91Buckeye wrote:The difference between RR and Harbaugh is that Jim has shown the ability to adapt his schemes to the strengths of his talent. Hoke has shown the ability to make the players he inherits a lot better, in either case we are better off. Personally I would like to see Harbaugh get the job but will feel a lot better as soon as RR is officially gone because I think Brandon will do a better job than Martin did finding a new HC.
That is true but the biggest difference is Harbaugh knows that defense is part of his team. Where RR thinks it is just what his offense goes against in a game and he just needs to put 11 on the field to waste time until his offense gets back on the field.
Either way whoever is the coach needs to have a very good coach to run the defense. Also pay them very well.
I have some dumb-a$$ posts in my life farmer..including some of my own...but always on purpose.. ...So hopefully this one was facetious in nature....If not....you take the big cake dude.
General it is no surprise to anyone that RR does not recruit on the defensive side of the ball very well. His comment earlier this year that even Lombardi could not help this defense. That was a slam not only to his players but coaches on defense. Also RR does not take the blame for anything that happens on the defensive side of the ball. So you may call me names all you want but it is RR attitude and the way he coaches that backs up what I said. RR does put some effort in for defense but he wants the spotlight on him because of the offense. He has been a coach who likes the spotlight on him and not the team when things are going well.
Even as Peake has said before that some very good talent has left early for the NFL. Part of that reason is because of RR attitude toward the defense.
Whoever becomes the coach if they are offensive minded UM needs to get a very good defensive coach also. Or if it is a defensive coach they need to hire a very good offensive coach. Just as having a complete team on the field they need on the sidelines. As well as in recruiting players on both sides of the ball.
geez farmer...I have to think and I know that RR has a preety good clue and the understanding that what they are doing defensively is not good. But to think he only cares about what they are doing offensively is assinine...His philosophy has been to run a STACK D....3-3-5....I am sure he is going to examine how they play on that side of the ball scheme-wise.And I know that he knows what every one else knows. They need to upgrade their talent.They need to recruit better. Just like everyone else.
farmer wrote:Rich Rod doesn't think much of his defense which is states below.
Michigan’s defense is so young, though, that Rodriguez isn’t sure anybody could step into a staff meeting and immediately remedy the unit’s many ailments.
“Vince Lombardi could come, too, and it’s not going to fix some of the problems we have on defense,†Rodriguez said Monday before adding “maybe†the late, great coach could help the unit.
The Wolverines are relying on a lot of underclassmen on defense, which is giving up 441 yards a game and ranks 105th in major college football. They’re not doing much better on special teams, ranking 100th in both punt and kickoff returns, and last in the Big Ten with just two field goals on eight attempts.
Well General with RR knowing about defense and actually making it a priority are different things. To bring in a good defensive coach who has no experience in the defense he demands to be run is not the best choice. How many years of very bad defense should UM fans have to deal with?
General you say they need to upgrade their talent and recruit better. Who has the last say on that? RR does. You said it is assinine to think he cares more than just offensively but when will his actions show that at UM? That is why I have said that a head coach who so into the offensive side needs to have a very good defensive coach. With that coach also responsible for getting the defensive players because they know what they need. They are also the ones who will be coaching the defense.
Agree with farmer. Who is responsible for bringing the past two defensive coordinators? He brought them in knowing that Schafer perfers to run a base 4-3 under, while Robinson runs a 4-2 with a Rover near the LOS about 75% of the time. So why bring in either of these two if you want to run a 3-3-5? Casteel has been offered twice and both times he said no, so RR needs to understand that he needs to let those guys have the freedom to run what they know.
What about player development? Donnavon Warren for example, former 5-star who started as a frosh was better his freshmen year then his junior year when he left for the NFL. What about attrition? Who is responisble for that? Brandon Smith, former 4 star safety left the program last year, JT Turner former 5-star left this fall, Anthony Lalota former 4-star DE, and Vlad Emilien former 4-star S left the program this fall. Look at all that talent and depth that he was unable to keep. WHo is responsible for those players leaving? Why in the hell would all those guys from the secondary want to leave with the awful secondary we have? They had to know they were going to get PT. Turner and Emilien were both #2 on the dpeth chart.
I hope so but I am hearing UM is about to land one of the top wr in the country on Weds and if he pulls a big recruiting class it fears me he will be kept.
I think Michigan has a very good chance against Wisconsin as well. It will take a better effort on defense, but Wisconsin doesn't have the defense to be able to hold down UM.
I know some trolls that will have a hey day with that last comment.
But, Ohio state did more to slow themselves down against the Badgers than Wisconsin did to stop the Buckeyes.
I no longer worry about anything going on with the football program. Why you are asking? David Brandon. This guy will not let the football program be anything but great. He is the most important hire at Michigan, not RR, or any other coach. He sails the ship and Michigan with him in charge will be back.
Here is an interview he recently did with the Detriot News.
The lights are on, and 112,000 fans won't be home, but at Michigan Stadium Saturday for U-M's game with Wisconsin, their first opportunity to see the newly installed portable lights. Michigan athletic director David Brandon worked quickly to get them installed.
David Brandon on The Huge Show
"I've never been a fan of those portable lights brought in," said Brandon. "They take up a bunch of parking spaces. We've got all these generators and back-up generators, we're never totally sure how reliable they're going to be, and frankly, the coverage on the field has never been that great? it's not the way the Big House should be lit.
"So soon after I came on board, one of the things we decided to do was play our first night game, which will be next fall against Notre Dame. I just decided hey, if we're going to get in the business of playing a night game, and we were also planning the Big Chill [Michigan vs. MSU hockey game] in December, I said it's time for us to step up and put in permanent lights."
Eric Bronson/BronsonPhoto.com
Michigan athletic director David Brandon
Brandon was pleased at how quickly they were installed, initially thinking they'd be in next week at the earliest.
"You talk to the players and they'll tell you, the most exciting, high energy environments they play in are night games. When I talk to the players, they tell us their favorite venue was the night game at Penn State with the white out," he said. "I don't want their favorite venue to play be somewhere else.
"Too much of anything is bad. It's not like we're going to get crazy over playing every game at night, because we've got 113,000 people to get out of that stadium at night, and it creates some operational complexities. But I would tell you that from time to time, and if this experiment goes well with Notre Dame next fall, on special occasions I think it's great to light up the Big House and play at night."
Brandon had a number of other things to say. Here are some highlights:
On how he feels about the state of Michigan football: "I think at this point in the season we've seen some really good improvement in some areas, and some disappointments. If Rich was here, he'd be the first one to tell you that. We've had a lot more young players on the field than we ever would have planned, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.
"There are three phases to the game of football. I think by anyone's standard, our offense is exciting and it's a threat to anybody who has tried to defend it. We've scored a lot of points, and we've certainly moved the ball for a lot of yards. But we turn it over too much, and that's hurt us. Particularly these last two games we were fortunate to win, but you can't turn the ball over five times a game and expect to win a lot of football games.
"On the defensive side of the ball, this is such a young team. The development these kids go through from the time they're 18 and 19 to the time they are 22, 23 is amazing, the amount of weight, speed and strength they gain. That's the case in all programs across the country. We've got a bunch of 18 and 19 year old guys out there trying to chase down and tackle and fight off blocks of 22 and 23 year old guys.
"We have two big games to play. It's important to see how our guys improve, particularly as we step up the level of competition, so I'm like everyone else. I'm anxious to see how this all pans out."
On being 7-3 and being treated as though they are more like 3-7: "Well, sure, that's just the way it works. I understand they are giving Mack Brown [at Texas] all kinds of nonsense down in Texas. Mack Brown knows how to coach.
"We live in a world where when everything doesn't go how you want it to go, you've got to come up with somebody to blame. The average fan likes to blame the coach a lot more than they like to blame the players. It's just part of the sport. People speculate about coaches.
"It's not as simple as win-loss records. It's just not. People want to try to make it that simple, but there are so many things you have to look at when you measure the strength of a program. You've got to look at your pipeline of recruits, your academic performance of recruits as well as your current student-athletes. You have to look at the staff; how the staff's performing and working together.
"I'm going in those locker rooms before the game, during the game and after the game and practices, seeing how the team responds in difficult situations. Going over the game films and finding out exactly where the breakdowns occur and why they occur. I do that. I don't know if that's normal or not, but I understand, and I can tell you when it's real time? on television with the angles and such you don't get a real sense for what's happening. You almost have to play the play back five or six times to see where did we get it right and where did we get it wrong.
"I'm sitting in on film sessions and having the opportunity to really look at how the game's unfolding, because I want to know. It's a big part of our program. I tell people all the time, the University of Michigan athletic department cannot be successful unless Michigan football leads our success. Mark Twain once said, 'if you put all your eggs in one basket, you'd better watch your basket.' Football is our basket, so I watch it very carefully. That's my job, and I do that.
"But I also get the opportunity to meet the kids. At the end of the season I can interview kids; I can interview parents. I have access to the entire program and look at it in its totality, and that's what I'll do with football as well as the other 26 sports we play. That's what athletic directors do."
On evaluating a program: "You don't get it in blogs and you don't get it reading a newspaper. If you want to know what's going on, you get inside the program and look at it carefully, and I try to do that with all of our sports. Keep in mind I'm spending time with a lot of our coaches and a lot of our student-athletes because that's how I find out what's really going on."
On getting bowl eligible, getting the NCAA sanctions behind them and hopefully starting to compete for championships: "That's a great progression. We in football, as well as every other sport we play, we want to compete for championships. That's what we're about. That's what our brand stands for. That's why I'm here; expectations are really high. We want to be in a position to compete for championships. We're not going to win them all the time, but we want everybody we play to respect us as a competitor that they're going to have to bring their best game if they're going to win.
"I feel that way about every one of our 27 sports, and football is no different. One of the things we really have an opportunity to do these next couple weeks is show what we can do against two really good football programs."
On people telling him which direction to go: "With all due respect, I get a lot of advice in this job. You can't believe it.
"It's the nature of the deal, and I understand that. My point is, write me letters, send me email, but understand you only have five percent of the information I have. You don't get to go to practice. You're not in the locker room, you don't know the kids, you don't know the coaches; you're not seeing the dynamic among the staff. You're not getting the exit interviews from the seniors who talk about their experience with the program, you're not getting the academic records, you're not getting input on what's happening uptown with the behavior of the team. I get everything, and I get to lay it out into an assessment.
"It goes on throughout the season, but it gets really, really intense at the end of the season. Every sport I've got a whole protocol set up where you do a complete review of all aspects of the program. And we not only look at the head coaches and the assistant coaches, we look at the trainers, the doctors, the strength and conditioning staff, the equipment managers, we look at all aspects of the program to see where we're getting it right and where we're getting it wrong. If there are things we can correct by training and investment, we will do it. If there are things we have to correct by personnel changes, we'll do that, too."
On getting to a bowl game: "We're in a mode now where the kids know we're going to a bowl, but the general feeling in the locker room is every win we can get from here on out just takes us to a warmer climate and gets us closer to a New Year's Day bowl. It's exciting for these student-athletes, particularly many of them who have not had that experience based on what's happened the last couple of years.
"There's a lot to play for, and hey, this team's playing for respect. They have been since the beginning of the season. If you look at the three losses we've had, Michigan State we just played poorly. Those other two losses, we went down by three touchdowns in each of those games and came back in the fourth quarter and were literally a possession away from being able to win those games back after being three touchdowns down. That doesn't sound like a team that gives up or lacks confidence. That's a team that can score quickly and always believes they're competing. I like that about this team."
On offense not being a problem under Rodriguez, but defense being a major concern: "If you dig down below the surface of that, the real question is how did we end up with seven or eight freshmen or redshirt freshmen out there on the field at the same time? How did we get there? When you go back, you say, okay, who could we have gotten recruiting, who did we miss on, who left early and could be out there playing, who got hurt that could be out there being an impact player?
"You can kind of see, it's like everything else? there's no simple answer. It's a combination of losing some kids that really could have helped us by things we couldn't control, and probably putting ourselves in a position where we were relying on youth more than we want to and should be.
"There's another valid point that needs to be made. Everybody wants it to be the way it used to be. One of the years I played I think we went six games without allowing a touchdown. Everybody wants to see that again, but look what's happening in college football. How does Wisconsin put up 83 against Indiana? If you look at the scores around the country, Linebacker U. go up to Penn State and duking it out, somebody wins 40-something to 30-something, we're in a situation where these offensive geniuses are spreading the field, getting guys in space, creating these one on one match-ups with tremendous speed on the field. There's just more offense.
"The rules have been changed a little bit to make it more of a scoring oriented games. It's harder and harder to stop some of these teams. Now - defense is a big part of the game, one of the phases you've got to get right, and you've got to get a lot better. But that's the challenge. You can't just go out there and put on the winged helmet and expect it to happen. You've got to make it happen."
On Rodriguez inheriting some of his problems on defense: "As we sit here, the past is the past. My point of view is, I look at the films. When you've got young guys out there, and defense is about reacting, instincts. You don't want defensive guys to think; you want them to react and go fast. What happens when you've got that many young players out there is they think. I can see it on the film? they're still getting acclimated to the speed of the game and how fast they have to make decisions and move. That's all part of developing young guys."
On expectations: "We're going to compete for the Big Ten championship and the right to go to the Rose Bowl. That's what Michigan football is all about. That's why coaches come here, that's why players come here and I can tell you, that's why athletic directors come here.
"There's no way I'm going to be happy until we're giving rings out to these student-athletes? I've got three of those rings, and I want young student-athletes to leave this program with that opportunity to earn those rings and enjoy them for the rest of their lives."
Good article.
I think that if Michigan doesn't turn the ball over, and can just force Wisconsin to punt just a couple times, that Michigan has a solid shot at getting the win.
Peake, are you coming to C-Bus next weekend at all for the game?
Here we go agian ,and yes I will say it AGAIN .....RICH ROD MUST GO . This is embarrassing! He took one of the best programs in College football and in three years has completely destroyed it for the near future. Even if (when theyget rid of him it will take a couple of years atleast to right this sunk ship.
...So hopefully this one was facetious in nature....If not....you take the big cake dude.
