anyone realized at the time. Bill Martin failed to pony up a few more bucks and a guaranteed contract to get him, while Rodriguez—who would not come to Michigan without Mike Barwis and the promise of a million-dollar weight room—was apparently willing to leave without his defensive coordinator. If he could do it again, he would probably insist he wasn’t coming to Michigan without his trusted defensive coordinator.

After that, Michigan never gave Rodriguez sufficient bait to get his top choice to replace Casteel. When Scott Shafer and Greg Robinson arrived in Ann Arbor, they inherited a staff of strangers who had been loyal to Rodriguez for years. Shafer and Robinson are both decent guys who’ve been successful elsewhere, but it clearly didn’t work at Michigan.

At the end of the day, however, the head coach is responsible for his team’s performance, and that obviously includes defense.

Likewise, there was no shortage of variables contributing to Rodriguez’s demise. The long list includes: the horrible transition; his Honeymoon from Hell (including overblown PR problems over buy-outs, departing players, and even shredded papers); his 3-9 debut; the Free Press feature and subsequent NCAA investigation; the string of four crucial losses in the middle of 2009 and three in middle of 2010; and the final Bust. Obviously, some of those are on Michigan, and some on Rodriguez.

The Rodriguez reign was fatally damaged by two main causes: the harm done by detractors inside and outside the program, and his own missed opportunities – from PR problems to those seven lost match points in 2009 and 2010, any one of which would probably have been enough to deliver him to a new era when he could focus more on football than survival. In particularly, I believe the 2009 game against Illinois, which blew up when Michigan failed to score on a first and goal from the one-yard line, marked the Continental Divide of the Rodriguez Era.

So, it’s not true that Rodriguez had no chance. He had seven. It is true, however, that his chances were greatly diminished by detractors inside and outside the program.

Assigning blame essentially boils down to weighing the factors above. But on one crucial point – really, the most important of all – there is absolutely no shade of gray whatsoever. Rodriguez, his staff, and his players (after the 2008 team graduated) worked extraordinarily hard to win every game.

Some powerful insiders, however, were working just as hard to see them fail. That is not a matter of degree. It’s a clear-cut, black-and-white difference – something I have never seen in all my years researching Michigan’s long and admirable history. But the people who suffered the most were the least to blame: the players.

As former offensive line coach Greg Frey told me, while driving to Mott Hospital one night, “I think about guys like Moosman and Ortmann and Brandon Graham. Man, those guys work their asses off. They care about their teammates. They stayed. They get pushed aside in all this, and that’s all right? That’s sad.”

When Angelique Chengelis of The Detroit News asked Ryan Van Bergen how it felt to see hundreds of alums returning to support the new coach, he said, “You know, it’s kind of unsettling… It’s great they’re back, but it’s kind of, where have they been the last two or three years? We’ve still be wearing the same helmets since they were here.”

Who deserves how much blame can be debated. Who was working against the Wolverines, and who suffered the most because of it, cannot be calculated.

Comments

FrankMurphy

October 18th, 2011 at 5:46 PM ^

Two of the most surprising and interesting revelations in this book are that Les Miles actually wanted the job but asked Michigan to wait until after the NCG and that it was actually Lloyd who suggested Rodriguez as a possible candidate.

I remember that after Lloyd's retirement became a foregone conclusion but before he actually announced it, there was an article written (I think by Jim Carty in the Ann Arbor News) claiming that Lloyd was intentionally timing his announcement such that it would be difficult for Martin to hire Les Miles to replace him. Lloyd was so perturbed by that insinuation that he specifically addressed it in his press conference, claiming that his timing was related to salvaging the recruiting class, not any other reasons. But given that Lloyd tried to retire in January after the '07 Rose Bowl but was talked out of it by Bill Martin and Mary Sue, I don't think that theory is far off. When Lloyd retired on 11/19/07, LSU was 10-1 and had the inside track to the NCG. It would have been extremely difficult for Miles to leave LSU or even talk to Michigan under such circumstances. Then when LSU lost to Arkansas on 11/23 and threw the BCS into uncertainty, it opened the door for Miles again and led Carr to start actively pushing other candidates like Ferentz and Rodriguez. Miles might still have gotten the job if WVU had just beaten 4-7 Pitt and gone on to the NCG instead of 2-loss LSU, which recovered from Arkansas by beating Tennessee in the SEC Championship Game on 12/1/07. I'm glad we didn't hire Miles with his massive character issues, but it's interesting to note how close we came to doing so.

Pat White's injured thumb and two missed WVU field goals on 12/1/07 were the 'butterfly effect' that swapped the destinies of Les Miles and Rich Rodriguez and forever changed the future of Michigan football.

Section 1

October 18th, 2011 at 3:35 PM ^

I see a lot of people piling on Lloyd Carr with comments like, "I hate Lloyd Carr..."

Now I am one of the more vociferous Rodriguez defenders that you will find anywhere.  And I am not happy with Carr.  You cannot read this book and be happy with Carr.  Well maybe if you are Eric Mayes you can.  But I digress...

So here's my point with respect to Carr. I want to remind everyone,  Just as John U. Bacon has in his book, that Carr declined to be interviewed for the book.  As is Carr's absolute right.  He may have a story to tell, his own story, that hasn't been heard yet.  I have never looked for any excuses to dislike or disrespect Coach Carr.

But if Carr has a story to tell, he should tell it, and then he should answer any questions about it.  Maybe he's got his own book in mind and didn't want to spill it in Bacon's book.  However my position is that sunlight is the best antiseptic, and I submit to anyone who might like to side with Carr -- Carr can't expect any sympathy unless he will answer questions.

Hokester

October 18th, 2011 at 3:52 PM ^

Very thankful to Brian and John for bringing this to the site and allowing us a little more insight.  (pre-ordered my copy, btw, and can't wait to get into it.)

That said, without going through every post from the three pages I have a general question that maybe can't be answered or is maybe a little naive:  when it comes down to it, why isn't the most important thing winning?  Rodriguez did it at WVU but it seems he really wasn't given a very good chance and that some wanted him to fail. 

I understand the decision to not bring in Casteel: when money is in play, those who control it can be greedy and opt to save a few bucks in the present when spending those extra few dollars could lead to something big in the future.

But this idea of a "Michigan Man" who is more about respecting the traditions of the past than actually winning games is (to me, at least) restrictive to the possible success of the program. Who cares how the coach manages to coerce wins out of his team (legally, of course)? Why is it important to do things the way Bo or Lloyd did it? Why the hell are some people so afraid of change?

I have to admit that I never attended Michigan and that, in my relatively young life, I've only rooted for the Wolverines for a short time (since '02) so maybe I just don't get it.  But it's frustrating to see the team struggle and, at times, undermine itself.

Voltron Blue

October 18th, 2011 at 6:58 PM ^

...that's exactly what Brian meant upon Hoke's hiring when he said, "sometimes having an identity feels like a ceiling" (or something to that effect)...

That to me is a real risk of the whole Michigan Man must coach Michigan meme.  If you're talking about the values like integrity, then sure.  If you're talking about having physically been here before, that is potentially too limiting.

TXmaizeNblue

October 18th, 2011 at 4:13 PM ^

The attitude and actions of the detractors is more greiving than the W-L record from 2008 to 2010.   WTF would you want your team to fail?  That's is selfish, blind arrogance.

And I just finished hearing Jerry West speak to Dan Patrick about his childhood...what a depressing day.

MinWhisky

October 18th, 2011 at 5:22 PM ^

I've always wondered if LC nixed the Les Miles hire in favor of promoting his own OC and DC, and, when they didn't get hired, turned his back on the new coach.

MinWhisky

October 18th, 2011 at 5:23 PM ^

I've always wondered if LC nixed the Les Miles hire in favor of promoting his own OC and DC, and, when they didn't get hired, turned his back on the new coach.

uferfan1

October 18th, 2011 at 5:33 PM ^

As someone looking at the last 6 years, without the eye of a cheeleader, it is not hard to see the general decline whch led to the rumblings for a change in leadership. This book has put in print what I hear everyday in conversation with fellow fans. LC wanted his choices to be at the top of the list and we all know they had not earned  consideration for this job. BM didn't seek help from the best minds out there and he could have, everyone has an opinion and wants to share it, if asked in the right way. So he butchered the search and ended up with RR. This didn't need to be a failure but it was from the start. He did not allow him to bring the whole staff, the DC would have made some difference, He also would have been smarter to have Don Nehlen come back to Michigan to announce the hiring and show the line of continuity, also Nehlen would have been a guy RR could have learned the " Michigan Way" from and helped him with Alumni dealings. RR was stubborn and failed to see the importance of the small things which make Michigan the Big Thing. Lastly Bo just passed to soon, this was his job to name and by God he is gone. It shows just how much we miss his quiet leadership .DB is trying to become the next Don Canham and that is why I give him latitude on some new ideas, hope his decisions prove to be as good as DC's. Face it we are what we are because of the combination of both BO and DC. Michigans most important Tradition has been it's willingness to change. The platoon system, the implementation of the forward pass, the building of the tailgating tradition. Soon and very soon we will reclaim our rightful position as one of the yearly top five and we will not cut corners to reach it. We will not sacrifice the student athalete for an athalete only, we will win the right way and be proud of our students on and off the field. GO BLUE Sorry for the grammatical and spelling errors, and if I offended am also sorry for that, just one mans opinion.

jsquigg

October 18th, 2011 at 6:50 PM ^

I wonder what would have happened differently if Bill Martin had showed leadership by preparing the alumni/regents/fanbase for a lengthy transition to the spread and given Rodriguez a blank check to hire his staff (Casteel).  It's not just that Bo died, it's that the leadership has been weak since.  Dave Brandon is at least decisive, even when the decision is awful.  Doesn't matter now, but it would have been nice for certain people to openly accept Rodriguez rather than being indifferent or even resisting him.  Carr comes out less than classy IMO.

Moonlight Graham

October 18th, 2011 at 7:32 PM ^

Who exactly DID Lloyd Carr want or expect to succeed him as head coach anyway? I've never read a clear account of this. (Forgive me if I missed it in the lengthy two-part interview and hundreds of comments, or at any point in my Michigan-fan history.) Was it English or DeBord, and when they weren't deemed worthy by MSC did he throw his hands up and begin sulking through the go-forward process? 

UMgradMSUdad

October 18th, 2011 at 10:15 PM ^

I, too, would like to hear Carr's side of the story.  And he, too, had to bear his share of unfair criticism, at least from the outside.  I don't know how many games in the first two years of RR's tenure that television commentators repeated the claim that RR had to rebuild becaus Carr "left the cupboard bare" with poor recruiting.  Stories swirl about Carr playing directing Ryan Mallet to transfer, which I find credible.  But does anyone really believe that Mallet was sticking around to try to run a spread offense? Several others, too, were out the door with Carr's help or not.  I'm not saying Carr was blameless in all this, but he was getting unfairly criticized too.

As a fan on the outside who did not follow every last detail of what was going on, I have to say that WVU did everything in its power to screw this up too, and they did a hell of a job.  Bacon alludes to this in the post, and I can't wait to read about it in the book.  To the casual fan, though, it was almost like RR had this big elaborate wedding planned with his new blue blood wife, and his ex from the trailer park showed up at the wedding drunk in her beer stained bath robe with a cigarette dangling from her mouth cursing and yelling about the SOB owing her back alimony, kind of taking the shine of the whole affair and making many question the wisdom of the marriage from the get go.

Finally, many here seem to have an unstated assumption that had RR brough Casteel and had the uniform support of the UM family everything would have been radically changed and we would all be singing kumbaya and celebrating BCS bowl wins by now.  I'm not so sure.  I'm not so sure that the kind of players and defense, especially that was successful in the Big East could ever work in the Big Ten.  Show me a team of undersized quick players on defense that is going to stop the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan State, or Ohio State (well, except for maybe this year).  Hell, even the offense struggled the last half of last year.

Of course we will never know just how successful RR could have been, and I agree that it really sucks that he wasn't given the full support he should have been given, once the decision to hire him was made.

yeahrice

October 19th, 2011 at 1:07 PM ^

I only want to address one of you points - Ryan Mallett. Mallett was gone no matter who the coach was, unless we were getting Petrino. Mallett never fit in at Michigan. We students HATED him, his teammates HATED him, and the coaches HATED him. On top of all of that, he hated everyone too. He was a complete jerk and disrepected just about everyone and everything at Michigan. Lloyd essentially told him to GTFO the week following the Illinois game in 2007. I don't have a link but if you remember the game, Mallett fumbled a couple of snaps, losing at least one of them. Carr took Mallett aside to lecture him, to which Mallett promptly rolled his eyes and turned away. Carr grabbed Mallett's pads, spun him around and got more animated than I can remember, literally tearing into the guy (one of my more favorite Lloyd memories). RR didnt have a chance of keeping him, whether he tried to or not IMO is irrelevant. 

Section 1

October 19th, 2011 at 11:03 PM ^

You wrote:

Finally, many here seem to have an unstated assumption that had RR brough Casteel and had the uniform support of the UM family everything would have been radically changed and we would all be singing kumbaya and celebrating BCS bowl wins by now.  

This probably isn't fair.  I've read the book, and I don't suppose that you have yet.  So you might not have known that that issue was addressed rather specifically, on page 89.

John U. Bacon interviewed Mike Parrish, director of football operations under Rich Rodriguez:

"If they [WVU] don't hire [Bill] Stewart," Parrish said in 2011, "Jeff Casteel comes to Michigan."

And if Casteel had joined Rodriguez's staff?

Parrish didn't hesitate:  "It would have been completely different."

 

Three and Out, by John U. Bacon, p. 89.

 

 

PeteM

October 18th, 2011 at 10:51 PM ^

I agree with John Bacon that that was a huge loss.  WVU had a competent defense with him and RichRod's assistants.  My question is that I wonder how "gettable" he was -- in other words whether a few more bucks (and how many bucks is a few more) would have gotten him to Michigan.

dragonchild

October 19th, 2011 at 1:28 AM ^

"Rodriguez had never been to Ann Arbor before his first press conference, and it was clear he had not prepared, nor been coached – a noted contrast to Brady Hoke’s introduction, when his rehearsed lines won over many doubters."

Spoken like someone who just doesn't get it.  It was RichRod who rehearsed everything about traditions he didn't understand.  Schembechler was an outsider but he "got it".  Hoke "gets it".  He doesn't have to rehearse because he just says what he believes.

RichRod came off as foolishly arrogant and fake from the start.  "Michigan Man" isn't some POLITICAL dog-and-pony show; it's a set of VALUES.  Michigan Men are accountable to the school and to themselves.  They do not make excuses and do not make themselves bigger than the program.  They respect others, and history.  You honestly think this is some sort of act??  The "Michigan Way" isn't some goddamn fraternity initiation; this is stuff you can learn ANYWHERE as long as you're not a jerk!  It's RichRod's eye-popping failure to tell apart appearances from values that won him so many enemies so quickly.  It was like watching a used car salesman try to schmooze his way into a Marine Corps platoon; they can SMELL a guy you can't count on no matter what crap he tries to spew from his mouth about tradition or honor.  We knew what the hell was up; don't try to paint this as some sort of snobby clique rejecting the marginal kid because he didn't lick our boots enough.

To anyone who "gets it" it was obvious from the start the Big Ten was going to school this guy.  He wanted players to fit his scheme, not the other way around.  (Contrast with Borges, who came in saying he wanted a one-back power game, and. . . basically ran many of the same plays RichRod used because of the players he inherited.  Better yet, Borges isn't a "Michigan Man" if you think that means nepotism.  Look at his resume and tell me how long he's been wearing maize & blue.  He's a Michigan Man because he gets it.)  That basically meant he was going to throw three years' worth of students under the bus just to do things his way.  OK, so RichRod tried hard.  Boo hoo.  Effort doesn't matter if you're fighting your own damn ego.  And it's the insiders that abandoned the program?  Lloyd Carr lying down on the recruiting job as he approached retirement aside (again -- no excuses), each and every student was a Michigan Wolverine.  Abandoning them was disgusting by itself and a blatant disregard for a half a dozen values (accountability to the school, respect for others, not making oneself bigger than the program), but while it might fly at WVU where there's no recruiting competition, it had tangible results in that Michigan's rivals cleaned up.  And there's the rub:  Michigan values do not exist to create some sort of faux moral high ground from which Wolverines can spew arrogance (as much as Michigan's rivals want to believe it).  We can be cocky, but these values get RESULTS.  Disregarding them didn't doom RichRod because it made him unpopular; disregarding values doomed RichRod because Michigan owes its success to those values.  He effin' killed the golden goose in a shocking display of hubris here, and you think the worst consequence was that boosters got their feelings hurt??  When did the alumni of one of the top 20 universities in the WORLD suddenly become thin-skinned retards?

The author is putting an awful lot of blame on Michigan, but what the hell.  Someone self-promoting as a prodigy and being paid millions needs to be HELD BY THE HAND?  Save that for the entry-level guys; this is a high-profile grown-up we thought we were looking at.  How 'bout this for size:  Michigan held RichRod to the same high standards as every other head coach since as far back as anyone can remember and he flat-out failed.

I'm honestly getting tired of hearing people white knight RichRod by painting it as Michigan wanting a boot-licker.  It's not only wrong; it's stupid and insulting.  The author may see it from RichRod's point of view, but it's painfully obvious that, after all that time, he learned nothing about Michigan.

You know, like someone else who just didn't get it.

Wolverrrrrrroudy

October 19th, 2011 at 5:50 AM ^

I couldn't have said it better myself.  My feelings exactly. 

I was hoping for the best with the Rodriguez hire, but was quickly disappointed.  My biggest issue is that he didn't respect the program, which is probably why there was so much pushback.  It became more about Rich Rodriguez than about Michigan Football.  The kids who were already here were an afterthought, the coaches were all fired except Fred Jackson, ironically only in my view because of McGuffie who came and left quickly.

I can't help but think his best move would have been not to have fired the entire Michigan staff.  Especially on the Defensive side of the ball.  He cleaned House.  I certainly don't think Ron English is the best defensive coach, but it would have gone a long way in terms of not tearing the program completely down, and hoping that he could build it back up into something better.  Radical change is not always good and it carries a lot of risk.

People, in general, wanted a break from the past, not always careful of the advice to "be careful what you wish for".

I'm not sure yet, whether I will pick up this book.  I have a feeling it will just make me bitter and it seems that it is again focused on Rodriquez versus Michigan Football. 

 

El Jeffe

October 21st, 2011 at 12:19 PM ^

This post definitely sets the MGoBlog record for most unironic uses of the terms "get it" and "Michigan Man."

Overall, after wading through all the spittle-flecked ad hominem, I think you're actually making the points that JUB is making--tradition was, apparently, so important to people with some influence that either (1) Martin should have hired a Michigan Man, or (2) Martin et al. should have done a better job schooling RR in the way things work around these parts, or (3) RR should have done a better job learning all this stuff on his own.

Hence, there is blame to go around. JUB is not saying that RR made no mistakes. He is saying that he didn't make all of the mistakes.

NJWolverine

October 19th, 2011 at 3:45 AM ^

Some posters have mentioned the fact that Schiano was quickly offered the job ahead of Rodriguez.  Looking back, that's really significant for a number of reasons.  First, it's pretty convincing evidence that Martin (and his supporters) wanted a clear break from the past.  The direction they were going with Schiano and then Rodriguez is evidence of that. 

Philosophically, Schiano is actually very similar to Michigan's current coaches.  He's a good defensive coach who's done a good job with limited talent.  Offensively, he's a pro-style guy.  But I think Schiano would have had the same problems at Michigan because the divide is deeper than just football philosophy, but rather is one of the identity and soul of the university. 

Schiano is not from the midwest.  He's from Jersey.  He never coached in the midwest, unless you count Penn State (where he had his most productive stint as an assistant), as a midwest school, which it is not.  He never recruited midwest players.  Like RichRod, he likes recruiting Florida.  He not only could have left, but many think his dream is to one day take over for JoePa, an in-conference rival. 

In any event, I think these attributes would have caused the same problems that occurred under RichRod.  The reason why is because many view the coach as a representative of the university, and if you have an outsider, there will invariably be howls of him not having "midwest values."  I actually think the NY/NJ students would have loved him, but there still would be that divide. 

My fear with Hoke is that he'll swing too far the other way.  We need fast players on this team, and most of those players are not from the midwest.  There has to be some offensive creativity because we'll never have the insane defensive talent that teams like Alabama and USC can amass.  It's a delicate balance.  We're already seeing fissures develop with the DR v. Gardner debate, and now with the "what offense do you prefer" debate, and that's after one loss. 

I actually don't think the Michigan family is any more united today than they were when RichRod was hired.  We're just experiencing a honeymoon period that ends when events like last Sat. happen, or if we get blown out by a spread team, or if Meyer takes over at OSU and we go on another losing streak.  The "We are ND" meme is not really a distant memory.  It will happen as soon as something goes wrong.  Since we are unsure about the identity of the program, and of the university, we will always have these problems.