i can see that you didn't get the gist of my message so i'll try to be more clear with this post.
1. i think that oversigning scholarship players the way that they do in the sec is unethical. my point is that michigan and other teams can't hoard so much talent that their third and fourth stringers are still better than some of the marginal teams in the big ten the way that they used to. michigan 70, illinois 21 is a good example of this. michigan didn't intentionally run up the score, (well maybe a little since illinois fired gary moller). that worked in the days of smash mouth three yards and a cloud of dust but unless you have alabama's talent you better have a plan b.
2. you completely misunderstood this one. my point was/is that southern teams have a larger pool of talent to choose from compared to midwestern/ northern teams. most importantly you seemed to skip over the point that i made that most players recruited from southern states tend to stay in the south.
not that rivals.com is the end all be all when it comes to ranking players but it is a starting point. only thirteen recruits on rivals top one hundred players are from midwestern/ northern states and this is the norm year after year. scout.com rankings are similar.
p.s. new york is a good place to recruit basketball players but football players not so much.
3.i don't believe in the michigan man nonsense for hiring a coach either. i think that it eliminates good candidates unnecessarily. it just seems as though a more vocal segment of michigan fans bring it up as if no one who is from outside the program can be succesful coaching the wolverines.
just so that you know, i used to post on the sack carr forum years ago and see a few familiar names here like S.Carlson. I eventually tired of hearing cliches like "we just need to play michigan football", just bring back coach x or arguing about things like how the spread would never work in the big ten while the best teams from the big ten would consistently get their ass kicked by teams that happened to use some version of the spread.
some may think that i just being a troll but i was a fan of michigan football going back to the days of anthony carter catching that last second touchdown against indiana and watching brandstetter hosting the michigan football replay on sunday mornings.
here are my most relevant problems that have contributed to the wolverines decline:
1. the change from 125 scholarships to 85
teams can't count on using predictable schemes that less talented teams knew were coming but couldn't stop because teams like michigan simply overwhelmed the indiana's and northwestern's of the world. top teams used the fact that they had 125 scholarships to give out to hoard the majority of the talented players available. the fact that teams could only carry 85 scholarship players has effectively spread some of the talent around.
2. the population of the midwest is shrinking while the population of the south is growing
this one is pretty simple. with a smaller popluation the talent pool of local talent will also be smaller. anyone who pays the least bit of attention to the recruting boards can't help but notice that the three largest hotbeds of talent are florida, texas and california. it is also extremely hard to get football players from the south to leave that general part of the country. i feel safe in saying that is in unlikely that north dakota or montana will be a football power. for anyone saying that "but this is michigan" is just being unrealistic.
3. the michigan man albatross that hamstrings any new approach
this one should be self explanitory. when listening to local talk radio one of the most frequent terms is "bo done things this way..........". he coached his last game twenty five years ago but there is a large segment that dogmatically thinks that it is the only approach. while i believe that my first two ponts are bigger factors for michigan's decline it is further hindered by the fact that a number of old timers immediately look for someone who has ties to michigan's past which is no unspoken terms means "bo did things this way......:". anyone who is objective can see that a coach who has a different philosophy like rodriguez had has to be concern with the same lack of support by the former regime, being actively undermined by local beat writer and alum like braylon "lloyd carr's michigan wolverines" edwards, and most importantly, alum who are trapped in the past. even though rodriguez had already shown that he could take a less talented team and beat a clearly more talented team in a big game his biggest fault was that his teams didn't do it playing "michigan football".
here is a bonus problem besides the michigan man nonsense. it seems as though most of the coaching candidates named have some type of former ties to michigan or have won at the highest levels of the game. it almost seems like some people think that coaching a super bowl or national champion contender is just a stepping stone to be considered for the michigan job. this is the definition of hubris, especially when dealing with my second point.
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i can see that you didn't get the gist of my message so i'll try to be more clear with this post.
1. i think that oversigning scholarship players the way that they do in the sec is unethical. my point is that michigan and other teams can't hoard so much talent that their third and fourth stringers are still better than some of the marginal teams in the big ten the way that they used to. michigan 70, illinois 21 is a good example of this. michigan didn't intentionally run up the score, (well maybe a little since illinois fired gary moller). that worked in the days of smash mouth three yards and a cloud of dust but unless you have alabama's talent you better have a plan b.
2. you completely misunderstood this one. my point was/is that southern teams have a larger pool of talent to choose from compared to midwestern/ northern teams. most importantly you seemed to skip over the point that i made that most players recruited from southern states tend to stay in the south.
not that rivals.com is the end all be all when it comes to ranking players but it is a starting point. only thirteen recruits on rivals top one hundred players are from midwestern/ northern states and this is the norm year after year. scout.com rankings are similar.
p.s. new york is a good place to recruit basketball players but football players not so much.
3.i don't believe in the michigan man nonsense for hiring a coach either. i think that it eliminates good candidates unnecessarily. it just seems as though a more vocal segment of michigan fans bring it up as if no one who is from outside the program can be succesful coaching the wolverines.
just so that you know, i used to post on the sack carr forum years ago and see a few familiar names here like S.Carlson. I eventually tired of hearing cliches like "we just need to play michigan football", just bring back coach x or arguing about things like how the spread would never work in the big ten while the best teams from the big ten would consistently get their ass kicked by teams that happened to use some version of the spread.
some may think that i just being a troll but i was a fan of michigan football going back to the days of anthony carter catching that last second touchdown against indiana and watching brandstetter hosting the michigan football replay on sunday mornings.
here are my most relevant problems that have contributed to the wolverines decline:
1. the change from 125 scholarships to 85
teams can't count on using predictable schemes that less talented teams knew were coming but couldn't stop because teams like michigan simply overwhelmed the indiana's and northwestern's of the world. top teams used the fact that they had 125 scholarships to give out to hoard the majority of the talented players available. the fact that teams could only carry 85 scholarship players has effectively spread some of the talent around.
2. the population of the midwest is shrinking while the population of the south is growing
this one is pretty simple. with a smaller popluation the talent pool of local talent will also be smaller. anyone who pays the least bit of attention to the recruting boards can't help but notice that the three largest hotbeds of talent are florida, texas and california. it is also extremely hard to get football players from the south to leave that general part of the country. i feel safe in saying that is in unlikely that north dakota or montana will be a football power. for anyone saying that "but this is michigan" is just being unrealistic.
3. the michigan man albatross that hamstrings any new approach
this one should be self explanitory. when listening to local talk radio one of the most frequent terms is "bo done things this way..........". he coached his last game twenty five years ago but there is a large segment that dogmatically thinks that it is the only approach. while i believe that my first two ponts are bigger factors for michigan's decline it is further hindered by the fact that a number of old timers immediately look for someone who has ties to michigan's past which is no unspoken terms means "bo did things this way......:". anyone who is objective can see that a coach who has a different philosophy like rodriguez had has to be concern with the same lack of support by the former regime, being actively undermined by local beat writer and alum like braylon "lloyd carr's michigan wolverines" edwards, and most importantly, alum who are trapped in the past. even though rodriguez had already shown that he could take a less talented team and beat a clearly more talented team in a big game his biggest fault was that his teams didn't do it playing "michigan football".
here is a bonus problem besides the michigan man nonsense. it seems as though most of the coaching candidates named have some type of former ties to michigan or have won at the highest levels of the game. it almost seems like some people think that coaching a super bowl or national champion contender is just a stepping stone to be considered for the michigan job. this is the definition of hubris, especially when dealing with my second point.