Why the hell couldn't the defense stay within 10 yards of an opposing receiver?
Why the hell couldn't anyone make a goddamn field goal?
I don't think any of this insider who did what to support whom really amounts to a drop of piss. The answers to the two questions above tell you everything you need to know about why RR's tenure was brief.
thought about killing yourself to end the pain?
Seriously, some message board posts have you ready give up on the football mana giver Rich Godriguez? Stay the course!
if you think Dorsey was not a recruiting failure RR's part. NO D1 SCHOOL WOULD TAKE HIM. It's not just Michigan's "evil" admission's department run by some Llyod Carr cabal. Louisville wouldn't take him and I'm pretty sure they are not out to screw RR. So yes, some of the non-acceptances are RR's fault. RR is at least partially responsible for the shit sandwich that has been Michigan football since he arrived. It's fucking amazing to read jackasses on this board act as if RR is responsible for every positive thing (the offense, Brock Mealer, etc) but has absolutely nothing to do with the negative (the defense, NCAA sanctions, etc). All of the negative things are blamed on Llyod Carr, the Free Press, God/Allah/Jesus, and the bandwagon blue-hair fans who have the audacity to expect Michigan to field a team that can compete for conference titles. This is a big load of bullshit.
No, RR is not responsible for injuries. Yes, RR is responsible for recruiting players, including the players who play in place of injured players. No, RR is not completely responsible for the current roster. Yes, RR is partially responsible for the composition of the roster. It in the space of partial responsibility that reasonable people can disagree. But it is entirely unreasonable to hold RR completely blameless or completely responsible.
it looks like a lot of upper classmen played like shit. This does not make me very confident that our defense will become competent simply via the passage of time. In fact, nothing our defense has done makes me confident that they will be competent anytime soon if they continue on the same track. It's one thing when we are underdogs to OSU, it's another when we'll be lucky to be within 2 touchdowns.
It is not silly. See my post below. There is nothing inconsistent in expecting that something you don't like will happen. That it was predictable has no bearing on its normative status.
to predict that a team will have a certain record and think that having such a record is a disappointment. If you don't like RR, you might predict something like 6-6 but also be convinced that Haurbagh/Bo/Jesus Christ would have gone 8-4. Merely meeting pre-season expecations does not mean that people won't be disappointed. For example, you may recall that when RR was hired many people predicted that Michigan would return to the top of the Big Ten and become a BCS force in 2010. Some presisted with these predictions even after the RR's first season. When compared to those expectations, the team is disappointing.
In other words, you could say, "I'm angar and RR sucks and because he is coaching this team we're only going to go 7-5." If you did so, you could consistently criticize the coaching while the team meets preseason expectations. In the same way you might criticize the Lions for underacheiving, while predicting that they will continue to underacheive. The important question is not how you think the team will ACTUALLY do (a prediction), but how the team SHOULD be performing with proper coaching (a normative judgment). If you thought that this team should go 7-5 with good coaching, then you are in no position to criticize RR. But if you thought this team would go 7-5 under RR but would have gone 9-3 under Haurbagh/Bo/Jesus, then you can still criticize the team for under performing. So the argument, repeated ad naseum around here, that one cannot criticize RR because he's performing just as well as the critic predicted, is bunch a of bullshit. So long you predicted a record that you thought was UNACCEPTABLE, you are not being inconsistent if you bitch.
As I recall, they did not just switch QBs if one QB turned the ball over. Instead, they swapped QBs every series, regardless of whether the prior series ended in a turnover. Your smartass answer does not explain why they switched every series. Furthermore, no where in my post did I second guess RR for holding players accountable. In fact, if you could fucking read you would see that I said I understand why RR would want to pull Denard. What I don't understand is why Tate was only given one series before Denard was put back in, and then Denard was only given one series before Tate was put back in, and so on. That keeps either QB from getting in rhythm. All the shit you wrote about "competition" is trivially true, but it does nothing to explain the constant rotation of QBs. So thanks for not clearing anything up.
I think we should ban this "fallacious" reasoning that some people call induction. This would greatly improve the quality of our arguments, as we could all try to deduce our way into answers about empirical phenomena, e.g. pondering whether Rich Rod NECESSARILY has the property of "never winning 8 games in a season at Michigan"-ness.
does any better either. I don't see how the lack of certainty about the future favors RR over anyone else. There will be uncertainty regardless of what decision is made.
I don't understand how hiring a new coach is "putting our chips in one basket" to a greater extent than retaining RR puts all our "chips in one basket." It's just a matter of in which basket we put our chips. Again, this is does not favor keeping RR nor firing him. It's an aspect of the situation regardless of the decision.
"Michigan should go 8-5 or 7-6 at worst or RR should be fired" idea is dead.
Every year in RR's tenure there has been a new math. First year most predicted what, 7-5 or 6-6 plus or minus a bowl game that's too hard to predict? Then it came out that 3 wins = 7 wins for that team. The second year most predicted 7-5 or 6-6 again, plus or minus a bowl game, right? Then we found out that 5 wins = 7 wins. And now this season started with predictions of 7 to 8 wins, only to find out that now 6 wins = 7 wins.
It looks like RR might actually win 7 games next season, so if we just keep our expectations at the same level we have for the last 3 years, he might finally live up to them.
Of course, a number of people around here are talking about Michigan winning a national title next year. So suppose it's likely that predictions for next season will be 11 to 12 wins. And then at the end of next season we'll find out that 7 wins = 12 wins.
But who knows what could happen in 2015. We could win the Superbowl then.
I wasn't trying to imply that your 7-5 comment was incorrect. Sorry.
As for the rest of your post, it's just the classic bullshit that puked up on here about why RR needs 10 more seasons to really really get his team in place and how I'm not a Michigan fan because I don't think a team that will have to fight like crazy to scrape its way into a bowl game is going to with a national title. Piss on that. I did both the my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Michigan, so fuck you if you think I'm not a real fan of the University. I've gladly paid for the privilege to spend the better part of 7 years at it. I was a fan when Lloyd was the coach, we actually won games, and assholes like you bitched because he wasn't winning by enough points. Now a new coach has come in, one who won't be .500 even if he wins every remaining game this season, and you've decided he's Jesus Christ and anyone who dares to question him is not a fan.
You're right about this: A new DC won't fix everything. And that's exactly why this team isn't going to suddenly contend for a national title. It's sad, but the transition into ND has almost become complete, as now Michigan fans predict that a mediocre team will become a national power next year through some miracle of coaching change.
8-5 while playing in the SEC with the 68th best defense in the country (22nd in passs defense). Also, quoth wikipedia, "several BCS participating computer rating systems such as Sagarin (#22), Massey (#22) , Peter Wolfe (#25), Howell (#24), David Wilson (#21), Team Rankings (#18) and the FACT Foundation (#21) included the Tigers in their final top 25 rankings."
I clearly see the obvious parallels with the current Michigan team, which is going 7-5 at best with a defense that is ranked ESPN's top 150, which really good, right?
*edit* Actually my sarcasm was misplaced. 2009 Auburn does have something in common with RR coached Michigan teams: Auburn only beat one Big Ten opponent in the 2009 season. So there are some parallels. Very telling ones.
WE ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WINNING A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP NEXT YEAR!
We are a team struggle to get 6 fucking wins. The defense getting one year of experience, which consists largely of standing around watching the other team score touchdowns, is not going to make them 100 times better. They will, improve, no doubt, but not enough to win a national championship. The same goes for special teams, which are still terrible. I'm not sure we'll even be in contention for a conference title next year, let alone a MNC.
Ask yourself this: If this team had a 70th ranked defense, would they be better than OSU or Wisconsin? Clearly you think so, but I don't see it.
when RR has never fielded a team that could crack .500 in Big Ten play. You know how Vince Lombardi couldn't fix our defense? Well, Jesus Christ could not lead this team to national title in the following seasons. I like this team and it has a lot of talent, but I can't see it going from a 6-6 or 7-5 club to a 12-0 or 11-1 world beater even with more experience on defense. I'd settle for a coach that competed for conference titles each year, but then again, I liked Lloyd Carr so clearly I'm not a true Michigan fan an don't know anything about football.
IL looks doubtful, and even Purdue looks like it's going to be challenge. But even counting those two as wins, I cannot image this team beating Wisconsin or OSU.
Also, I want to ask: how many of you who picked us to go 7-5 also picked us to win less than 4 conference games? How many picked us to finish fucking 8th in the conference? I don't remember a lot of people in pre-season discussing the how only the trainwrecks that are Indiana and Minnesota would keep us from being the worst team in the Big Ten.
fans don't "deserve" much, although most people who sit in the stands pay for that privilege. I think it's fair to say that the university deserves better.
your reasoning seems to go as follows:
"offense = good, and hence RR is responsible; defense = band, and hence some one else must be responsible."
I thought we hired a head coach, but apparently we really hired an offensive coordinator, who cannot be held accountable for the performance of the defense. I wish we had head coach.
don't give RR any credit for the success of the offense either. Because he's not the one actually running for touchdown's or throwing the passes. It never ceases to amaze me that when the offense plays well, it's a testament to RR's coaching, but when it produces turnovers everyone says "well RR didn't make him throw it into coverage!!" Likewise, when ever the defense fucks ups everyone says "well GERG does not tell them to blow coverages!" You guys are just assuming that coaching only has a positive effect on player behavior. If the coaches get credit for the good things this team does (and it does do many good things), then they should get some criticism for the bad things this team does. For example, when the fucking players don't know that a blocked FG is live, that looks like something the coaches screwed up. I don' think that coaches told the players just to stand there and thumb their assholes, but they clearly did not train them to go down the football.
are certainly consistent with the hypothesis that RR and Co are no so good at picking the best players to receive the majority of the PT and I think that's really the point at issue.
I can't believe that. I mean, I'll bet most of their fans thought they would go 6-6 and this year, so I don't understand why people were pissed. They can still go 6-6. It's just like these bandwagoners who picked Michigan to go 7-5 and are now bitching. Who ever thought that this Michigan team was going to win more than 2 conference games?
was John L Smith worthy. All we needed was RR screaming, "AND THE COACHES ARE SCREWING IT UP!!" at the half. That was just embarassing. I understand that RR does not actually force the players to act stupidly, but I'm pretty sure a presupposition upon which the institution of "coaching" rests is that the way players act is in part influenced by their coach. Some people on here seem to think that when our players do good things (see: OMG look what RR has done on offense) it's clearly influenced by coaching, but when they do bad things we are reminded that the coaches didn't make them do it. I'm not saying RR should be fired, but that was awful.
While the following is likely true: "Greg Robinson understands all of this better than all of us. He understands that there's nobody he can move into the MLB spot that will be better than Obi." I'm not at all sure how that is supposed to follow from Occam's Razor. I can think of ways in which it could, but none of them are obviously correct. Also, I can get the opposite result via Occam's Razor too:
Theory 1 Assumptions: Greg understands CB play; Greg understands LB play, Greg understands Safety play, Greg understands DL play, team has bad LBs.
Theory 2 Assumptions: Greg understands CB play; Greg does NOT understand LB play, Greg understands Safety play, Greg understands DL play, team has bad LBs.
*added note: If your using some ontological version of Occam's Razor, i.e. one that favors only theories with fewer entities rather than ones with fewer assumptions, then I'm really confused about what rule it's playing in your reasoning.*
Theory 2 has 1 less assumption, so by Occam's Razor it must be the right one!! In fact theory 2 could be cast as having two less assumptions because it does not require assuming that we have bad LBs, but you might take UM's having bad LBs as more of an empirical fact than an assumption. Of course I'm being cheeky here, changing the characterization of the assumptions will give different results (e.g. allowing the use of a conjunctive operater will let you cast every theory as requiring only one assumption). The point is that it's not clear how Occam's Razor is guiding you to your conclusions about Robinson.
look like they are capable of tackling an opposing player if he was running at them in hallway let alone on a football field. On one of Baker's receptions Obi literally has him wrapped up and he just runs right through it. FML.
Regarding the rest of the conference, sometimes a leader needs to take responsibility even if it was not strictly speaker, his fault (David Brandon recognizes this) and hence I think the "look at how young our defense is, it's not my fault," stuff sounds like whining. However, it's true and I think RR is just honest to a fault here, I don't think he actually has some motive to skirt responsibility.
In favor of his honesty, I am really glad RR acknowledge that his decision to punt was a mistake, because it spared us 8 diaries and about 60 board topics arguing that it was in fact the right decision.
"I'll leave Demar Dorsey aside, since that was a case of someone in Admissions deciding to screw the team in order to screw Rich Rod, as DD did everything asked of him to be eligible"
That is not true, unless you think someone in Louisville is also trying to screw their football team too. Demar should not have been offered. This does not weaken your conclusion.
I didn't read the part of the DD series (which was a great piece, BTW) where it demonstrated that subsequent coaches could only use players recruited by the previous coach.
Three years into the RR era, I ask this as an honest question: How long before the DD argument expires? How many years before the lack of anything good on defense is the result of RR's recruiting/player development/etc? Maybe three years is still too early, but with each passing year the force of the DD argument is lessened. At some point RR is responsible for the both the offense and defense he fields.
year nine, so none of the past two seasons, nor the current season, nor the next five seasons have happen/are happening/or will happen. But in year nine we'll all have flying cars and compete for a national title. It will be the most successful first year in coaching history. Then the critics will be silenced, although most of them will have died from natural cases during the non-existant seasons (I like to call them "Seasons in the Abyss").
Did you edit this after you posted it, because I'm pretty sure you said something about hoping he goes and kills himself in the place of the tired mouth breathers cliche.
Recent Comments
Brian said the book had a decidedly pro-RR viewpoint.
Why the hell couldn't the defense stay within 10 yards of an opposing receiver?
Why the hell couldn't anyone make a goddamn field goal?
I don't think any of this insider who did what to support whom really amounts to a drop of piss. The answers to the two questions above tell you everything you need to know about why RR's tenure was brief.
It feel like I died and went to heaven. I thought we were going to lose, then I thought we won, then I KNEW we lost, and then we FUCKING WON.
and from what I saw there are going to be some cool effects accompanying the techno. That's all I'll say.
it looks like a lot of upper classmen played like shit. This does not make me very confident that our defense will become competent simply via the passage of time. In fact, nothing our defense has done makes me confident that they will be competent anytime soon if they continue on the same track. It's one thing when we are underdogs to OSU, it's another when we'll be lucky to be within 2 touchdowns.
*Sigh* Super fun times indeed.
to predict that a team will have a certain record and think that having such a record is a disappointment. If you don't like RR, you might predict something like 6-6 but also be convinced that Haurbagh/Bo/Jesus Christ would have gone 8-4. Merely meeting pre-season expecations does not mean that people won't be disappointed. For example, you may recall that when RR was hired many people predicted that Michigan would return to the top of the Big Ten and become a BCS force in 2010. Some presisted with these predictions even after the RR's first season. When compared to those expectations, the team is disappointing.
In other words, you could say, "I'm angar and RR sucks and because he is coaching this team we're only going to go 7-5." If you did so, you could consistently criticize the coaching while the team meets preseason expectations. In the same way you might criticize the Lions for underacheiving, while predicting that they will continue to underacheive. The important question is not how you think the team will ACTUALLY do (a prediction), but how the team SHOULD be performing with proper coaching (a normative judgment). If you thought that this team should go 7-5 with good coaching, then you are in no position to criticize RR. But if you thought this team would go 7-5 under RR but would have gone 9-3 under Haurbagh/Bo/Jesus, then you can still criticize the team for under performing. So the argument, repeated ad naseum around here, that one cannot criticize RR because he's performing just as well as the critic predicted, is bunch a of bullshit. So long you predicted a record that you thought was UNACCEPTABLE, you are not being inconsistent if you bitch.
I wasn't trying to imply that your 7-5 comment was incorrect. Sorry.
As for the rest of your post, it's just the classic bullshit that puked up on here about why RR needs 10 more seasons to really really get his team in place and how I'm not a Michigan fan because I don't think a team that will have to fight like crazy to scrape its way into a bowl game is going to with a national title. Piss on that. I did both the my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Michigan, so fuck you if you think I'm not a real fan of the University. I've gladly paid for the privilege to spend the better part of 7 years at it. I was a fan when Lloyd was the coach, we actually won games, and assholes like you bitched because he wasn't winning by enough points. Now a new coach has come in, one who won't be .500 even if he wins every remaining game this season, and you've decided he's Jesus Christ and anyone who dares to question him is not a fan.
You're right about this: A new DC won't fix everything. And that's exactly why this team isn't going to suddenly contend for a national title. It's sad, but the transition into ND has almost become complete, as now Michigan fans predict that a mediocre team will become a national power next year through some miracle of coaching change.
we field the 3rd best scoring offense in the Big Ten and the worst defense in the history of the universe. This makes us sad Pandas.
8-5 while playing in the SEC with the 68th best defense in the country (22nd in passs defense). Also, quoth wikipedia, "several BCS participating computer rating systems such as Sagarin (#22), Massey (#22) , Peter Wolfe (#25), Howell (#24), David Wilson (#21), Team Rankings (#18) and the FACT Foundation (#21) included the Tigers in their final top 25 rankings."
I clearly see the obvious parallels with the current Michigan team, which is going 7-5 at best with a defense that is ranked ESPN's top 150, which really good, right?
*edit* Actually my sarcasm was misplaced. 2009 Auburn does have something in common with RR coached Michigan teams: Auburn only beat one Big Ten opponent in the 2009 season. So there are some parallels. Very telling ones.
WE ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WINNING A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP NEXT YEAR!
We are a team struggle to get 6 fucking wins. The defense getting one year of experience, which consists largely of standing around watching the other team score touchdowns, is not going to make them 100 times better. They will, improve, no doubt, but not enough to win a national championship. The same goes for special teams, which are still terrible. I'm not sure we'll even be in contention for a conference title next year, let alone a MNC.
Ask yourself this: If this team had a 70th ranked defense, would they be better than OSU or Wisconsin? Clearly you think so, but I don't see it.
when RR has never fielded a team that could crack .500 in Big Ten play. You know how Vince Lombardi couldn't fix our defense? Well, Jesus Christ could not lead this team to national title in the following seasons. I like this team and it has a lot of talent, but I can't see it going from a 6-6 or 7-5 club to a 12-0 or 11-1 world beater even with more experience on defense. I'd settle for a coach that competed for conference titles each year, but then again, I liked Lloyd Carr so clearly I'm not a true Michigan fan an don't know anything about football.
offensive.
IL looks doubtful, and even Purdue looks like it's going to be challenge. But even counting those two as wins, I cannot image this team beating Wisconsin or OSU.
Also, I want to ask: how many of you who picked us to go 7-5 also picked us to win less than 4 conference games? How many picked us to finish fucking 8th in the conference? I don't remember a lot of people in pre-season discussing the how only the trainwrecks that are Indiana and Minnesota would keep us from being the worst team in the Big Ten.
I'm sure RR will mandate that he runs a 3-3-5, because that's TEH BEAST DEFENZ EVA DUDZ!!
maybe this will convince the voters to send us to the National Championship Game.
RR with at least 5 or 6 NFL prospects at kicker. What a jackass.
/s
don't give RR any credit for the success of the offense either. Because he's not the one actually running for touchdown's or throwing the passes. It never ceases to amaze me that when the offense plays well, it's a testament to RR's coaching, but when it produces turnovers everyone says "well RR didn't make him throw it into coverage!!" Likewise, when ever the defense fucks ups everyone says "well GERG does not tell them to blow coverages!" You guys are just assuming that coaching only has a positive effect on player behavior. If the coaches get credit for the good things this team does (and it does do many good things), then they should get some criticism for the bad things this team does. For example, when the fucking players don't know that a blocked FG is live, that looks like something the coaches screwed up. I don' think that coaches told the players just to stand there and thumb their assholes, but they clearly did not train them to go down the football.
are certainly consistent with the hypothesis that RR and Co are no so good at picking the best players to receive the majority of the PT and I think that's really the point at issue.
I can't believe that. I mean, I'll bet most of their fans thought they would go 6-6 and this year, so I don't understand why people were pissed. They can still go 6-6. It's just like these bandwagoners who picked Michigan to go 7-5 and are now bitching. Who ever thought that this Michigan team was going to win more than 2 conference games?
because only five stars and seniors understand that a blocked FG is a live ball. Damn you Lloyd!!
it's a lot more like 2009.
was John L Smith worthy. All we needed was RR screaming, "AND THE COACHES ARE SCREWING IT UP!!" at the half. That was just embarassing. I understand that RR does not actually force the players to act stupidly, but I'm pretty sure a presupposition upon which the institution of "coaching" rests is that the way players act is in part influenced by their coach. Some people on here seem to think that when our players do good things (see: OMG look what RR has done on offense) it's clearly influenced by coaching, but when they do bad things we are reminded that the coaches didn't make them do it. I'm not saying RR should be fired, but that was awful.
are worth jack shit.
While the following is likely true: "Greg Robinson understands all of this better than all of us. He understands that there's nobody he can move into the MLB spot that will be better than Obi." I'm not at all sure how that is supposed to follow from Occam's Razor. I can think of ways in which it could, but none of them are obviously correct. Also, I can get the opposite result via Occam's Razor too:
Theory 1 Assumptions: Greg understands CB play; Greg understands LB play, Greg understands Safety play, Greg understands DL play, team has bad LBs.
Theory 2 Assumptions: Greg understands CB play; Greg does NOT understand LB play, Greg understands Safety play, Greg understands DL play, team has bad LBs.
*added note: If your using some ontological version of Occam's Razor, i.e. one that favors only theories with fewer entities rather than ones with fewer assumptions, then I'm really confused about what rule it's playing in your reasoning.*
Theory 2 has 1 less assumption, so by Occam's Razor it must be the right one!! In fact theory 2 could be cast as having two less assumptions because it does not require assuming that we have bad LBs, but you might take UM's having bad LBs as more of an empirical fact than an assumption. Of course I'm being cheeky here, changing the characterization of the assumptions will give different results (e.g. allowing the use of a conjunctive operater will let you cast every theory as requiring only one assumption). The point is that it's not clear how Occam's Razor is guiding you to your conclusions about Robinson.
what's "pass coverage" ?
look like they are capable of tackling an opposing player if he was running at them in hallway let alone on a football field. On one of Baker's receptions Obi literally has him wrapped up and he just runs right through it. FML.
after MSU kicked our ass. That bodes ill.
Regarding the rest of the conference, sometimes a leader needs to take responsibility even if it was not strictly speaker, his fault (David Brandon recognizes this) and hence I think the "look at how young our defense is, it's not my fault," stuff sounds like whining. However, it's true and I think RR is just honest to a fault here, I don't think he actually has some motive to skirt responsibility.
In favor of his honesty, I am really glad RR acknowledge that his decision to punt was a mistake, because it spared us 8 diaries and about 60 board topics arguing that it was in fact the right decision.
"I'll leave Demar Dorsey aside, since that was a case of someone in Admissions deciding to screw the team in order to screw Rich Rod, as DD did everything asked of him to be eligible"
That is not true, unless you think someone in Louisville is also trying to screw their football team too. Demar should not have been offered. This does not weaken your conclusion.
why do you hate Rich Rod and Michigan football and freedom and unicorns and Harbaugh sux !!
/s
That hit is awesome.
I didn't read the part of the DD series (which was a great piece, BTW) where it demonstrated that subsequent coaches could only use players recruited by the previous coach.
Three years into the RR era, I ask this as an honest question: How long before the DD argument expires? How many years before the lack of anything good on defense is the result of RR's recruiting/player development/etc? Maybe three years is still too early, but with each passing year the force of the DD argument is lessened. At some point RR is responsible for the both the offense and defense he fields.
year nine, so none of the past two seasons, nor the current season, nor the next five seasons have happen/are happening/or will happen. But in year nine we'll all have flying cars and compete for a national title. It will be the most successful first year in coaching history. Then the critics will be silenced, although most of them will have died from natural cases during the non-existant seasons (I like to call them "Seasons in the Abyss").
Did you edit this after you posted it, because I'm pretty sure you said something about hoping he goes and kills himself in the place of the tired mouth breathers cliche.
would reduce some of the penalty yardage by reducing the number of facemasks.