Michigan Monday: Coaches Play Contracts Like a Fiddle

We all know big time college coaches in football and basketball are hired to be fired.  It's the life and profession they picked.  

We also know that coaches when they have even a little bit of success can work the system like no other.  I truly believe when Les Miles retires he should start a Michigan scholarship fund for all the raises and contract extensions he has gotten from LSU due to "conversations" he has had with Michigan about their football openings.  

We all know the Les examples, but let's take a look two other examples that involve coaches at Missouri.   The first one was Purdue's head basketball coach Matt Painter who flirted with the opening at Missouri a couple of weeks ago.   Was Matt really considering leaving Purdue for Mizzu?  Of course not!  He just wanted a raise from Purdue and got one.  He was on vacation when this entire thing went down.  Not too bad to be near the pool, get a couple of calls and end up getting a big raise.   I hope he called the front desk and got his room upgraded. 

The second comes from Gary Pinkel, Missouri's head football coach.  He is quoted in this article (regarding why he didn't interview for the Michigan job) saying, “That was a really difficult situation just because I grew up in Ohio and my whole life I hear about Ohio State and Michigan. To have an opportunity like that is sort of a once-in-a-lifetime thing. For me it still boiled down to I just feel so much a part of Missouri now.”



“The reason I didn’t pursue it was because I feel so much a part of Missouri. I’m so committed personally to continue to build the opportunity I was given. And family, a combination of those things. So, I bowed out of it. I feel really good about it. I thought a lot about it. It got really close. But before I went to the interview, it was a matter of hours before when I decided I wasn’t going to pursue it and I wanted to stay at the University of Missouri. So, that’s kind of the conclusion I came to.”

Gary just signed a two year extension and is now under contract until 2017.   Shocker!  He didn't even talk to Brandon and still got an extension.  We don't know any details of the search but I'm willing to bet Gary's "people" reached out to David Brandon about interviewing for the open position in Ann Arbor.
 
These coaches and agents have some special talent when it comes to getting more money and extensions when they names are linked with any other jobs.   Bob Stoops should have Bill Gates money by now with all the jobs he has been linked to.

I'm not Hoking: The Big Ten Doesn't hire Big Name Coaches

I will be the first to admit that in early January, I made statements like: "You don't fire Rich Rodriguez to hire Brady Hoke".   At the time, that hire didn't make much sense to me.  Why would you bring in a guy that had limited success at Ball State and San Diego State to replace a guy that has lead his team to BCS Bowls and was one win/a QB's hand a way from the National Championship game?  Brady's name wasn't in the same class as a Jim Harbaugh, Les Miles, Urban Meyer, etc.

I will also have to admit that I was wrong and that Brady has impressed me so far in building his staff, keeping players (mostly Denard), and recruiting hard to finish the 2011 class and the momentum he has built for the 2012 class.  The proof will be on the field but so far so good.

That got me thinking about the Big Ten and hiring Big Name coaches.   I also thought back to when Minnesota fired Tim Brewster during the 2010 Season.  The Minnesota AD stood up in front of reporters and said he wanted to make a Tubby Smith type hire for his football program.   Which means he wanted a big name coach to run his football program.  They hired Jerry Kill from Northern Illinois.   Not exactly Vince Lombardi was it? 

So what about other Big Ten Programs?  Let's start with that school down south.

Ohio State:  Jim Tressel was hired in 2001 to replace John Copper.  Jim had spent a couple of years in the 80's coaching Ohio State's QB's and WR's but in 2001 was the head coach of Youngstown State for 14 years.   Jim was very successful at his current job but was he ready to lead the Buckeyes?  I think we all now know the answer to that question but could you imagine Michigan hiring the Grand Valley's Head Coach?  At the time that was a pretty risky hire that worked out well for the Buckeyes.

Purdue:  Back in 1997 Purdue needed a new coach after they had let go Jim Colletto and hired Joe Tiller from Wyoming.  Joe had spent 6 years at Wyoming with a 39-30 record and was coming off a good year where they finished 10-2 and #22 in the both polls.  Joe ended up at Purdue for 12 years and retired after the 2008 season and was replaced by Danny Hope who was on staff.   Danny had been on staff at Purdue for 1 year as the Assistant HC and OL coach.  Danny had spent 5 years as Eastern Kentucky's head coach before joining Purdue, he was 35-22 at EKU.

Indiana has tried to find lighting in a bottle with their head coaches.  Back in the day they had coaches with the names you might recognize like Lee Corso (41-68-2), Sam Wyche (1 year 3-8), and  Gerry DiNardo (8-27).  This year they have hired Oklahoma OC for the past 8 years Kevin Wilson, who doesn't have any D1 head coaching experience and has struggled to keep his staff together only being on the job for a few weeks.  Can any coach win at IU?  That is the big question. 

Iowa: Hyden Fry was a Big Ten legend when he retired.  He had been at Iowa from 1979 -1998 with a overall record of 143-98-6.   So in 1999 who did the Hawkeyes turn to?  Baltimore Raven's offensive line coach Kirk Ferentz.  Kirk's only head coaching experience at the time was two years as Maine's head coach.   Before hired at Iowa Kirk had spent 5 years as an OL coach in the NFL.   I would say this Risk = Reward as Kirk is one of the highest paid coaches in college football and has been rumored to been a candidate for a number of NFL jobs and Michigan's last two openings.  Recently, Kirk has had a number of off field issues with his players. 

Wisconsin:  Does any of these names ring a bell?  1986 - Jim Hilles, 1987-1989 - Don Morton?  Those were the two coaches before Barry Alvarez was hired.  Barry was Notre Dame's DC for 2 years before taking the Wisconsin job.  Barry had spent 7 years as Iowa's LB coach before moving to ND to coach the LB's for 1 year and then 2 as the DC.   Barry moved to Wisconsin's AD position in 2006 and Brett Bielema took over.  Brett was on Barry's staff for 2 years has his DC coming over from Kansas State where he was the DC for 2 years as well.  I guess Wisconsin likes those 2 year DC's.

Penn State: Does not hire new head coaches.  They have had the same head coach for 44 years.

Michigan State:  We all know that Nick Saban spent 5 years in East Lansing but his coaching success came after he left the Spartans.  Since Nick left the program in 1999 the Spartans have struggled to find it's next head coach.  Bobby Williams was there for 3 years, then John L. Smith for 4 and now Mark Dantonio.  Mark came to State from the University of Cincinnati where he spent two years has head coach with a 18-17 record.  Before UC Mark was the DC at OSU for 2 years and before that 5 years as MSU's DB coach.

Illinois has probably the closest "Big Name Hire" outside of Rich Rodriguez when they hired Ron Zook who was just fired as Florida's head man in 2007.   Illinois must like Ron's because Zook replaced Turner.  Ron Zook has had an up and down stint at Illinois with an overall record of 28-45 (really?) with one Rose Bowl appearance which was a 49-17 loss to USC.   Before Ron took over at Florida he was the New Orleans Saints Defensive Coordinator for 2 years.

Northwestern:  Sadly, Randy Walker (former head coach of Miami of Ohio) died unexpectedly in June 2006 of a heart attack.  At the time, Northwestern hired LB coach and recruiting coordinator Pat Fitzgerald as it's head coach.  We all know Pat was a famous LB for Northwestern but his coaching experience before joining NW included 1 year as Maryland's LB coach, 1 year as Colorado's LB coach, and 1 year as Idaho's LB coach.   Pat was NW's LB coach for 5 years before took the head coaching job.

Minnesota:  Had some famous named coaches that didn't stay very long.  Names all Michigan fans will remember like: Fitz Crisler 1930-31 he had a 10-7 record and  Lou Holtz for another 2 year stint from 84-85.  Lou went 10-12 in two years.  Recently, Glen Mason was the Golden Gophers coach for 10 years and a 64-57 record.  I guess Glen's record wasn't good enough and they hired Tim Brewster in 2007.  Before Minnesota Tim was the TE coach for the Denver Broncos, before that he was the TE coach for the Chargers.  His college experience came in 1998-2001 as Texas's TE coach and 87-89 as North Carolina's TE coach.  I'm not a coaching expert but it seems to be this guy is a good TE coach.   After Minnesota fired their good TE coach, they hired Jerry Kill from Northern Illinois who was 10-3 in MAC last year.  Jerry has been the head coach of Saginaw Valley State, Emporia State, Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois and now Minnesota.

So to net it out, it seems Big Ten coaches who are successful and who are not successful usually don't come from other Big Time programs as head coaches.   It also seems some of the more successful hires were assistant coaches (at some point) at the programs they now run.

We all know Bo was from Miami of Ohio and the rest of Michigan's hires were internal before RR.   So maybe the Brady Hoke hire was the perfect fit for Michigan now and long term (the proof will be in his win loss record) and maybe the reason Rodriguez didn't do well at Michigan was because a Big Name + Big Program + Big Ten = Big Problems.

Michigan Thursday: Denard Supports Coach Rod

Before the David Brandon "quiet period" took effect for the future status of Michigan's head coach he said that more then win and losses would go into his assessment of current head man Rich Rodriguez.  Things like grades, player feedback, and recruiting would also be decision fators. 

Recruiting has been pretty good the last month and now the Wolverines star QB chimes in with his support:  "If it was up to me, I'd tell them he has to come back," Robinson said. "We had a pretty good season, and our future's really bright. We've got a young team and we're just starting to jell now.


"I see us in the future winning a national championship or moving in the top 10."

• The Big Ten has started an impressive 2-0 in Bowl Games so far.  Let's hope that streak continues, mostly at 1:30 on Saturday.  I know the Big Ten is happy with it's new bowl selections, but I'm wondering how effective it is to split the Big Ten viewing audience 3 ways on Saturday at 1:00.  They used to start the Outback Bowl at 11:00 EST to try to balance that a bit.  This year the Big Ten has 2 games kicking off at 1:00 and another at 1:30.  

• Desmond Green, a 6'4 225 pound 3 star DE from PA is down to 4 schools and will visit them all.  Those schools are  Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State and Texas Tech.

• Sam Webb takes a look at next weeks Under Armour All American Game.  If Michigan fans picked one All Star game to watch they should tune into the Army All American game with a number of Michigan recruits playing.

Michigan Thursday: This Defense is Who We Thought They Were! (which is bad)

Every Michigan fan that watched Saturday's game wondered the same thing, how in the hell did the defense get this bad?   I have spent the past 4 days reading Michigan blogs and other media and have come to this startling conclusion: this defense doesn't know what hell it's doing.   (brilliant I know!)

Here are two good examples from two well respected Michigan Blogs.

Mgoblog:  Michigan's deployment of the 3-3-5 isn't really a 3-3-5. I don't know what it is, but that whole attacking from everywhere, making different fronts, blitzing, getting guys through the line unblocked thing is something you can see on a fairly typical WVU play

I have no idea what Greg Robinson is trying to accomplish. This puts me in the same situation as Greg Robinson.  (what a great line!)

Burgeoning Wolverine Star:  Looks at Michigan trying to defend a 2nd and 21 against a guy that is "paying his own way" at Penn State.   These pictures are not for the faint of heart and you probably don't want to look at them while at work, due to the expletives that will soon come out of your mouth.

At this point, Kovacs realizes how poorly he's executed this play and has turned his head away from the quarterback to try and catch up with the outside receiver. Michigan's linebackers are literally running into each other and covering no one (What's happening here?). Michigan's underneath defenders are all still essentially inside the hash marks and none of them are deeper than five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. McGloin has all day to throw because, well, seven blockers against three rushers won't ever get to the quarterback.

Can you believe this guy is that wide open on a 2nd and 21!  How can that happen?  After this play, Greg Robinson should of laid down his headset and walked in to the Happy Valley of  Darkness.

The linebackers tackled themselves and the Penn State WR skipped to an open spot 25 yards down field where he was wide open.   He caught the ball and the Penn State fans cheered. 


How do you fix this mess?  I wish I knew.  But the scheme that Robinson is trying to run is either not working or his players don't understand it.   The lack of pressure on the QB has been troubling all year long.   To recap: Michigan's D can't stop the run, can't cover WR's, gives up a lot of yards and points, and doesn't pressure the QB, but Greg Robinson has Super Bowl Rings.

How RR watches this tape and doesn't fire Robinson is beyond me.  I'm guessing he feels he has no other choice but to keep him  until the end of the year.  (I wouldn't be betting my career on him, that is for sure). 

My suggestion is to just play man defense for the rest of the year with safety help deep.   Each CB plays the receiver in front of them, each LB picks a running back or Tight End to cover, and the safeties pick a player to help on deep.   Yes, that means the Michigan CB's could get beat deep and yes, it could mean Michigan gives up bigger running plays when Michigan doesn't expect it.  But how is that any different to what is happening now?  At least the CB's would know what to do and stick with their guy.   When a pass is thrown at least the Michigan defender would be (hopefully) within 10 yards of the wide out.   More importantly the freshman in the secondary wouldn't have to "think" what to do, they could just play football and cover the guy in front of them.  As RR said, when players "think" on the field they play slow. 

If the opposing offense goes 4 wide, take most of the LB's off the field (they aren't doing anything anyways) and put corners in to cover the WR's.    Yes, I understand that opens the defense up to RB and QB draws. 

The last change is to put Craig Roh just as a DE or Rush LB.  Have you even heard his name mentioned since the UConn game?  He should be rushing the QB and not in coverage. 
I'm sure there are a million reasons not to do what I suggest above, but I can tell you one thing:  This defense can't get any worse.

Wolverine Wednesday: Where do we go from here?

Is there a light at the end of this tunnel?  That is the biggest question right now for the Michigan Program. 

Michigan has lost 3 games in a row this year and is 0-1 in what has been known as the "winnable stretch".  Michigan plays a much improved Illinois team this weekend that has beat the Wolverines twice in a row.   There isn't a team in the nation that needs a win more then the Wolverines.   A win would equal a bowl game and more importantly 14-15 days of practice.  If you think about it, this team has missed out on 30 days of practice the last two years by missing a bowl game in consecutive years.  That is like one Fall Camp.  You can't miss that much time with a young team.  It's a competitive disadvantage.

So now what?

Fire Rich Rodriguez or Fire Greg Robinson or both.

In my mind, Greg is gone either way.  He has done nothing this year to improve the defense or even make them competitive.   Nobody was expecting this defense to be the Baltimore Ravens but we hoped to see improvement during the year.  We have seen regression.

Now the RR decision.  On one hand you can say that Michigan's offense is explosive and rated very high in the nation.  That is Rich's expertise and he deserves one more year to find a person that can fix the defense.

On the other hand, you say that Rich is the head coach making $3M a year and has been through 2 DC's in the last 3 years.   Since he is the CEO of Michigan Football and since this defense is ultimately his responsibility, he should be fired. 

One thing most people are not thinking about is the NCAA.  What is taking so long on that decision?  Many people expected a decision 6 weeks after the meeting in early August.  We are in November and still nothing.   With all the "good" luck Michigan has been having lately, don't you just expect to hear something from the NCAA in the next couple of weeks?  Or how about the week of the Ohio State game.  Wouldn't that be perfect timing?

Also don't forget that if the NCAA comes down hard on the Michigan Football program, David Brandon can fire RR without paying his buyout.   Rich can't afford losses against Illinois and Purdue along with an NCAA announcement and keep his job.  Which will hurt recruiting and many other things.

If David does cut RR loose, let me go on the record by saying he better have a coach all but signed up.  I don't want another Bill Martin fishing trip like he went on 3 years ago.   BTW, it shouldn't be Les Miles, he has done more to lose the Michigan job that earn it the last few years.  LSU fans would pack up his house and move him to Ann Arbor for free.  The name that keeps coming up is Jim Harbaugh, if he is the one I want him announced as the Michigan head coach the day after they let RR go.   Michigan can not "mail in" this recruiting class, it just can't afford to. 

If they hire Jim, expect some more down years since he plays a power pro style offense or just the opposite of RR.   Not an easy decision, is it?

RR will be coaching for his Michigan coaching career the next 2 weeks.  It will be interesting to see what happens.  The news about JT Floyd's ankle doesn't help. 

A Tuesday Funny: Golden Gophers Coaching Search

I don't normally do this but this headline out of Minnesota made me laugh, so I wanted to share it:

If Gophers fire Brewster, Tony Dungy will be first on their list

I understand that Tony went to the University of Minnesota but do you honestly think he would head back to coaching for a chance to lead the Golden Gophers?  If they call, he doesn't have to answer. 

What Bill Parcells and Jon Gruden aren't options? I know everyone believes their program is the best job in the world, but there isn't even a 1% chance Tony would take that job.  He is well paid by NBC and I don't think he is interested in going out and recruiting every weekend.

The article also mentions, Marc Trestman who is currently coaching in the CFL.  That would be a better bet.   I will throw a wild card name out there, who would be a good fit and spent 6 seasons with the Vikings:  Brian Billick.  Having a guy with a Super Bowl ring would really help in recruiting. 

With Minnesota in Michigan's section of the new Big Ten Conference, maybe I should have kept that idea to myself.