NCAA 2009

[grumbler]

2.  Rich Rodriguez doesn't understand Michigan.  The average Michigan fan has an ego the size of a swimming pool, they are one of the few schools out there with as much ego as Ivy Leaguers, Michigan genuinely believes it is simply better than everyone else in the Big 10.  Not in terms of football, not even exclusively in terms of academics, but more they intrinsically believe they are superior human beings to the likes of people who went to Minnesota, Wisconsin et cetera.  (Incidentally this is why I love seeing Michigan do so poorly.)  Because Rich Rodriguez doesn't understand Michigan he doesn't understand he can't go in and rebuild from the ground up because the Michigan ego can't tolerate several losing seasons, which is what it would take for Rodriguez system to truly work at its peak performance.

Awesome.

Yes, indeed.  It is always amusing to see the inevitable epic FAIL when the little people think they are capable of understanding Michigan.   

[Berkut]

Awesome, there are now reports that after the game several (20) Oregon players were taunting the crowd, flipping people off, generally acting like thugs. Andthis went on for 10-20 minutes before anyone from Oregon told them to leave.

Sounds like Chip has no control over the bunch of upstanding citizens he has recruited.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Awesome, there are now reports that after the game several (20) Oregon players were taunting the crowd, flipping people off, generally acting like thugs. Andthis went on for 10-20 minutes before anyone from Oregon told them to leave.

Sounds like Chip has no control over the bunch of upstanding citizens he has recruited.

Racist; that's just their culture.

[dps]

I don't entirely agree with the rest of your post, but I think that this part is spot-on.  In fairness to Rodriguez, though, most coaches are like this--they will try to find players that fit their system, rather than changing their system to fit the players that they have available.

I totally agree, but I think a smart coach that wants to keep their job would hire an o-coordinator to run a "transitional" offense and keep the original d-coordinator, that way you can slowly work your kind of players in but maintain the success of the outgoing coach--and your position.  Rodriguez wouldn't be popular if he had gone 9-4 his first two seasons but he wouldn't be a candidate for firing, either.

Yeah, but I can't think of many coaches that would do that.

Again, in fairness to Rodriguez, it's an unusual situation.  Usually, when a new coach is hired, either he's taking over a losing team, or he was on the staff or otherwise a protege of the retiring coach.  OTOH, it wasn't all that different from when he was first hired at WVU, but expectations there aren't quite as high as at Michigan.

Of the three federal academies still playing FBS my Black Knights are the ones who probably most need to transition to IAA.  Navy and Air Force have proven over the past 20+ years you can attain a certain level of success as an academy in FBS; sure you won't be competitive in a major conference but with 119 teams in FBS there is room for success outside of the top-25 level of play.  We've just had a long string of unimaginably bad coaches and the program is probably stuck in a permanent rut now...

Actually, they may finally be headed in the right direction.  They can actually become bowl eligible if they beat Navy (whicht they almost certainly won't).  And as bad as they were in the last few years, I'm not sure that they would have been competitive in 1-AA.

[grumbler]

Again, in fairness to Rodriguez, it's an unusual situation.  Usually, when a new coach is hired, either he's taking over a losing team, or he was on the staff or otherwise a protege of the retiring coach.  OTOH, it wasn't all that different from when he was first hired at WVU, but expectations there aren't quite as high as at Michigan.

I don't think that this is as unusual as you might think.  Urban Meyer took over a Florida team that looked a lot like the late Carr teams, and went 9-3 his first year and 13-1 his second.  He came into neither a losing team nor from the system.  Ditto Les Miles (came in to an LSU team that had been 9-3 the previous year). 

My problem with RichRod isn't that he doesn't win enough.  I would be willing to give him an extra year if it was just a matter of bad luck.  My problem is that he is a bad coach.  His players don't get better (Denard Robinson was just as bad a passer at the end of the season as at the beginning; Michigan's offensive line showed no improvement at all).  His game plans always fall apart at halftime.  It may be that the coaching is just better in the Big Ten than the Big east, but I doubt it.  I understand that he can only coach a certain type of team (but is hard to beat with that team) and is helpless against any big-conference team when he doesn't have the exact players he wants on the field, but such a situation is only an injury away in football.

So, I am resigned to another losing/nearly losing season next year, another loss to OSU, and the drama of a new coach search.  At least Bill Martin cannot fuck that up, as he is gone in a year.

[Neil]

I don't think that this is as unusual as you might think.  Urban Meyer took over a Florida team that looked a lot like the late Carr teams, and went 9-3 his first year and 13-1 his second.  He came into neither a losing team nor from the system.  Ditto Les Miles (came in to an LSU team that had been 9-3 the previous year). 

Both those programs are in a different class than Michigan's though.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Again, in fairness to Rodriguez, it's an unusual situation.  Usually, when a new coach is hired, either he's taking over a losing team, or he was on the staff or otherwise a protege of the retiring coach.  OTOH, it wasn't all that different from when he was first hired at WVU, but expectations there aren't quite as high as at Michigan.

I don't think that this is as unusual as you might think.  Urban Meyer took over a Florida team that looked a lot like the late Carr teams, and went 9-3 his first year and 13-1 his second.  He came into neither a losing team nor from the system.  Ditto Les Miles (came in to an LSU team that had been 9-3 the previous year). 

My problem with RichRod isn't that he doesn't win enough.  I would be willing to give him an extra year if it was just a matter of bad luck.  My problem is that he is a bad coach.  His players don't get better (Denard Robinson was just as bad a passer at the end of the season as at the beginning; Michigan's offensive line showed no improvement at all).  His game plans always fall apart at halftime.  It may be that the coaching is just better in the Big Ten than the Big east, but I doubt it.  I understand that he can only coach a certain type of team (but is hard to beat with that team) and is helpless against any big-conference team when he doesn't have the exact players he wants on the field, but such a situation is only an injury away in football.

So, I am resigned to another losing/nearly losing season next year, another loss to OSU, and the drama of a new coach search.  At least Bill Martin cannot fuck that up, as he is gone in a year.

After his tenure at WVU, and especially his loss to a Pitt team with a losing record right before going to Michigan I came to the conclusion that Rich Rodriguez isn't a traditional "coach" at all.  Coaches take the sum of all their players and give a product greater than that sum back.  Rodriguez doesn't do that, he's more of a "systems integration" guy.  The only way Rodriguez can do traditional coach things, like develop talent, is through his assistants.  Comparatively, Steve Spurrier was known for being able to take almost any kid who knew how to hurl a football in the right direction into a quality quarterback.  Coaches also have to make adjustments on game day, Rodriguez has never been observed to make adjustments on game day.  This is again because he's a "systems builder", he can set his system up and hit play, but he can't do on the fly editing. 

For example when he attempted to run the ball up the middle every single down against Pitt, and when it became very obvious Pitt was stopping that play, his response was to keep doing it over and over again until the game was over.  Result:  huge upset win for Pitt, WVU gets knocked out of what most people felt was a lock on the national championship game.

Some people I know in real life have been saying the spread just "doesn't work" and that more traditional West Coast style offense is the way to go.  This is asinine, Urban Meyer won two national championships in the blink of the eye and he runs a spread offense.  Many teams in the Big 10 already run the spread, many teams across the country win every year with the spread.  Realistically what type of offense you run is meaningless, when it comes to football a few things will always be true:

1.  If you win the battle at the line of scrimmage most of the time, you'll win games, most of the time.

2.  If you play good defense most of the time, you'll win games, most of the time.

I don't want to say the skill positions aren't important, they're exceptionally important but they're only one aspect of football.  The fastest running back or the most skilled quarterback needs room/time to make plays.  You can't do that with a poor offensive line.  While coach at West Virginia Rich Rodriguez totally neglected the offensive line.  He totally neglected the defense.  Rodriguez barely recruited for defense.  In fact most safeties and cornerbacks under Rodriguez were recruited as running backs and wide receivers, and then the ones who weren't good enough to make it on offense, Rodriguez put on defense, with the understanding that fast athletes are good "anywhere." 

The spread is supposed to mitigate the importance of the offensive line, but that just means you can afford to de-emphasize line play a bit, you can't ignore it.  That ties in with the final problem of Rodriguez, he's an asshole on a personal level and people can't get along with him.  He had one of the best O-line coaches in the country and essentially ran him out of Morgantown.  He now coaches at Florida State; the great thing about him was he could take the mediocre O-line Rodriguez recruited and always had them in top 20 condition.  A big part of the reason Rodriguez lost the Pitt game is the line play was so bad that Pitt was in the West Virginia backfield a split second after the snap.  No amount of athleticism or speed, and no offensive scheme can counteract the effects of actually having such a porous O-line that defensive backs and linemen are on top of your quarterback or running back roughly as the snap leaves the center's hands.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Something else I should also add is that it is arguable that Rodriguez didn't realistically improve West Virginia as much as people might think.

When Don Nehlen took over at West Virginia they played in a stadium that seated 35,000.  The astroturf actually slid around under the player's feet and in some places it was totally ripped off.  The workout room was just an area under a metal foot bridge and rumors have it that it had a dirt floor.

West Virginia had not entered the modern era of college football, training and conditioning were not given significant attention.  When Nehlen took over he instantly demanded new facilities and he actually instituted a modern weight training and conditioning program.  Within an 8 year span Nehlen brought West Virginia more success than they had ever seen before.  He played Notre Dame in a national championship game and he won year in year out against a higher caliber of opponent than Rodriguez.  Additionally, Nehlen played in an era when there was less parity in college football.  While the old age of no scholarship limits had passed, it as still an age when powerhouse football programs had money to actually invest in national-level recruiting and travel expenses associated with national-level recruiting. 

College football now has revenue sharing and other features that gives it much more parity, schools like Louisville, Cincinnati et cetera have actually been able to compete with some of the most storied programs in the country because they have the money to play ball now.  Not as much money as a Notre Dame, an Ohio State, or a Michigan, but enough to play ball. 

By the time Rodriguez took over, Nehlen sort of mirrored Lloyd Carr at Michigan in that he was an old man who didn't seem to have the energy and dedication he once did.  Rodriguez proceeded to deliver some very mediocre results.

Rodriguez first season was a disaster.  His second season was arguably one of the best in the Rodriguez era, he went 9-4 against stiff competition.  However he was badly embarrassed in the Continental Tire Bowl against a mediocre Virginia team.

In 2003 Rodriguez started off the season 1-3, then upset #3 Virginia Tech and went on to win every game for the rest of the regular season.  However one of Rodriguez losses during the regular season was a drubbing to Maryland in which his team gave up more than 30 points.  Maryland's quarterback?  A kid from West Virginia recruited by Don Nehlen that Rodriguez drove off the team.  In a rare move the Toyota Gator Bowl invited West Virginia to play Maryland for a rematch.  Maryland beat then 41-7.

In 2004 West Virginia got its first true national attention under Rodriguez.  Rodriguez response was not pretty.  He lost in Blacksburg against a mediocre Virginia Tech (unranked at the time) in large part because his vaunted offense completely fell apart, scoring only 16 points.

In 2004 Rodriguez lost his last 3 games of the season and the Big East sent Pittsburgh to the BCS game where they were annihilated by Urban Meyer's Utha.

So after Rodriguez's first four years as a coach he was 28-21.  Note that when the Big East got weaker starting in 2004 there was no noticeable improvement in Rodriguez's record.  He was 8-5 the last year of the original Big East and 8-4 the first year of the new Big East.

Alright, so up to 2004 Rodriguez is a mediocre coach, no better, no worse.

2005-2007 Rodriguez went 32-5.  He's now an awesome coach, right?  Well, maybe.  A few things played right into Rodriguez's hands:

-During this time Rodriguez played no serious OOC teams.
-During this time teams that eventually became pretty good in the Big East:  South Florida, Cincinnati, weren't really the teams they are today.
-Pat White and Steve Slaton

Pat White and Slaton were two of the most explosive players in college football; and Rodriguez deserves major props for recruiting White as a quarterback.  Both are on NFL rosters today.

Finally, the Big East was very weak during this time.  Louisville was good and South Florida was decent and that was about it.  The rest of the conference was very mediocre.  Against Louisville and South Florida those years Rodriguez gave up 3 of his 5 losses during this time span (so 3 of the good teams he played, he lost to--many of those 32 wins came against teams with losing records.)  He also lost against the last really good OOC team he played:  Virginia Tech in 2005 (the last year of the rivalry).  His fifth loss came to a Pitt team that was so bad many people were calling for the firing of their HC that season.

He had some good wins during this time, to Louisville in OT (although he was helped by a blown call by referees who didn't understand the NCAA onside kick rule), to Georgia Tech and obviously to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.  But Rodriguez success doesn't seem that much different from Nehlen in 88.  The success of a decent coach who got lucky because of a very talented, exceptional player.  Additionally there is evidence that if you take out the "peaks" Nehlen is probably a more consistent coach than Rodriguez over the long term.

[Berkut]

Those are all good points, but Arizona is still cursed.

[Berkut]

[dps]

Yeah, I agree that Rodriguez is a terrible in-game coach.  I remember one game, not sure the year or opponent, that I listened to most of the game on the car radio.  WVU was down by about 17 points or so with about 10 minutes left in the 4th.  They basically ran 3 straight-ahead running plays and then punted.  The defense forced the other team to go 3-and-out , so they got the ball back with like 8 minutes still on the clock.  Three more straight-ahead running plays, and another punt.  They again got the ball back about 2 minutes later, and again called 3 running plays and then punted.  I was sitting in the car thinking, "OK, so when is the offensive genius stuff gonna start, Rich?".  I can see trying to run on that first possession--there was still plenty of time left--but after that time was definately against them.  Plus, I think that a couple of those 3rd down plays were 3rd-and-long, and he still didn't call any passes.

[dps]

Aw, that's not really true.  Not just anybody could do it--it takes a skilled AD to line up all those cupcakes.

[sbr]

Nice. 

Did the fans throw anything at Corso and Herbstreet?

[Berkut]

Nice. 

Did the fans throw anything at Corso and Herbstreet?

Probably. What a bunch of douchebags. And you know it is all the "fans" who show up for a game like this who probably don't even know the starting QBs name who pull crpa like that. A bunch fo drunk assholes.

At least our players don't act like gang bangers though, so that is something. Apparently Masoli has quite the repertoire of gang-banger signs he likes to share before the game. Thug U indeed.

edit: At least not since Clarence Farmer left. The only thing positive that Mackovich ever did.

[MadImmortalMan]

My problem with RichRod isn't that he doesn't win enough.

Well, yeah.