New Wojo article: somewhat surprising

To preface this, I'll say I really don't know what will fix our situation, because it seems like we have a lack of (mostly defensive) talent, a lack of coherent scheme (yes, even on offense to a degree), a lack of quality recruiting, especially on defense, AND a seeming lack of understanding on how to hang with the better Big Ten teams. With that combination, it's really hard to see what to do.

That being said, the most damning things about the RR situation are his stubbornness and apparent cronyism with respect to the defense. RR has stubbornly stuck to this 3-3-5 / multiple look defense even when it's been clear we've been getting punched in the mouth with no answer at all. GR has no clue how to run the defense, and the players have little clue how to play within it. Yet, RR sticks with it because it's what HE wants.

As I read it, GR was hired because he came to RR as a friend asking for a job. This either led to or was the culmination of what appeared to be a half-assed DC search. If we move along to Gibson, we see an inept coach who was retained because of another close relationship with RR. 

As far as what should happen, it seems that if RR is willing to cede control of the defensive scheme to a quality DC and let go of his friends who clearly are not up to the task, then he should be retained. If not, as much as it pains me to say, it's time to go in another direction and suffer through another couple years of bad football. I say this because if things are kept as they are, our defense will never allow us to get to elite status.

but i'd rather keep richrod around for another year or TWO at least just so we don't have to see ourselves
a. lose our awesome offense
b. get bombed into oblivion again by a system switch  (unless we bring in another spread guy. that being unlikely given the 50,000 michigan fans saying "duuurr mitchikin man!")

I don't agree with Rodriguez' handling of the defense, but our defensive talent in the junior and senior classes is easily the worst in the conference. Martin could start for anyone and Van Bergen and Mouton would start for a lot of teams, and beyond that we have a handful of DL and LB who would be little-used backups on any other team, and one DB who would probably be a special teamer for anyone else. With the group we have, it isn't realistic to expect us to hold up against loaded offenses like Wisconsin and OSU regardless of who's running the defense. Likewise it isn't fair to blame Rodriguez for the lack of experienced talent.

This team had a very low ceiling even before Woolfolk got hurt. I think the defense would have been better this year if RR had let Shafer (or even G Robinson) run his scheme from the beginning, but given the lack of talent it had no chance to be good or even average. And as much as the defense has underachieved, RR's offense has overachieved even more.

It's a lot easier to go from terrible to average than from average to great. Regardless of who the coach is, with the return of Woolfolk and another year of experience for everyone else the defense should improve to below-average even if we keep screwing around, and average if the DC is allowed to run his scheme. If RR stays, we should have an elite offense. Elite offense + average defense = something like Auburn this year. If we dump RR for Harbaugh, the offense will necessarily regress until Harbaugh has veteran players who fit his scheme and may never approach elite level unless we can land a freak like Luck.

I think the most likely result is that RR winds up at Minnesota and takes D Robinson and a handful of backs and receivers with him, the UM offense slips back to average as Harbaugh struggles to implement his 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust scheme with players who don't fit it, and we go 7-5 again with prospects of more of the same for several years.