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I'm not going to comment about Demar Dorsey. I'm not going to comment on him for a couple reasons: One, there is no coach in the country that deliberately seeks out bad character kids for their program, nor is there any coach in the country that doesn't do due dilligence when it comes to finding out about a kid's background. Two, I trust Brian at MGoBlog almost implicitly. If he says he has a source that told him Vance Bedford (two-time UM assistant under Carr) called Rodriguez and personally vouched for Demar Dorsey's character, that's good enough for me.
I'm also not going to comment (much) on people like Drew Sharp and Dave Birkett. Sharp is what he is - a miserable, trollish sonofabitch who has admitted he doesn't care what fans think. He's a megalomaniacal bomb thrower only interested in poking the hornet's nest and then laughing as the swarm futilely stings at his bee suit. His comments were stupid, ignorant and pompous - three character traits he is intimately familiar with. I will take pleasure in watching his industry continue to wither away into irrelevancy. If there is a God, he will sink with it.
As for Birkett, well...he writes for AnnArbor.com. Why? Because the Ann Arbor News went under. Wanna know a good way to accelerate your demise (aside from being an obsolete medium of news information)? Hire guys that loathe the biggest thing in the town you're based in. Guys like Jim Carty and Michigan State University graduate Dave Birkett. Birkett is insignificant. He was fishing at the Signing Day presser, trying to show the room he had the balls to stand up to the 8-16 Michigan coach. If Rich Rodriguez was 16-8 instead, he tells Birkett to shut up, and it's done. If Lloyd Carr was still the coach and he heard a question from Birkett he didn't like, he would give a glare, and roughly 3.9 seconds later, Dave Birkett hustles out of the room with a dark stain on the front of his pants.
A few things interest me. Like how the Free Press can have an extensive seven-page background check into a teenage kid's past completed and ready to go in a little over a day. I'm interested in that. I'm interested in how much longer it will take for someone - anyone - inside Michigan's athletic department to show some kind - any kind - of support for their coach. I mean, you hired the guy, and he's getting raked over the coals (again). Wouldn't it be smart business to fight back, to stick up for the man you picked to represent your biggest product? Unless...maybe after two years of horror on the football field, some people of importance have secretly decided that an awful mistake was made in mid-December 2007, and they're now subtlely feeding the beast intent on running the man out of here. Beats me. I'm just musing.
But the double standards are still piling up. Michigan State allows Glenn Winston onto the practice field the same day he gets out of jail, and someone at the Freep (it might've been Sharp, actually) says that might've been naughty. Michigan kicks a drug dealer off the team immediately after learning about his habits, and Rosenberg's got his "win at all costs" column ready to go. These "journalists" hide behind the charade of wanting to do what's right and maintaining a standard of decency and integrity at the University of Michigan, when in reality Rosenberg doesn't like Rodriguez because he (Rosenberg) is an elitist snob who can't stand seeing a "hillbilly" coaching his alma mater. When in reality, nobody would be saying anything if Rodriguez was winning. In the end, these "journalists" are just as shallow as the rest of us - they aren't looking out for core values like integrity and personal responsibility. They are interested in the darker sides of humanity. They're interested in advancing their own beliefs and interests at the expense of someone they passed judgment on long ago.
Just wait for it. If they succeed in their jihad, and Rodriguez is gone, wait for the reaction if Jim Harbaugh is hired. Wait for the media stroking about how Michigan righted a wrong and brought a Michigan Man back to Michigan. Watch as they gloss over Harbaugh's own run-ins with the law, as they conveniently forget the words Harbaugh spewed about UofM. They will burn Rodriguez about his recruiting methods, and will cover their ears when confronted with Harbaugh's practice at Stanford of blindly taking commitments from kids only to have to drop them in November and December because Stanford's admissions were too tough and Harbaugh never should've taken them in the first place. Harbaugh is no cleaner than Rodriguez, but because of the Detroit media's bizarre xenophobic attitude toward the latter, the former would be greeted like a king should he return to the place he spat on three years ago. It's selective memory and sleazy, irresponsible, bullshit journalism like that that is driving the newspaper industry into the ground, and I welcome it. I have true, genuine disdain (I won't say "hate", but it's probably closer to that) for people like Mark Snyder and Michael Rosenberg (along with the rest of them, really). Does anybody actually believe either of these "journalists" care about NCAA rules? They're both Michigan grads. Snyder has been to many, many Michigan games, not as a "journalist", but as a fan. Do you think he really would have a problem with Michigan players exceeding the allowed practice time to - gasp - improve as football players? No. Their issue is squarely with Rodriguez, and it's personal to them. Jim Schaefer, who apparently wrote the latest hit piece (I haven't read it, won't click the Freep links, etc)...he is an Ohio State grad. Letting an Ohio State graduate and two virulent anti-Rodriguez shills report on the ins and outs of Michigan football and Michigan recruiting...and Free Press editor Paul Anger lets it go on, even encourages it.
My endgame is this, and I hinted at it a while back, but sadly, I'm starting to firmly believe it: 2010 is starting to look like the end for Rodriguez at Michigan. Not because of one specific incident, but because of everything. The list is long, we all know what's gone on. But the longer we hear silence from the UofM athletic department, the longer we can only assume that it will take an enormous improvement in 2010 to save Rodriguez. Could it happen? Maybe. I could definitely see an 8-win team. Would an 8-5 season calm the storm? In a perfect world, yes.
But as we've all become painfully aware of, since we lost Bo in November 2006, nothing is perfect about this situation, this university, this athletic department, and this football program.
9 comments:
The FreePress is anti UM and will be no matter who the coach is. Like you said even if Jim came back and coached, they would then drag him through the mud. AnnArbor.com is now just as bad.
IF people continue to let them get away with this crap, what will happen is NO coach will want to come here let alone recruits.
Don't read it, buy it or support the advertisers. Do write the editors and the advertisers and complain. It's not only time UM takes a stand, but a time for fans to also do everything possible to stop these people from there anti UM agenda.
I would have posted this on Mblog, but I can't post new topics. So I will vent here, hope you don't mind.
For the last 4 hours on 97.1... Valenti and Foster have ripped Coach Rodriguez. They have called him a liar amongst other things. When their shift ends, they will be followed by Caputo and Fithian. They will pick up the baton, and continue to rip Rodriguez... and Fithian is supposed to be a Michigan fan. So you not only have the Freep, but also 97.1 joining the anti Rich Rod crusade. Meanwhile, the goings on in East Lansing make hardly a ripple. A double standard to say the least.
This past season on 97.1, the quintet of Valenti, Foster, Caputo, and Fithian... would go on about how a failure Michigan's season was. Here you have a Michigan team, that was picked by experts to go 5-7 maybe 6-6. They ended up pretty much how most expected.
Meanwhile.... In East Lansing... Saint Dantonio, we were told by many, including the Freep and the mouth that roared on 97.1 (Mike Valenti) that the Spartans were going to win 9 games... and be a dark horse to win the Big 10. Well the 2nd coming of Amos Alonzo Stagg... the man that had reinvented football here in the State of Michigan... managed to lead his team to a 6-7 record. A team that was picked to win 9 games, barely makes a bowl... and finishes with a losing record. You would think that would create quite a stir... not so. Hell... the Freepress took the loss, and spun a great story of how the undermanned Spartans fought to the bitter end. So instead of an embarrassing choke job, we have the 2nd Battle for the Alamo... except instead of Davey Crockett, it's the Virtuous and Gallant Mark Dantonio, leading his beleaguered and undermanned troops into a hopeless battle. So which instate team had the more disappointing season? Which coach did a worse job? Guess that depends on who you ask. Double Standard indeed.
The Freep and 97.1 are great PR machines... as long as you wear the Green and White... and your name is Mark Dantonio (which must be spoken in hushed tones). If your Rich Rodriguez, you don't have the same luxury. All you can do to combat the tide against you, is win... at least it used to be enough.
Brian I sincerely hope you are wrong about the 2010 being the end of RichRod. I don't wan to see these assholes in the media win.
"Like you said even if Jim came back and coached, they would then drag him through the mud."
?? That's the opposite of what Brian said—he said Harbaugh "would be greeted like a king should he return to the place he spat on three years ago."
And I think Brian is 100% correct—Rosenberg and Snyder would be sporting huge boners for Harbaugh precisely because he represents their idealized, golden memories of their student days at Michigan. RR is seen to be completely unrelated to Bo's lineage, and I have no doubt that even if he won a NC in 2011 that Rosenberg would be finding ways to besmirch Rodriguez.
This antipathy for RR on the part of the Freep hacks like Rosenberg isn't simply due to the fact that he's seen as a hillbilly outsider. It's also due to MR losing his precious inside access to the program that he had with Carr. I know a well-known former player under Bo who told me directly this past August that there were a few favored local media guys to whom Carr granted unique access, and Rosenberg was one of those lucky individuals. RR plays no such favorites, with everybody being on equal footing, and hell hath no fury like a formerly entitled media douchebag who loses his unique status amongst his peers.
Good stuff Brain. It's hard to believe this crap is happening. Growing up I used to love the Freep,that no longer holds true. I hope it dies a quick death.
As usual, a great article.
I have been, and will continue to be, a believer in giving a new coach 4 years to put his stamp on the program. Why some people hold coaches solely responsible for their predecesors recruit's performance continues to mystify me...especially when changing the entire system. Where has reason gone?
So here we sit, with a coach under more pressure than he should be, ready to set our beloved program back another 5 years if a coaching change is made after this year.
What a sad position we're in....GO BLUE...and GO RichRod!
Would an 8-5 season calm the storm?
I would say without a doubt, yes. At least for one more season. But Rodriguez practically has a permanent hotseat. Rodriguez will likely be one disappointing season away from getting fired for the rest of his time at Michigan. I can envision a situation similar to Cooper at OSU where he survived by the skin of his teeth for a decade and he was one loss away from being fired at least a few times.
will 2010 be the end for RR? in a word, no
Don,
I agree with almost everything Brian said, and most of what you said. However, If Rosenburg and Snyder's burrs up their asses has to do with losing access they had with Carr, apparently because they were friends with Carr (???) and now don't have because of RR, why do you think they will get that with JH? I am of the understanding (maybe mistaken) that Carr and JH are not on good terms, and if Carr is running all this interferrence because he dosen't like RR (contrary to what he has said publicly) wouldn't the scumbags continue to go to bat for Carr and treat JH as they do RR? And if they do welcome JH with open arms, does that mean everyone is wrong about Carr being this grand, behind the scenes manipulator destroying the University he, by all accounts, loves?
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