I'm all for scrutinizing, and I'm even all for being downright judgmental, but when it comes to bombarding a first year football coach implementing a new system with a team that has mostly freshman at offensive skill positions, let's give the guy at least a year before we throw him under the bus.Rich Rodriguez may yet restore Michigan to Big Ten supremacy. He might win a national title and justify athletic director Bill Martin’s decision to hire him.
In the meantime, this needs to be said:
Rodriguez has done an awful coaching job this season. Michigan is 2-4 and just lost to Toledo, which should never happen.
And...where does it say that Michigan should never lose to a school like Toledo? We lost to Appy State last year, we barely escaped Ball State in 06, stop pretending that Michigan is "holier than thow" when it comes to playing lesser opponents. It's that same attitude that leads to epic collapses in the first place!
Rodriguez talks about “building” the program. But literally no college football program in history was built as solidly as the one he inherited. U-M has been to 33 consecutive bowls, and that number would be 40 if the Big Ten could have sent more than one team to a bowl before 1975. Since 1968, Michigan had lost more than four games in a season only twice: in injury-ravaged campaigns in 1984 and 2005.Please Michael, don't go back to the record book to argue the greatness of a program. When Michigan plays someone, they don't play the game with record books. This isn't Notre Dame. It's a loose argument to begin with, even for Michigan who holds so many records. Using that argument makes you sound uninformed and like a old crazy coot.
The Michigan program is built solidly, that is why this rebuilding process will happen so quickly.
Look, I get it, Michigan fans are pissed to new levels right now, and Michael is not as stupid as he seems. He knows that it any article calling the coach a failure and new system a joke will get the clicks and drive the newspaper's readership. Have to cater to the reader, right? Forget about moral objectivity...leave that to schmucks like me who don't care about page views or income.
Michael Rosenberg, you're a terrible writer. And to illustrate that point, your final paragraph of the article...
Rodriguez might win big. He is six games into his Michigan tenure, and it would be foolish to give up on him after six games. He might win championships when he gets “his guys” into “his system.” But the guys who are already here should have a much better record, and that falls on the head coach.You wrap up the article basically on the other side of the arguments you spent the whole article trying to make. You harp on how many upperclassmen left the program, even though that argument was getting old by last June. You compare him to Lloyd Carr who spent 27 years at Michigan and didn't change a thing the whole time he was there.
But as soon as Rodriguez comes in and starts the biggest change in Michigan football history and losses 4 of his first 6 games, you call him out as a failure in your headline, and then wrap up the article by saying how foolish it would be to give up on him after only 6 games.
Which is it Mike?
Agreed, Mr. MaizeNBlue. MAC teams play quality football and shouldn't surprise anyone when they occasionally pull off a Big 10 (or other major conference) upset. Toledo has played many top 25 teams tough in the past decade.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it's shameful and lowbrow for your local "journalists" to pile on with no greater perspective. I love the idea that college football players - 18-23 year old kids who also happen to be in school - are somehow machines who can immediately adapt to a new coach, media scrutiny, a new system, a tough team and 110,000 screaming maniacs, and that the new coach should somehow be able to harness all of this into a 6-0 or even a 4-2 start. It takes time!
Rosenberg proves his chops. He belongs at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where all writers (minus the great Terry Pluto) right similarly self-righteous and uninsightful drivel.