Observations of Coach Rodriquez' First Year at Michigan

Observations on Coach Rod's First Year at Michigan-December 17, 2007 to December 31, 2008

1-Lloyd Carr resigned on November 19, 2007 following 13 seasons as head coach, but ending an era from 1969-2007 at Michigan that included a national championship in 1997, 21 Big Ten titles and a record 33 bowl games in a row (1976-2008) with Coaches Schembechler, Moeller and Carr. In Carr's final game, he engineered an upset over higher ranked Florida and their Heisman winner, Tim Tebow on January 1, 2008 and earned the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year. Carr was hired by Schembechler in 1980 after working as Moeller's assistant at Illinois in 1978 and 1979. That was a tough act to follow for Coach Rod; however, a 3-9 season was not what Michigan fans anticipated, expected nor were satisfied with. We all know the talent left by Carr could have resulted in at least a 6-6 season, and a bowl game. So, from a win-loss standpoint, it was less than fans, players, coaches and alumni expected. For example, Carr's recruiting classes for 2004 and 2005 were nationally ranked in the Top 5 and his classes for 2006 and 2007 were ranked in the Top 10. 2-Relationships under Coach Rod have been a big problem. He has had new recruits and a new coach added during his short tenure leave his supervision, and the Michigan football program. List of Transfers/Decommitments/Resignations

Decommits/Transfers/Resignations

School/Status

Babb, Zion

Barnes, Jordan

Beaver, Shavodrick

Boren, Justin

Butler, Carson

Transfer to ???

Oklahoma State

Tulsa

Ohio State

Green Bay Packers-undrafted free agent, cut, Detroit Lions

Campbell, Will

Chambers, Artis

Ciulla, Jeremy

Re-commitment

Transfer to Ball State

Wasn't asked back for 5th year

Clemons, Toney

Evans, Marell

Feagin, Justin

Transfer to Colorado

Transfer to ???

Dismissed from Team

Fera, Anthony

Graves, Pearlie

Helmuth, Vince

Hill, Taylor

Penn State

Texas Tech

Transfer to ???

Kent State

Horn, Avery

Jones, DeQuinta

Kates, Jason

Transfer to ???

Arkansas

Transfer to ???

Mallett, Ryan

McGuffie, Sam

McNeal, Bryce

Arkansas

Rice

Clemson

Mitchell, Alex

Wasn't asked back for 5th year

Newsome, Kevin

Penn State

O'Neill, Dann

Patilla, Quinton

Peace, DeWayne

Western Michigan

Grand Valley

Arizona

Shafer, Scott

Slocum, Marques

Threet, Steven

Resigned, DC at Syracuse

Grades/Conflict with Coach Rod

Arizona State

Wermers, Kurt

Wienke, John

Transfer to Ball State/Academically Ineligible

Iowa

Wilson, Christian

Witherspoon, Marcus

North Carolina

Rutgers

Coach Rod's 1st recruiting class of 25 players has had 5 recruits leave the team to transfer (Hill, Witherspoon, O'Neill, Wermers and McGuffie) with one recruit dismissed from the team (Feagin) for disciplinary reasons, at least four players disciplined as a result of criminal charges and/or convictions (Cissoko, Grady, Milano and Stonum) while and at least two other recruits have publicly discussed transfer possibilities (Cox and Smith). Let us not forget the record of 11 decommitments (Barnes, Beaver, Campbell, Fera, Graves, Jones, McNeal, Newsome, Peace, Wienke and Wilson) with one recommitment (Campbell), and the transfers of 10 players recruited by Coach Carr and staff (Babb, Boren, Chambers, Clemons, Evans, Helmuth, Horn, Kates, Mallett and Threet) including a coaching change (Shafer). Players who were on the Spring 2009 roster that didn't report for Fall, 2009 include: Elias Kos, Lawrence Perry and Jim Potemba. Other players who have left the team prior to exhausting their eligibility include Butler, Ciulla, Mitchell and Slocum. Who is next? 2009 Decommitments Defections Don't Faze Coach Rod Helmuth, Evans latest to leave

He only retained one Michigan Coach, Fred Jackson. He chose to distance himself from the previous Michigan football coaching staff, and has also not utilized Carr as a mentor. Eastern Michigan chose to utilize Carr, and as a result they hired Ron English as their head coach. Could English beat Rodriquez in his first year with EMU? English rounds out staff
He failed to retain Ryan Mallett, top prospect to replace Chad Henne at quarterback. As a result, we were forced to play a walk-on, Nick Sheridan, along with transfer, Steven Threet, and had the lowest quarterback rating since the inception of the statistic in NCAA football at 95.13 ranking us 11th in the Big Ten and 113th of 120 Division I teams. It also doesn't say much for our quarterbacks coach Rod Smith.
He failed to retain the son, Justin Boren, of a former Michigan Captain Mike Boren, and he transferred to Ohio State after two years as a starter on offensive line. He questioned Coach Rod's family values. He also didn't retain 5th year players like Alex Mitchell and Jeremy Ciulla by his own choice. As a result, the offensive line was not up to Michigan standards, and the running game suffered especially early in the season. Coach Rod had zero offensive starters return from Coach Carr's offense, and he could have had at least three starters return if he would have nurtured those relationships and chose to adapt to the player personnel available.
He failed to retain his own recruits in his first recruiting class: Marcus Witherspoon, Taylor Hill and Sam McGuffie. He also failed to retain Carr's recruits, John Wienke and Christian Wilson. He signed 24, redshirted 13 recruits, played 9 and lost 3 recruits in his first year.
He has failed to maintain relationships with several returning players who have left the team, transferred, etc. like Zion Babb, Carson Butler, Artis Chambers, Avery Horn, Jason Kates, Marques Slocum, etc. There may be more players leaving shortly including Toney Clemons, Andre Criswell, Kevin Grady, Greg Mathews, Adam Patterson, Donovan Warren, Martell Webb, etc. who don't see a future with the Michigan football program and because of poor relationships with Coach Rod. Other players who were on the 2007 football roster or the Spring, 2008 football roster who didn't return to the team include: William Bostic (son of Keith Bostic), Sam Buckman, David Middleton, Quinton Patilla, Lawrence Perry, Michael Ramirez, etc.
Uncharacteristically, our players were yelling at the coaches and vice-versa early in the Ohio State game. Poor communication and poor relationships were apparent as a result of this exchange.

We led the nation in fumbles, and were one of the worst in turnover margin, and our kickoff team continued to turn the ball over the entire season. We were one of the worst teams in the nation in almost every offensive category.

Offensive Rank	Big Ten Rank	Category	Defensive Rank	Big Ten Rank
60th	7th	Rushing	51st	6th
108th	11th	Passing	87th	9th
111th	11th	Total	66th	9th
97th	11th	Scoring	90th	10th
113th	11th	Pass Efficiency	81st	10th
107th	11th	Turnover Margin	n/a	n/a
n/a	n/a	Sacks	35th	6th
61st	4th	Sacks Allowed	n/a	n/a
n/a	n/a	Tackles for Loss	34th	n/a
n/a	11th	First Downs	n/a	4th
n/a	11th	3rd Down Conversions	n/a	9th
n/a	10th	Red Zone	n/a	5th
n/a	10th	Time of Possession	n/a	n/a

3-Legal issues have been a big problem! On July 9, 2008 shortly before the season was about to begin, Coach Rod settled the lawsuit filed against him by West Virginia, and Michigan agreed to pay $2.5 million of his $4 million dollar buyout. He is obligated to finish the buyout by January, 2010. These legal issues clouded a successful start because he chose to litigate rather than settle, and fueled the West Virginia animosity towards him when he left. He had to address the "smear campaign" on January 17, 2008. He could have avoided much of the negativity by settling things early on. He didn't even sign the contract offered to him until October 24, 2008, after 10 months after being introduced as the new head coach at Michigan and after 8 games were played into the season which also led to speculation he may leave Michigan to take a job at Clemson. There was similar speculation in 2006 when he almost left West Virginia to take the Alabama head coaching job, and that did not endear him to West Virginia fans either. Many of these things are his responsibility and could have been avoided had he made different decisions to avoid the negative publicity. 4-Recruiting has suffered under Coach Rod. Michigan has historically built its football program with top recruits in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. He has been out recruited in his home state by Dantonio from Michigan State for in-state talent; 9 of the Spartans 17 commitments are from Michigan compared to only 3 of 20 for the Wolverines. Dantonio has 6 of the Top 10 in Michigan. Also, Dantonio has no decommitments as compared to 9 decommitments from Rodriquez. Two of the top ten Michigan recruits are heading to Ohio State, and one of those two publicly criticized Coach Rod for ignoring Michigan talent. He hasn't recruited well in Ohio with Tressel out-recruiting him, and gaining support for recruits to go somewhere other than Michigan. We have commitments of 3 players in Ohio out of their top 50. In Illinois, Coach Zook is retaining much of the talent there, and we only have one recruit committed from Illinois. Our chief rivals, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Michigan State are out recruiting us in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois as well as nationally. We are currently ranked #3 in the Big Ten by Scout in recruiting, and we could finish as low as #5 in the Big Ten behind Ohio State, Penn State, Illinois and Michigan State. We are now losing players to Tulsa and Central Florida that we have never lost in previous years. At this writing, we have 18 commitments, and 8 de-commitments. Coach Rod has also been criticized for stealing other school's commitments (a.k.a. "snake oil" commitments). Snake Oil commitments

Commitment

Decommitment School

Barnum, Ricky

Floyd, J.T.

Hill, Taylor

Florida

Tennessee

Oklahoma

Omameh, Patrick

Roundtree, Randy

Cincinnati

Purdue

Shaw, Michael

Stokes, Je'Ron

Penn State

Tennessee

Coach Rod failed to gain the commitment of Terrell Pryor in 2008 and Kevin Newsome in 2009 to engineer his spread offense. The only place he is recruiting well is in Florida with Coach Frey laying all the groundwork for success there. We have had more de-commitments than ever before losing Jordan Barnes, Shadrovick Beaver, Anthony Fera, Bryce McNeal, Kevin Newsome, DeWayne Peace, etc.

Team	Rivals	Scout	Commitments	Ones Coach Rod wanted, but couldn't secure commitments
Ohio State	2	1	24	Jackson/Fragel/Bell/Berry/Hall/Fellows/Simon/etc.
Penn State	23	9	25	Newsome/Fera/Gress/etc.
Michigan	7	13	20	Barnes/Beaver/McNeal/Peace/etc.
Notre Dame	21	20	17	Evans/Martin/Watt/Bullard/etc.
Illinois	29	32	21	Drummond/Carradine/Buckner/etc.
Michigan State	19	36	14	Sims/Baker/Treadwell/Norman/etc.
Minnesota	41	42	18
Wisconsin	38	48	19
Purdue	63	59	18
Indiana	55	64	15
Iowa	67	72	12
Northwestern	58	73	17

Notice that two of the three commitments are quarterbacks who choose not to engineer Coach Rod's spread offense. One would also think that top wide receivers in the nation would be flocking to Michigan to participate in such a potent offense; however, the opposite is true. None of the top 40 wide receivers rated by Scout with 4 or 5 star ratings have committed to Michigan. Rivals had only one 4 star prospect commit to Michigan, Cameron Gordon, out of 45 who are listed as 4 or 5 star prospects. Why are so many quarterbacks and wide receivers reluctant to come to Michigan, and be a part of Coach Rod's spread offense??? Mic McCabe's Michigan Top 50: MSU gets 7 of Top 10 and 10 of Top 20; Michigan gets 2 of Top 10 and 4 of Top 20 Lemming: MSU could have better class than Michigan--First time in 20 years 5-Team leadership has been lacking under Coach Rod! We had one incident of vocal leadership this year at halftime of the Wisconsin game by Terrence Taylor, and we won that game in the second half. Other than that, we have not had great team leadership by coaches or by players. 6-New traditions have permeated his first year. Weekly captains, a new strength & conditioning program under Coach Barwis, the Wolverine walk, etc. Some of these new traditions are good while others are questionable. The weekly captain idea has its merits; however, the 128 year tradition of naming captains prior to the season is a tradition that, in my opinion, should not have been changed. How familiar is Coach Rod with Michigan traditions, and does he care? 7-Public relations have been a problem under Coach Rod. We all appreciate the openness during press conferences on many issues rather than the years of Carr, Moeller and Schembechler keeping secrets on player injuries and other issues. Unfortunately, there is also a price to pay for openness, and that is a higher level of scrutiny from reporters, plus rumor and perception problems with fans. There are always going to be discipline incidents like the Stonum and Grady DUI charges and Milano aggravated assault charge; however, team camraderie and chemistry have been damaged by the lack of consideration of public relation issues by Coach Rod. The good news is that Jim Carty will be writing fewer negative stories about Michigan football in the Ann Arbor News since he's in law school at Toledo. 8-Defensive coaching schemes have failed under Coach Rod. He is not a defensive coach, and takes a "hands off" approach to his defense. Then, it is obvious by the resignation of Coach Shafer with the "tongue in cheek" comments about taking blame for the demise of Michigan football, Coach Rod blames the defensive problems on others while not taking responsibility or accountability himself. It doesn't matter whether we use a 3-3-5 or 4-3-4 scheme to stop runnning and/or passing games, the bottom line is our defense is terrible and not respected any more. Was there an agreement not to criticize Michigan? Is Coach Rod "thin-skinned?" Shafer's interview after the Illinois game where he admitted he was outcoached may have led to his demise as defensive coordinator as well as the Purdue debacle.

Candidates for Defensive Coordinator	School/Team
Hobson, Jay	Michigan
Tucker, Mel	Cleveland Browns
Williams, Gregg	Jacksonville Jaguars
Johnson, Pepper	New England Patriots
Hudson, Greg	East Carolina
Steele, Kevin	Alabama
McNeill, Ruffin	Texas Tech
Wommack, Dave	Georgia Tech
Orlando, Todd	Connecticut
Brown, Steve	Kentucky
Bumpas, Dick	TCU
Fowler, Bruce	Vanderbilt

Greg Robinson named Defensive Coordinator on January 20, 2009 Rodriquez in no hurry Seto takes DC at USC Ferentz to Cleveland Browns? Orgeron to Tennessee Walker to New Mexico State Chavis to LSU Steele to Clemson Big East Defensive Coordinators to Head Jobs? Rhodes to Iowa State Rocky Long to San Diego State Rumor Mill Coaching Carousel 2009 Coaching Carousel 2008 9-Offensive coaching schemes have failed under Coach Rod. His stubborn insistence on implementing his "spread offense" his way rather than adapt his offense to available players has resulted in one of the worst offenses in the nation in 2008. Although Coach Rod has been a successful offensive coach at Tulane, Clemson and West Virginia with his offensive coordinator, Calvin Magee; they have not proven their competence at Michigan to date. 10-Rodriquez is 45, and approaching his second year a head coach at Michigan. We all wish him the best including a successful second season leading the Michigan football program. I don't believe in the motto created by "blind" Michigan football fans choosing to create support with "In Rod We Trust." When people make excuse after excuse for someone, and continue to offer explanations for problems and mistakes, that is called "enabling." If Coach Rod is to be successful at Michigan, he'll need to earn his success rather than have excuses made for him when success is lacking. It is nice that Rick Leach, Desmond Howard and other former Michigan players support him, but in the end his success will be earned rather than wanting and hoping for his success. Former Michigan Coaches/Players-Possible Future Coaches

Former Player/Coach	Current School/Team	Area of Coaching
Anderson, Erick	n/a	n/a
Anderson, Kurt	Eastern Michigan	Tight Ends
Austin, Teryl	Arizona Cardinals	Defensive Backs
Bedford, Vance	Florida	Defensive Backs
Brown, Corwin	Notre Dame	Defensive Coordinator
Cameron, Cam	Baltimore Ravens	Offensive Coordinator
Campbell, Erik	Iowa	Wide Receivers
Cartwright, Kit	Winnepeg Blue Bombers	n/a
DeBord, Mike	Seattle Seahawks	Offensive Line
Elliot, Bob	San Diego State	Defensive Coordinator
Elston, Mike	Cincinnati	Tight Ends
English, Ron	Eastern Michigan	Head Coach
Fisher, Jim	Ashland	Tight Ends
Goodwin, Harold	Pittsburgh Steelers	Offensive Line
Hankwitz, Mike	Northwestern	Defensive Coordinator
Harbaugh, Jim	Stanford	Head Coach
Harbaugh, John	Baltimore Ravens	Head Coach
Heater, Chuck	Florida	Defensive Coordinator
Herrmann, Jim	New York Jets	Linebackers
Hoke, Brady	San Diego State	Head Coach
Holloway, Mike	Ohio Wesleyan	Head Coach
Ingram, Jerald	New York Giants	Running Backs
Jackson, Fred	Michigan	Running Backs
Loeffler, Scot	Detroit Lions	Quarterbacks
Mallory, Curt	Illinois	Defensive Backs
Mallory, Doug	LSU	Defensive Backs
Mallory, Mike	New Orleans Saints	Special Teams
Malone, Terry	New Orleans Saints	Tight Ends
Mattison, Greg	Baltimore Ravens	Linebackers
McNulty, John	Rutgers	Offensive Coordinator
Miles, Les	LSU	Head Coach
Moeller, Andy	Baltimore Ravens	Offensive Line
Morrison, Steve	Western Michigan	Defensive Coordinator
Parrish, Stan	Ball State	Head Coach
Ray, Marcus	Central Michigan	Graduate Assistant
Shafer, Scott	Syracuse	Defensive Coordinator
Sheridan, Bill	New York Giants	Linebackers
Stobart, Chuck	Ohio State	Retired
Stripling, Steve	Central Michigan	Defensive Line
Szabo, Steve	Colgate	Linebackers
Trgovac, Mike	Carolina Panthers	Defensive Coordinator
Uzelac, Elliott	St. Joseph HS	Head Coach
Vanderlinden, Ron	Penn State	Linebackers
Wheatley, Tyrone	Eastern Michigan	Running Backs