Subject: What was, what might have been, what is, and what could be.
(Jonathan) Chait made a point recently that Rich Rodriguez inherited a "hollowed out" roster.
Is this really the case? Let's look at who the starters were for the second game of the 2008 season.
QB: Steve Threet
RB: McGuffie/Brown/Shaw (with Minor on double-secret probation)
LT: Ortmann
LG: McAvoy
C: Molk
RG: Moosman
RT: Schilling
TE: Butler
WR: Stonum
WR: Odoms
DE: Graham
DT: Taylor
DT: Johnson (with Martin making early contributions)
DE: Jamison (with Van Bergen making contributions)
WILL: Mouton
MIKE: Ezeh
SAM: Thompson
CB: Warren
CB: Trent
FS: Brown
SS: Harrison
That offense was young. You had a redshirt freshman QB, two true freshman WR's, and three new starters on the OL.
Conversely, the defense was a solid unit. Not hollow in the least! The DL should have been the Big Ten's best that year, or at least close to it. You had a senior Thompson at SAM, a returning starter in Ezeh at MIKE, and Jonas Mouton ready at WILL - and he played some good football in '08. Warren and Trent were a solid duo at corner. Harrison was a senior at safety, and Brown was a junior.
What could we reasonably have expected had Lloyd or DeBord continued to coach the team?
In 2008, we would have surely played the type of football that many of Michigan's faithful wanted to see go away: conservative, three-yards-in-a-cloud-of-dust, ball control football, keeping a stout defense fresh and making just enough plays throwing over the top to beat most teams.
Justin Boren would have still been here in 2008 and 2009, and Manningham and/or Arrington might have been around for 2008 as well. (I am assuming Mallett and McGuffie were gone regardless.) But Steve Threet would have had a fighting chance in a passing offense behind an OL of Ortmann-Boren-Molk-Moosman-Schilling with Manningham and Arrington at WR, and Stonum and Hemingway behind them. Certainly a better shot than he did running read-option and throwing to freshmen.
When you look back at 2008, think of all the games that were there to be won: Utah, Toledo, Purdue, MSU... even PSU and ND. Under Coach Mike DeBord, that team probably goes 7-5 or even 8-4 (and DeBord gets skewered by fans for doing so).
Due to some recruiting misses at safety and on the offensive line (which resulted in some shaky play on the right side for the last few years of the Carr Era), and a perfect storm of Henne, Hart and Long all graduating at once, Vince Lombardi could not have done better than 8-4 in 2008. 3-9, however, was a fail under any coach.
Now play the tape through.
In 2009, you lose Jamison, Taylor, Johnson, Thompson, Trent and Harrison off the defense. Martin and Sagesse step in at tackle (and in hindsight, we know Martin was ready to be an impact player, with Van Bergen at DE. Fitzgerald and Demens battle it out at the SAM. Kovacs and Brown make up a shaky safety duo.
But on offense, you would have had all five OL starters returning. Minor and Brown as seniors at RB. Steve Threet in his second year starting in the passing offense we have since learned he could flourish in. And you may well have had Forcier backing up Threet. Jason loved it here and only transferred for a chance to play - the old staff probably recruits Tate and lands him.
Look back on the 2009 schedule. MSU, Purdue, Iowa, even OSU... there were a couple of more wins to be had there beyond the low-hanging fruit we picked up. Probably another 7 or 8 win season. Imagine the flak Mike DeBord would have been taking! There wouldn't have been a DeBord "apologist" on De Board, despite maintaining our bowl streak and winning several more games over two years than Rodriguez did.
The 2010 roster gets harder to project. But we would have certainly had Molk and Schilling starting on the OL, probably with Huyge and Dorrestein. It's difficult to project the other OL's because the rest are Rodriguez recruits - and this is one area where he and his staff have done a bang-up job (better than their predecessors). It's also difficult to project who the running backs would be - but this was not a stellar year for our RB's, so you can at least assume that whoever Carr & Co. brought in would be no worse. But instead of a first year starter in Denard, you'd have had a fourth year junior Steve Threet at quarterback, now in his third year starting in a pro-style system. He'd have been throwing to a well-seasoned Stonum and Hemingway, with probably Kelvin Grady as the 3rd/slot receiver. Toney Clemons is probably still hanging around somewhere, perhaps making more rap singles with a 5th year senior Coner.
On defense, we know the anchors of the line would have been Martin and Van Bergen, and we'd have had Ezeh, Mouton, and Fitzgerald/Demens together for a third straight year under the same system, and probably getting better coaching than they have under the Rodriguez regime. That may well have been a really good linebacking corps had things been different. Donovan Warren would likely still be here at corner with Floyd and Rogers and whoever else Lloyd might have recruited competing across from him. Much better than the mess we had this year. I couldn't even begin to tell you who the safeties would be. Teric Jones and one of the Gordons? Rogers or Floyd at FS? Couldn't be any worse than what we had.
Had the Bo/Mo/Lloyd program continued under DeBord, it's a good bet the last three years would have averaged about 8-4, and people would be very dissatisfied with that. Gary Moeller was ostensibly fired for the Southfield incident, but in reality he was fired for losing four games in 1993 and 1994.
It would have been perfectly fair to be disgruntled with the state of the program had things continued on their old course. Almost any organization, be it business, education, whatever, can get stale without new ideas coming in from the outside. And it was frustrating to be able to see the top of the mountain from where we were, only to continue coming up short. The 2004 and 2005 OSU games that LITERALLY slipped just through our hands... the calamitous starts to 1998 and 2007... the Rose Bowl losses to USC in 2003 and 2006.
Some, however, cautioned that a wholesale dismantling of the program means you are throwing the baby out with the bath water. And those people who so cautioned turned out to be spot on. Almost every year, under Lloyd, we woke up the morning of the OSU game knowing that we would have a shot at at least a share of the Big Ten title. We NEVER woke up on any Saturday assuming Michigan would lose. Many if not most people took that for granted, and assumed that anyone who came from the outside and took over after Lloyd would automatically have that and just add to it. But that's not how it works (as we have very painfully discovered).
By electing to completely throw away everything that Michigan was and start with a blank piece of paper, we ended an historic streak of non-losing seasons, the longest active bowl streak, and at many points over the next three years became a national joke.
Now, were there people who didn't accept Rich Rodriguez from day one? Hell yes. Many fans had reservations. You had the Rosenbergs of the world. And you had some people internally. But the fact of the matter is, this is no different from transitions at any big football program - and it's not even unprecedented at Michigan. There was great resistance to Bo Schembechler when he took over for Bump Elliott. For the rest of his life Bo maintained that he never could have gotten off the ground without the support he got from Bump during the transition, and this was a "lasting lesson" that Lloyd did not take from Bo. It wasn't enough to stay out of Rich's way and resist actively undermining him. If Lloyd wanted to do what was best for Michigan, he should have been Rich's loudest, most visible fan. And behind the scenes, he should have been telling his former players who were not "all in" to man up and f*****g GET all in!
Now... Rich was not blameless, either. The special joy he took in dismantling the program in order to fully rebuild it in his own image was something that would have sickened Bo. When Bo took over, there was absolutely a new sheriff in town, but he came to the job with an acute awareness of the brand he was inheriting. He had his own way of doing things, but he was not trying to fashion a "Bo Schembechler program" or recreate any past success. His job was to do the best he could with MICHIGAN - it was bigger than he was. And he knew it. Rich doesn't seem to understand that quite so well.
Further... many insiders will tell you that Rich was like a bull in a china shop within the walls of Schembechler Hall. While he said the right things publicly, inside he routinely disparaged what he had been left by Lloyd and criticized Lloyd's program, apparently too dense to realize that most of the people still involved with the program were former colleagues and admirers of Carr. He established a tone from the start that all but invited the skeptics to actively undermine him, and he did little to earn the respect that he very much needed from Lloyd Carr. In short: don't portray Rich as merely a victim of a stodgy blueblood establishment. There's plenty of blame to go around for why this marriage didn't work out, and that includes Rich. He had his own "faction".
And none of this political intrigue cost Michigan a single win under Rodriguez.
What DID cost us wins?
I agree with those who are believers in the Rodriguez offense. It works, and has the potential with an experienced, talented group to be absolutely explosive. He's an elite offensive mind. It's easy to say, "all we need to do is improve the defense a little and we'll win 10 games!"
But there's a reason that fixing the two phases at which we are historically bad is not likely, and it goes deeper than X's and O's and star gazing and all the directly observable factors.
Whether it's the New England Patriots, Ohio State, Google, Apple, Hyundai, GE.... some programs are able to build a culture of attention to detail. It's a common denominator in high performing organizations in sports, in business, everywhere.
In a game with 22 players on the field, with that many moving parts, everyone doing their job is critical, and it's about more than just "making plays". Breakdowns in execution, breakdowns in fundamentals, breakdowns in concentration, breakdowns in ball security... when it happens week after week after week, you may not be able to pinpoint the exact cause of the pattern, but it IS a pattern that DOES have a root cause.
When Denard puts the ball on the ground like clockwork EVERY WEEK, when Lewan picks up a personal foul EVERY WEEK, when Jeremy Gallon makes a bad decision or fumbles the ball EVERY WEEK, when Roy Roundtree drops passes EVERY WEEK... it all falls under the category of "attention to detail". That culture of attention to detail simply is not there under Rodriguez.
Look back at the fumble stats for Rich Rodriguez teams. Fumbling has been a problem all three years here, and it was a problem on four of his teams at West Virginia. Maybe it's that his teams consistently have the ball in the hands of small players who can't absorb a hit and hold onto the football as well. Or maybe ball security isn't worked on enough (and actively enforced through the withholding of playing time). But West Virginia fumbled away a shot at the National Championship against Pitt in 2007, losing three and having one or two others kill drives. On 7 of Rich's last 10 teams - different programs, different players - fumbling has been a major problem. There is only one common denominator: Rich Rodriguez.
Attention to detail.
West Virginia ended up with the nation's #3 defense this year (Catseel, without Rodriguez), and Syracuse ended up #6 (Shafer, without Rodriguez). Greg Robinson, with two Super Bowl rings in his trophy case, presided over the nation's #109 defense - the bottoming out of a three year trend. The difference in competition between the Big East and Big Ten cannot account for that kind of disparity - especially when West Virginia and certainly Syracuse don't have near the level of recruited talent that Michigan does.
Attention to detail.
The utter cluster*** that is our kicking and return game - despite three years of recruiting ideal kick/punt returner prototypes and having a US Army All-American kicker AND punter on the roster - is another area where attention to detail (or the lack thereof) is painfully evident. Special teams is ALL about coaching and attention to detail. Ohio State and Virginia Tech have great special teams every year. Their preparation and attention to detail allows them to be better in this phase than we are.
At Tulane and Clemson, Rich was only responsible for the offensive scheme and play calling - a job at which he is nothing short of exceptional. And at Glenville State and West Virginia, the level of competition allowed offensive scheme alone to carry the day - along with catching lightning in a bottle in the form of Steve Slaton and Pat White (who in addition to great speed had exceptional instincts and timing on the read option - something Denard and Tate do not possess).
When he got to Michigan, Rich was not only responsible for the whole enchilada, but the weekly level of competition - on the recruiting trail and on the field - got ratcheted up a couple of notches, as did the expectations. His offensive thought leadership was no longer enough. Factors like management and leadership skills, and ATTENTION TO DETAIL, are the difference between success and failure when you graduate to the grownups' game as Rich did when he took this job.
That's why it's not a random occurrence when Denard coughs up the football at the end of a long drive against Ohio State. It's what Denard does! His 10 fumbles this year are less than only Taylor Martinez (11) and Fresno State QB Ryan Colburn (12). He's fumbled as many times this month as Mike Hart fumbled in his entire career, and it's criminally negligent that the problem hasn't been coached out of him in two full seasons. Historically, it's what Rich Rodriguez teams do. Attention to detail. And a microcosm of the offense under Rich: brilliant enough to move you all the way down the field, mistake-prone enough to not finish the job against the real good defensive competition. The scheme works beautifully. The execution all too frequently derails it.
On balance, there were plenty of reasons why Rich Rodriguez might not have been able to replicate his WVU level of success at Michigan. The Big East is a BCS conference in name only. WVU was Rich's alma mater, and as a favorite son the leadership challenge of getting everyone pulling in the same direction was not nearly as daunting. Morgantown is a small town that doesn't provide the media scrutiny of a big market like Detroit. Michigan is simply a bigger, tougher job than West Virginia was for him. While Rich is an offensive thought leader - unquestionably one of the top offensive minds in the game - the challenge of being the czar of this particular program appears to be beyond his management and leadership abilities.
Here's the real distillation of the arguments over the relative fullness of the cupboard and what Rodriguez could have or should have accomplished:
Lloyd had left us in a position where we were going to be in a football "recession" for a couple of years. But Rich came in and turned it into a full-on Great Depression.
Just as economic tweaks and a New Deal were not enough on their own to lift America out of the Depression, defensive tweaks and a New Coordinator will not be enough to lift Michigan out of this quagmire.
Rich Rodriguez will someday come to be viewed as the Herbert Hoover of Michigan football: a man not lacking for technical knowledge, but too much of a tinkerer and not a strong enough manager and leader to cope with the events of the day and halt a critical downward spiral.
Ending the Great Depression required World War II to get everyone to work and energize the economy. Michigan football needs its own galvanizing event to end our Depression.
Michigan football needs its FDR. NOW.
Just as another great Michigan football player, Gerald Ford, said after a famous transition of power that "our long national nightmare is over"... when this nightmare hopefully ends in the coming days and we have our own transition of power, Michigan Nation must turn its lonely eyes to Jim Harbaugh.
He resume belies the thoroughly moronic notion that Michigan fans only care about him because he played here.
He was a Heisman finalist in college, and played for fourteen years under many different offensive systems in the NFL. He played for some coaching giants, starting with Bo Schembechler, and then Mike Ditka. He played for one of the most noted offensive minds in NFL history in Ted Marchibroda when he was with the Colts, and a fairly accomplished college offensive mind in Mike Riley when he was with the Chargers. Harbaugh has studied under some big time football acumen, and since his own father was a college football coach, he was probably a more keen observer of the coaching chops of his mentors than the average player.
He cut his teeth as an assistant coach at Western Kentucky, serving in an unpaid capacity under his dad, Jack Harbaugh (who was Michigan's DB coach under Bo Schembechler from 1973 to 1979). Despite playing at a big time college program and starting at QB in the NFL for many years, Jim went back to school and learned his craft as a coach from an old hand - and he did it for no money in a college football backwater. He didn't have anything handed to him. He put in his time.
As a head coach, he started off at the University of San Diego - a non-scholarship program in a scholarship league. He went 7-4 his first year, then 11-1 the next two, winning the Pioneer League both times.
At this point, you could have made an argument that Harbaugh was an intriguing candidate for a Bret Bielema-style transition year under Lloyd. Yes, some guys like Miles and Rodriguez were more accomplished at bigger programs, but Harbaugh was by no means a "small school" guy given his Michigan and NFL experience, and Miles and Rodriguez both carried with them questions about a cultural fit - questions that were raised at the time (and turned out to be very prescient with Rich).
In any case, Harbaugh took over a Stanford program that was 1-11 the year before, and was routinely recruiting classes that were not even in the top 50. They were the doormat of the Pac 10. They were Indiana. Except worse. Talk about a "hollowed out roster", Mr. Chait!
In four years, he has beaten USC - the 'roided up, player-paying Darth Vader of college football - three times.
In his third year, Stanford made their first bowl since 2001.
This year, his fourth, he has flipped that 1-11 to 11-1 and has Stanford in position to possibly go to a BCS bowl. Their only loss was on the road at AP #1/BCS #2 Oregon. They have shut three teams out defensively and have a top 25 defense to go with a top 10 offense. This defense is nothing to sneeze at when you look at the offensive ranks of Oregon, USC, Arizona, and Steve Threet's Arizona State - all offenses in the top third of the nation. And Notre Dame, who was also on Stanford's schedule, is in the top half. They lost a Heisman finalist, Toby Gerhart, and it affected them not a bit. Finally, Stanford is about to bring in a top 20 recruiting class - their best since Rivals has been around - and if you don't think that's an accomplishment, look through the academic numbers of Harbaugh's recruits. You'll find a whole lot of them who could get into Michigan on academic merit, and I guarantee you that "we'll find out in August" are words that you will never hear uttered on the Stanford message board with regards to whether a kid will qualify.
Let's look inside the numbers at exactly what Harbaugh has done to elevate Stanford's program:
Scoring Defense - Improved by 13 points per game over four years (31 to 18)
Scoring Offense - Improved by 29 points per game over four years (11 to 40)
Ponder the enormity of this for a moment: a positive point differential of 42. Six touchdowns a game Harbaugh has added to that program!
And he did it without trying to sneak academically-deficient felons through the back door.
Strength of Schedule (Per Sagarin)
2007 - 10
2008 - 12
2009 - 29
2010 - 8 (YTD)
This is not the Big East. In fact, Stanford has had a stronger SOS than Michigan each year. Harbaugh just went 11-1 against a top ten SOS.
Recruiting Classes (per Rivals)
2007 - 51
2008 - 50
2009 - 20
2010 - 26
2011 - 11 (YTD)
You cannot do a better job at either San Diego or Stanford than Jim Harbaugh has done. Given his playing pedigree, the fact that he comes from a coaching family and studied under numerous big time coaches, that he put in his time to learn the craft, then put it into practice at two different levels and was wildly successful at each, Jim Harbaugh is unquestionably the hottest coaching commodity to be ready for the big time since Urban Meyer was set to leave Utah.
When you then consider that Harbaugh was a rug rat on the Michigan sidelines while his dad coached under Bo, and then starred here as a player... outside of bringing in someone who has been winning national championships elsewhere and is just ready for a change, you could not design a better candidate for the Michigan job than Jim Harbaugh. He is significantly more qualified than Rich Rodriguez was when we hired him, let alone after three years of Rodriguez failure.
If Harbaugh had this same resume three years ago, Rich Rodriguez would not have even gotten a courtesy listen from Michigan. Harbaugh may have been ON the boat with Bill Martin!
As it is, it's probably now or never if we want to bring Harbaugh home, and every indication is that he wants the gig. Rich has not accomplished nearly enough for us to pass on this opportunity.
Now, let's address Harbaugh's controversial comments from 2007.
"I would use myself as an example. I came in there, wanted to be a history major, and I was told early on in my freshman year that I shouldn't be. That it takes too much time. Too much reading. That I shouldn't be a history major and play football."
Was this true? Strictly speaking, yes. But there's a major lie of omission there. Harbaugh has mild dyslexia and a reading-intensive major is a difficult choice whether you're a football player or not. This was bad, and Harbaugh would be a better man for walking that one back.
It's also worth noting that Harbaugh was honored on the Big Ten All-Academic Team as a player - so there is some indication in his background that he does take academics very seriously. He had this to say on that:
"Most avid college football fans, unfortunately, just think about how exciting it is to watch college players play and not think about what happens when the football comes to a screeching halt. They need to get a degree - a quality degree - and develop a skill set that helps you for the next 60-70 years."
Frankly, I like the idea of someone who takes academics seriously beyond the lip service that virtually every coach pays to the classroom.
The meat of Harbaugh's thoughts were this:
"Michigan is a good school and I got a good education there, but the athletic department has ways to get borderline kids in, and when they're in, they steer them to courses in Sports Communications. They're adulated when they're playing, but when they get out, the people who adulated them won't hire them."
This is hardly "taking a dump on the university", as many have characterized it. In fact, he made sure to delineate between the school and the football program.
Michigan DOES take kids who just barely qualify, which Stanford does not. While Lloyd used to get his one or two exceptions a year for borderline kids, we take more of them under Rodriguez than we did under Carr - one more piece of evidence of a problem with cultural fit. Now, unlike SEC programs, you do have to meet those Clearinghouse requirements for real to get into Michigan, as Demar Dorsey found out. You can't fudge it at the 11th hour through correspondence courses which anyone can take for you, or senior year grades and test scores that are bizarrely inconsistent with your entire academic background.
But the fact remains that most of these academically borderline kids, while some may get their sheepskin in one of the athlete-centric majors, are not going to be qualified for the types of jobs that a normal Michigan student who took a normal curriculum in college would be. When Harbaugh says these kids couldn't get hired by the people who adulated them... he's right! You probably won't see Jeremy Gallon and Mike Shaw and Jake Ryan going to work for Wall Street banks and Chicago ad agencies and Detroit auto makers if/when they graduate. (Although it does appear you can get elected to Congress in some red districts with that academic background at Michigan. The qualifications there are a bit lower.)
You may not like what Harbaugh said - just as many didn't like his brashly guaranteeing a win over OSU when he played here. But just like he did then, Harbaugh backed up his arguably ill-conceived words with action and got it done, winning in a big way with a higher caliber of student than the NCAA requires. (You also won't see players fitting the profile of Gallon, Shaw and Ryan on Stanford's commitment lists.) There aren't that many schools that legitimately set a higher bar than the Clearinghouse, but Stanford is one of them, Harbaugh said he would win there... and he did, with a whole team full of players who could be academic all-americans. That's just bad ass.
And let's be honest here: running your mouth, sometimes inappropriately, doesn't have to keep you from being beloved at Michigan. (See also: Hart, Mike.)
But why did Harbaugh say it in the first place?
"My motivation was positive. I see how it's done now at Stanford, and I see no reason it can't be the same there. I have a great love for Michigan and what it's done for me. Bo Schembechler was like a second father. Michigan is a great school and always has been, and I don't see why they can't hold themselves to a higher standard."
There is no reason Harbaugh could not do at Michigan what he has done at Stanford. There is no reason, as he said, that Michigan can't hold themselves to a higher standard and still win at the level we expect. Harbaugh has already gone to a challenging conference and built a culture of toughness and attention to detail and winning football, and done it with a higher caliber of student. He has also shown he can recruit at a high level at a program known more for academics than football. Hell, he has already laid down the gauntlet for himself at Michigan- just as he did in 1986 when he guaranteed a win over OSU.
"It ain't bragging if you can do it," said Dizzy Dean.
There is every reason to believe Jim Harbaugh would be more successful here than Rich Rodriguez has been. This is not about what is "fair" to Rich. The team, the team, the team, right? Michigan football is bigger than Rich Rodriguez - just as Bo knew it was bigger than Bo.
This is a results-oriented business, and Rodriguez has not achieved anything close to the expected results - despite attempts by many of his proponents to retroactively lower the bar. 1-13 against the top five programs in the Big Ten, 5-5 against the bottom feeders. A loss to a MAC school for the first time in school history. A defense that has gotten worse each year and has transcended "bad" into a full meltdown in many games. A kicking and return game in year three that is an embarrassment. Recruiting in decline - both in terms of average rank of player and rank of student.
When Lloyd Carr went 7-5 in 2005 with an injury-ravaged team playing against the #1 or #2 toughest schedule in the nation, depending on which ranking you look at, this was considered incomprehensibly bad, and the fan base was apoplectic. Yet now 7-5 under Rich Rodriguez is considered by many to be a sign of progress? We need one more year of progress just to get back to the level that many were dissatisfied with under Carr! There is no reason to believe an overhaul of the defensive staff - after two other competent coordinators failed here - will fix the problem.
The common denominator is Rich, himself, and his approach to the role of defense on a football team. Rodriguez views the defense, as Denard told us a week ago when he offered up his truly bizarre opinion that Michigan has one of the best defenses in the country, as a sparring partner for the offense. They are there to get our offense ready. Stopping other teams is the secondary objective. This will likely not change with a new set of coaches. Nor will the lack of a culture of attention to detail - the foundational deficiency of all other deficiencies.
All Dave Brandon owes Rich Rodriguez is the buyout as specified in his contract - a clause which Rodriguez, as we all remember, knows about all too well from when he tried to avoid paying his after dumping WVU.
Karma's a bitch, I suppose.
It's time for us to move on, to bring a very successful native son home, and to let our current coach try again in a situation that better suits him. |
