Ben

Mon, Nov 29, 2010 : 10:59 a.m.

Why do people keep bringing up Stanford's previous record before JH? That is extremely irrelevant. Stanford was a football power once in a blue moon before JH. Under JH, they turned around 180 degrees. RR came into a UM program which was established. From day one he insisted that we HAD to run his gimicky spread offense. He used players who were clearly not spread guys to do this. What happened? We lost big! JH at Stanford realized this would be an issue when he took over there. Like a GOOD COACH, he did not revamp the offense overnight, he gradually put his offense into place. I'm not arguing that JH could be the savior of UM, but I will concede that although it's fun to watch RR'd boys at work; the end result is always heartbreak. There is no reason for a foorball powerhouse like Michigan to face this humiliation week in and week out. I think if JH agrees to come to UM following the bowl games; RR is gone, otherwise he'll get another year while they coach hunt.

wolver4ever

Mon, Nov 29, 2010 : 10:25 a.m.

Horton I think you have a good post. I too have been very disappointed with RichRod, but I do see improvement. The offense with a first year starter at QB will be so much better next year. Look how much DR's passing has improved in just one year. He even looks better from game 1 to game 12. With another year under his belt and a full year of experience, he will be great. He does need a supporting cast though. I hope Hart, the RB from Florida is the real deal. The defense has to show improvement. With the return of Woolfolk and Floyd, there will be an improvement in the secondary. Demeus is coming along at LB and we have the entire D line coming back. Though I too believe we won't be great, there should be a marked improvement. You have to give a coach that is making this much of a change in the culture 4 years. at that point he has all of his players in and they have had time to mature. At that point if under-performing, then he has to go and we move on

Sean T.

Mon, Nov 29, 2010 : 4:19 a.m.

Horton, Stanford and Alabama have nothing to do with how Michigan plays in the Big Ten Conference. The argument that the spread offense will beat a conventional offense is bogus. Both of the above mentioned teams blew huge leads and let the momentum swing in the favor of their opponent and quite frankly.....that's all it takes. It had nothing to do with what kind of offensive scheme they used. Even the fact that the number 1 and 2 teams in the country use the spread can change in the next couple of weeks. As far as being impatient, I can't speak for everyone but many of us have the same problem with RR. He fails to take responsibility for the failures of the team, he throws players under the bus quite often, he fails to recruit well for needed positions and he admittedly defers to pay attention to defense. That is just a few things in my opinion. The offense will never look like Oregon unless Chip Kelley is coaching and that is pure fantasy. The only similarity we have with the Ducks is the fact that we use a zone-read option but there's 4 other teams that use the scheme in our conference and none of them look like Oregon. (OSU,NW,ILL and INDY) Two of these teams use it out of a "pistol" offense and the others use the common spread. There's more to Kelley's scheme than using an option, it consists of the splits they use, the no-huddle, a QB that can complete a deep pass and many other things we don't have. I won't argue that a coach should get 4 years to get things going but when a coach has so many deficiencies, sometimes you have to let go. Next year RR must have us playing like a college football team in every aspect of the game to earn his keep. If he fails, we may be too far gone to and may become Notre Dame.

orlandomichfan

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 11:21 p.m.

not that i got anything new to say, but it sure would be nice to read an original post on here, every post i read sounds recycled, its all the same in regards to richrod, how terrible our defense is, how embarrassing we are, etc etc..geez people, if you got nothing new to say why say anything..but i realize that wont happen, so it will be like groundhogs day on here and other wolverine football stories..

hortonGOBLUE

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 11:03 p.m.

Go BLUE!!

hortonGOBLUE

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 11:02 p.m.

I have been a U of M football fan my whole life. Nothing excites me more then to watch the Maze and Blue go head to head against the best competition in the country every Saturday. And while we havent had too much to be excited about in the past three seasons, it sickens me to see how arrogant and impatient U of M fans can be. Look, Ill be the first one to admit that RR has made plenty of mistakes in the past three years. Losing valuable recruits, NCAA violations, poor special teams, poor defense should I continue. But for a moment, lets try to be humble and use a little logic when considering the situation U of M football is in. Lets just consider a few arguments 1) Fire RR, his offense wont work against Strong, Tough Big Ten teams. Tell that to Stanford who gave up 52 points against Oregon. Or tell that to Alabama, who blew a 24-0 lead against a Spread team. Huh, funny that the #1 and #2 teams in America run the spread. If I remember correctly, Ohio State seems to love losing to Spread teams in National championship games. RRs offense works against good defenses; it just requires a lot of experience. We ran up and down the field on every team this year, except we made critical turnovers in Red Zone situations. This can be fixed with experience. Fumbles and dropped passes are not the fault of RR, the kids just need more strength and more reps. You want to see offense, lets take a look at D-robs stats as a first year starter: CompAtt. Yds PassingCMP%TDINT 155/250/ 2316/ 62/16/10 How about Tom Brady, as a first year starter: CompAtt. Yds PassingCMP%TDINT 214/350/2636/ 61.1/15/12 Do I even need to mention rushing yards? Michigan will also be returning all their skilled position players on Offense and only losing 1 starting offensive lineman. Plus the #1 and #3 Running back recruits have already committed to Michigan, and Dee Hart will probably be the starter next year, hes that good. This offense is going to be what Oregon is right now, it may even be better. 2) Fire RR and bring in Jim Harbaugh, hes the savior weve been looking for. I dont doubt that Jim would be a great coach and a good fit at Michigan, but lets take a look at the resume he has had in his FOUR year tenure as Stanfords head coach. 2007: 4 8 Beat highly ranked USC, kind of like U of M beating highly ranked Wisconsin in 2008. 2008: 5 7 2009: 8 5 Hmm very similar to Michigans record in RR 3rd season 2010: 10 1 Now let me guess, all you haters will say, well U of M has tradition and we shouldnt have to rebuild. Well, we picked a coach who came in saying he was going to restructure the program and that is exactly what he is doing. Im not saying it was a good decision, but it was a decision we made and we should stick to it. I could understand if the team was getting worse each season, but we are improving and like Bill Parcels said it You are what your record says you are. With the talent and experience U of M has this year they are a 7 8 win team. Next year they will be a 9 11 win team. And if not, then fire RR. 3) Fire RR, that defense is horrendous. Look the defense is awful, I wont argue that. But what do you expect when you ask coach to change his style of defense and half of the defensive players are either freshman or red shirt freshman. You literally have boys playing against men. Defense is extremely difficult for young players, if you even stop for a half second to think, then youre already beat. Just think for a moment if U of Ms defense were even ranked 60th in the nation. They would probably be a 9 or 10 win team this year. And despite what the stats say, you could see improvement on the field in the last three games. More three and outs and less blown assignments. I think that they actually were playing fairly well against Ohio State until Michigan started turning the ball over. And I realize that its the offenses fault, but confidence is contagious and when the Offense lost its confidence so did the D. Next year there will be 3 Senior DT, and with the return of J.T. Floyd and Troy Wolfolk the secondary should be more consistent. Not to mention that young players got a ton of experience this year and we will actually have depth at some Defensive positions. I mean look at the roster, we had 12 seniors total. I think that Ohio State had like 7 guys on Defense that are either seniors or being drafted to the NFL this year. Im not saying U of Ms defense is going to be great next year, but It will be good enough to win more games. So I guess enough of my excuses for RR. I dont think that hes the greatest coach or even the right U of M style coach. But I do think that if we dont give him another year, we will just be back to square one. We will be rebuilding again, and even Jim Harbaugh knows that rebuilding takes time, in fact it took him FOUR years time. So for all you people asking for RRs head, be patient, give him a real shot at this and just maybe we will see U of M in the spotlight once again.

OSUbeBetter

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 9:03 p.m.

I think the best part is when Tress calls the dogs off and takes a knee on second down at the Michigan 7. He wanted to make sure he didnt beat that 42-7 beating from 08 and thus extended Rodriguez's career for one more year (He also kept it close last year).

Jaxon5

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 8:36 p.m.

After 3 years, this was supposed to be a highlight video. Instead, it's more of the same. No progress has been made in conference or rivalry game play. If we do a "before" and "after" analysis on the coaching change, the "after" is no comparison with the "before". Congratulations to all on finishing no better than 8th in the Big 10 (that's 9th next year after Nebraska enters) for the third year in a row. If you want to find out where M finished, it's much quicker to start at the bottom of the conference. That's where you'll find them.

InsideTheHall

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 7:41 p.m.

There were no highlights only disgrace. RR should resign like Bump Elliott did when he was smoked 50-14 in 1968 at CBus.

saginaw

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 6:51 p.m.

Ever since we lost Bo in 2006, things have been different: 1. The day after Bo passed in 2006, we lost a close game to OSU -- we were ranked #2 in the country. Then we had a very poor bowl game against USC; 24 - 14. 2. Next, the 2007 season opened up with very bad games at home vs App State and then Oregon. The 2007 regular season ended with two bad losses to Wisconsin and OSU. But we did play a great bowl game vs Florida. 3. All of this has ushered in the Rich Rod era -- people said that "we had to move in a NEW direction". Is this what they meant?

Blu-n-Tpa

Sun, Nov 28, 2010 : 5:52 p.m.

Highlights? Do you guys have video of train wrecks too? Please, just a moment of silence would do.