Is it true?
As a Michigan hater this disappoints me, he’s a much better coach for them than Les Miles was. Wish they’d have tracked down some overrated “Michigan man” from a upstart small school.
Interesting hire, I’m curious as to why Chris Peterson from Boise State’s name doesn’t seem to come up in these coaching searches.
I think Rodriguez is a pretty good coach–considering who seems to be available currently probably the best coach Michigan could have found this season. The one thing I do question about Rodriguez is that he only seemed to do about average (8-4 and 8-5 records) when he used to player tougher opponents (like the Virginia Tech and Miami teams of old which were considered powerhouse teams) and his success seems to correlate very nicely with playing in a conference that suddenly got drastically weaker. Even with the Big East getting weaker he’s lost some games to some teams that were just plain worse than the team he had fielded (South Florida two years in a row and Pittsburgh this year.) Even great coaches have bad days, but I think West Virginia has been perennially overrated for several seasons now and I think Rodriguez by extension is a bit overrated as well.
I think his offense is a bit gimmicky and I think it relies too heavily on a specific type of player, he seems to be very poor at reshaping his system to accommodate good players with different skill sets (for example despite his success with Shaun King at Tulane he seems to almost ignore the passing game these days.) He will probably have a much better offensive line year in and year out at Michigan though, which is essential for his program to work.
The whole idea behind Rodriguez’s spread option offense used to be that it was a way for schools which couldn’t recruit dominating offensive linemen to move the ball against more traditional powers. But the system has changed and now relies almost entirely on a dominating offensive line. When you no longer use the pass to set up the run, you have to hope that your line will make holes.
I find the performance of their running backs the past season to be worrying. In 2005 and 2006 they had a better offensive line (with an All-American center in the middle) and Steve Slaton had huge holes and tore defenses up (even a very good, fast, Georgia defense.) Since then, Steve has been a bit of a disappointment. While Steve’s fumbling problems are his own, I think the biggest reason his yardage numbers have gone down is because the o-line has gotten worse, and since Rodriguez has more or less abandoned the pass Slaton is going to be the sole focus of almost the entire defense anytime West Virginia runs a play.
That’s the kind of systemic thing that I don’t think will work well in the Big Ten. Rodriguez is going to have to get back to using the pass a bit more I think.
He’s going to have to recruit players who actually go to class and learn stuff, unlike at West Virginia.
I think the whole concept of focusing your coaching search on guys who have past associations with your program is a bit overdone. Osborne was apparently focused intently on hiring someone at Nebraska who had a strong connection with the program right out of the gate, too.
Rodriguez has never struck me as being big on academics (considering some of the players he’s recruited in the past were only vaguely-eligible for admission into college), but to my knowledge his teams have always had better graduation rates than say, Ohio State (which IIRC in 2006 had the worst graduation rate of any team playing in a bowl game in '06.)
I agree. I understand tradition, but oh…isn’t hiring the best person for the job more…um…important?
The tradition is that we do not want a coach from a school that blatantly cheats. Michigan men will have an understanding of the limits. Plus they do not have to learn that Ohio State is evil and must be corrected.
Michigan has been in awfully deep NCAA trouble in the past to be acting as though it’s the school that wears lily white in college athletics.
As an aside, Peterson’s name did come up in connection with the UCLA job, but he was quick to crush those rumors. That’s going to be an interesting hire, I think, with Norm Chow and Slick Rick in the mix.
Anyway, like I said in the College Football bowl thread, I think Michigan made a great hire. Rodriguez understands his offense, and he is a proven winner (Michigan, after all, is not really a job where you make your reputation. You ought to have a reputation before you get hired there). I find the possibility of a Rodriguez-installed Michigan spread offense lining up against Tressel’s defense every year awesome. Just awesome. I think Michigan really outdid themselves. They certainly landed someone better than Les Miles.
It’s an excellent hire for Michigan. But I wonder if it’s a mistake for Rodriguez.
If Michigan just offered him WAAAY more money than the Mountaineers could afford, well, I understand him taking it. But I think his chances of winning a national title some day were much better in the Big East than they will be in the Big Ten.
Well, IF Jim Harbaugh is to be believed, Michigan has long had ways of getting iffy students on the roster, too.
I don’t say this to knock Michigan, by the way (I went to Columbia, not to Ohio State!). I’m merely saying that practically NO school in the NCAA runs a squeaky clean football program with pure, wholesome, academically-oriented student-athletes.
I agree. The spread offense tends to give the Big Ten teams fits, and it’s a large part of what’s made Illinois so successful this season. Setting up that system in Michigan with the type of talent they will be able to land will be scary. Exhibit A.
I wonder what kind of running back Michigan will have for this new offense and how they’ll be with it. Their offensive line should be VERY good for it, though, which may transfer over to even a sub-par running back.
It should be interesting. I wonder how many off-tackle runs will be used this coming year.
I for one am very glad.(Even if my magic eight ball was waaaayyyyy off this year :smack: )
I never really like Miles that much and would have prefered any of the other top guys. Rodriguez wasn’t on my radar, but I think he is awesome, and he may bring some big time recruits with him for next near even. If they can add what Michigan has always done well to what Rodriguez has always done well, things might look very good indeed.
Just what Michigan needs. . .a guy who can’t get his team ready for a big game.
He’s going to be UM’s version of John Cooper.
Lloyd Carr already holds that distinction, but we’ll take another…