Rich Rodriguez (official thread)

[HailToMichigan]

Originally Posted by Jaxbuck

PM Grad...he's got them.

I see we aren't touching the choker stuff. Wise move.

You're the one making the accusation. I'm not about to go out of my way to provide your burden of proof.

As for the choker stuff, it's barely even worth touching. You're right, after all - RR had the more talented team than USF, as you mentioned, and lost to them. So did Tressel against Illinois. Choker? What's your point? You were expecting Michigan to hire a coach without a single loss on his resume?

[OCBucksFan]

This thread is getting incredibly retarded really fast...

[sandgk]

Originally Posted by HailToMichigan

Choker? What's your point? You were expecting Michigan to hire a coach without a single loss on his resume?

4 TD underdog Pitt beats West Virginia in Morgantown.

That's a choke.

Ranked Illinois comes into Columbus and beats Ohio State (with help from dysfunctional zebras) that's an upset.

[3yardsandacloud]

Originally Posted by HailToMichigan

I don't pretend that RR couldn't have handled things better. Maybe he could have handed his resignation letter to Ed Pastilong himself. Maybe he could have waited a little while to call Terrelle Pryor. Maybe he could have met Coleman and Martin in Ann Arbor instead of Toledo (however, hopping a flight to Ann Arbor sends up flashing neon signs and sirens of suspicion.) Maybe he could have been more up front with his bosses. Maybe he should take the high road and pay the buyout. I hold absolutely no illusions that when he says, "I want to retire here," he'll feel the same way in 10 or 15 years. That's how coaching is these days.

... continued ...

I actually agree with much of HTM's post. The whole process of hiring/firing coaches at the college level has become such a circus that it becomes next to impossible for such an event (at high profile institutions) to be handled with class, integrity and honesty. Not that it can't happen, but the pressure from fans, administrators, players, etc. is just overwhelming at times.

Look folks, I'm somewhat embarrassed at how we have reacted to each candidate that has surfaced during the Michigan coaching search. Everyone has been ridiculed and denounced as a poor choice for UofM. I get the sense that folks think this is some type of competition where we must defend Tressel versus all comers in the Michigan coaching search. Comment after comment about how Tressel will "own" him, or how Tress wouldn't have done that, or done this. The point is we don't need to diminish others in an attempt to elevate ourselves, our team and our coach. I hope Michigan gets a good man ... a worthy opponent ... a person who values his players and students as much as he values winning.

I think the whole point is that we HAVE that man at OSU. We have the person that fits our program, our hopes, our wishes to a T. It is easy for us to criticize and make comparisons because we have our "perfect" fit at coach. He understands Ohio State, our passions, our traditions. I find it sad that we feel the need to comment on Michigan's candidates based on our set of criteria.

Will RR be that man at Michigan? Time will tell, but it's their call to make. I have no doubt that RR is a good coach. I think it's dangerous to assume that he's a one trick pony. You don't develop a system like his without being good at the Xs and Os. It takes creativity, knowledge, understanding ... don't sell him short. As for the ethics comments that are being thrown about ... back it up. If he's broken the rules, then by all means tell us exactly what happened. Otherwise don't belittle the man and in effect our rivalry with idle speculation.

[Jaxbuck]

Originally Posted by HailToMichigan

You're the one making the accusation. I'm not about to go out of my way to provide your burden of proof.

I don't have to prove anything. Its known, bury your head all you want.

As for the choker stuff, it's barely even worth touching. You're right, after all - RR had the more talented team than USF, as you mentioned, and lost to them. So did Tressel against Illinois. Choker? What's your point? You were expecting Michigan to hire a coach without a single loss on his resume?

If calling it a single event makes you feel better then have at it. RR is well into establishing it as his pattern.

-2005's lone loss? At home to the only decent team they played all year.
-2006 Late season home loss to USF eliminates them from BCS.
-2007 big game on the road at night loss to USF
-2007 Lost the biggest game in WVU history at home to an incredibly bad Pitt team.

The last three he had the better team.


I know your trying to find ways to rationalize and defend your new guy,I'd probably do the same if we got stuck with some douche nozzle for a HC. You guys are stuck with him so you defend him but if your honest with yourself you know he's got some serious question marks.

[BrutusMaximus]

I know your trying to find ways to rationalize and defend your new guy,I'd probably do the same if we got stuck with some douche nozzle for a HC. You guys are stuck with him so you defend him but if your honest with yourself you know he's got some serious question marks.

Easy there chief. I know how we all feel about scUM, but no reason to get vulgar about it. I personally believe that he isnt going to turn out too well at Michigan, but this thread is about discussion, dont need to get nasty about it. Gotta agree with 3yards on this one.

And now to lighten the mood:

[Emperor Brutus]

I want to make it clear that my post wasn’t made to bash Dick Rod and claim he won’t accomplish some great things at Michigan. On the contrary I think he has the ability to be a successful coach at Michigan, with that said I meant what I said about his offense this year in the Big Ten. Granted the Big Ten is not the NFL, but it is a tougher conference than the Big East. The most important difference is the level of players our teams have on defense when compared to Big East teams.

Even Tebow got banged up in the SEC this year and Dick Rod isn’t going to have him to run his offense. I know he’s coached offenses that have thrown the ball before, but I’ve heard him say he might throw the ball more at Michigan once now, I’ve heard or read him say that he wants to run his offense from this year at Michigan countless times. I’m of the opinion he’s going to need a more balanced attack to win against the best in the Big Ten, maybe I’m wrong about that, but I don’t think I am. I also think he’ll come to that conclusion for himself, if he doesn’t then I think you guys might have a problem.

[Steve19]

Originally Posted by muffler dragon

Based on what?

edit: btw, personal opinion polls are rarely "scientific".

Personal opinion polls typically are conducted in a scientific manner. The problem with Internet polls of this type, and of the type that ESPiN and their ilk love to host these days, is that the sample is self-selected. That is, the respondents have not been selected randomly from some defined universe of people, which means that we have no idea how representative the opinions are of the total universe.

One can argue that the opinions expressed about these two coaches on the Internet site you are discussing are not representative of the total universe or that they are, but you guys are right in that there is no scientific basis for either argument. It is interesting that the opinions expressed in the poll about Coach Tressel do appear to be representative and have been expressed repeatedly by players over the years.

I would like to support something 3yards said in post #468 with a bit of a story. In high school, our cross-country team did very well in the state championships and we reckoned we had a shot to win the following year. As a sophomore, I looked forward to running on that team. We had a "team manager" who was cut from hillbilly stock, named Billy. Everyone liked Billy but he was clearly not one of us, the elite. He was gangly and ran in an odd manner. So, when he asked us one day if he could join us for a 10-mile run, we all agreed that he could and kept waiting for him to fall out as we increased the pace. Billy beat us all back and went on to become the best runner on the team.

I'm not saying that RR is going to be a world-beater and I am more critical of the values he has expressed than it seems some others here might be. I firmly believe that he will leave that truckload of manure in Ann Arbor (yeah, I know, who would see it so self-fulfilling prophecy, let me make my point), but I am open to the fact that our opinions about him may change with time and I could be wrong.

Whatever we think about RR and his RRRR family portrait, it is clear that we have a coach at TSUN who does not have Tressel in his head yet and who cannot help but know that a great part of his evaluation after the first year will be determined by how his team performs in Columbus.

We need TSUN to be a strong football team. In the absence of a conference championship, we need the 'street cred' that comes from beating a really good team in our last game. We also need the Big Ten to pull up its socks, after a shocking year. RR coming into the conference will have that effect on us and every other team in the conference. It will have a beneficial effect on the journalists. RR could be a big win for the Big Ten and us.

[MililaniBuckeye]

Originally Posted by muffler dragon

Based on what?

edit: btw, personal opinion polls are rarely "scientific".

That poll wasn't a typical personal opinion "poll", but a fairly extensive questionaire to current and former players which asked specific, measured questions and had controlled metrics.

[Bobby Hoying]

About that $4 MIL buyout...

If RR can't get out of it, will scUM pay the bill? I doubt they are going to be happy about that, plus I doubt that it is in the contract that RR hasn't(?) signed yet.

[Steve19]

In re-reading my post, it appears that Mili and I might hold different points of view. We don't. Just to clarify my earlier point, in support of what Mili said, here is what the Coach Ratings - College Football, Basketball and Baseball Players Rate Their Coaches site says about their methodology..


Coach Ratings? has a four-step approach to its rating process. This process helps ensure that we provide ratings that are accurate and informational.

1. Participant Validation - Participants in the rating process are identified in three ways: referrals from high school coaches, search efforts by Coach Ratings? and volunteers through the web site. Coach Ratings? encourages high school coaches to refer their former athletes to rate their current college coach. This is often a reliable way to validate an athlete's identity. Coach Ratings? will seek out and identify athletes through our own efforts to participate in the ratings. In this process we attempt to identify and contact athletes that can verify their identity. Those who volunteer through the web site are the most difficult to validate. If Coach Ratings? cannot validate an athlete's identity then they will not be allowed to rate their coach.
2. Rating Invitation - Once an athlete's identity has been validated they will receive an invitation to rate their coach. The invitation can only be used once and not forwarded to other individuals. NEVER at any point will a participant's rating and their contact information be shared with or sold to any third-party. Refer to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for more information.
3. Rating Submission - The participant will complete the rating and submit it to Coach Ratings?. The responses to the questions range from Strongly Disagree (1) to Strongly Agree (5). In most cases, a response with a higher score is positive feedback. However, there are some questions where a positive response would be to disagree with the statement. This is done to help ensure the participant is reading all the statements before answering. At the end of the rating the athlete can choose an overall score for their coach ranging from 1 (Poor) to 10 (Great). The Overall Coach Rating is derived from this question, not from a calculation of the other questions.
4. Publication - The ratings will be published and accessible through the Coach Ratings? web site. The rating will consist of a summary of all the submissions. Participants who provide ratings will ALWAYS remain anonymous and their individual rating will NEVER be published with their identity.

?Copyright 2003-2005 Coach Ratings, LLC. All Rights Reserved

I'll keep away from geek-speak. Coach Ratings LLC indicate that they have taken steps to control for biased responding (i.e., mixing positively and negatively worded questions to filter out players who just answer yes or no to all questions, etc). So, there is a clear attempt to provide a reliable and valid measure of player opinions about their coaches.

Where Coach Ratings LLC appears to have a challenge is in the way they build their sample. Surely, the best way to construct a sample would be to put the college rosters into a database and then randomly identify respondents for completion of the survey. On the other hand, it would be very difficult to contact these individual players without email addresses. So, Coach Ratings LLC is getting to the players through their high school coaches. That is not as good because some coaches of a particular type, say a Type I aggressive coach, may not have good relationships with his players or keep in contact with them. So, the college sample may be biased because certain types of coaches may be willing to help Coach Ratings LLC.

Nevertheless, this poll has a lot more validity than a poll on CNNSI or ESPN because a professionally designed survey has been administered and an effort has been made to build a meaningful sample comprised of players, not just players who saw the poll and decided to participate. It nonetheless is subject to bias though because of the sample design and its conclusions should be viewed with caution.

[DaddyBigBucks]

Originally Posted by Bobby Hoying

About that $4 MIL buyout...

If RR can't get out of it, will scUM pay the bill? I doubt they are going to be happy about that, plus I doubt that it is in the contract that RR hasn't(?) signed yet.

From what I have heard scUM has agreed to pay $3M of it, leaving RR on the hook for a cool $mil himself. I got the impression that he told them he'd be able to get out of the buy-out, and they said, "Put your money where your mouth is". So if WVU wins the legal free-for-all, RR ends up a little lighter in the wallet. It's not exactly a reason to gloat though; he's still a millionaire.

[MaizeandBlue]

[BuckeyeNation27]

thanks for that contribution.

[MaizeandBlue]