Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez and players try to shake nightmarish 2009 season

Michigan quarterback Tate Foricer kneels with his helmet to the ground after losing a fumble during the fourth quarter of a 38-13 loss to Illinois, a game that has haunted many of the Wolverines in the offseason.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

CHICAGO - He wakes up in the middle of the night, a play or situation running through his head. Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez can never get back to sleep.

Sleeplessness has been a problem throughout his coaching career, but one that's been exacerbated in his two-plus years in Ann Arbor.

“I have not slept well in a few years,” Rodriguez said at Big Ten media day Tuesday. “But I want to be able to sleep better this season.”

When he couldn’t make it through the night this past offseason, he’d lay awake trying to solve an issue or a play from 2009. Nights after a game are the worst, he said, win or lose.

“It must mean I love what I’m doing because if you don’t love what you’re doing, you just want to forget about it,” Rodriguez said. “If you’re a competitor, you hate losing.

“It just eats ya. It kind of eats at your soul, takes your life out of you. It really does.”

Rodriguez has company, specifically with one series that turned Michigan’s 2009 season.

Four times Michigan tried to score in the third quarter from the Illinois 1-yard line. Four times, Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor were stopped short, allowing the Illini to take possession on downs, drive 99 yards and score a touchdown in an eventual 38-13 win over the Wolverines on Oct. 31.

Rodriguez replayed that series, “as painful as it was, numerous times,” and said he still would have gone for the touchdown but called different plays.

That sequence stands out as one reason Michigan missed the postseason with a 5-7 record.

“As an offensive line, that was a rough point in the year,” senior guard Stephen Schilling said. “We were embarrassed and angry after that because that would have been, we punch it in there or Roy (Roundtree) doesn’t get caught (trying to score). We get in there, momentum is on our side, we get up a couple touchdowns and that game maybe goes a different way and the season does.”

Throughout the offseason, Schilling pointed to the Illinois game and a 26-20 overtime loss to Michigan State as motivating factors. He let the feelings focus him during voluntary workouts.

For similar reasons - failure in a key moment - the loss to Michigan State still leaves senior cornerback Troy Woolfolk upset.

He missed a tackle on the Spartans’ Larry Caper, who scored the game-winning touchdown in overtime.

Much like Rodriguez, it has kept him up nights.

“I blame the loss to Michigan State on my part,” Woolfolk said. “… Every time I lift weights, every time I’m out there trying to get extra reps, I’m trying to make up for that. It’s the thing that keeps me driving to beat them next year.

“I had dreams about it, missing the tackle. It really gets to me. I actually keep a picture right behind my sink and every morning when I wake up I look at that picture to remind me.”

While sleep is a concern, one thing that doesn’t bother Rodriguez is his job security. He said losses have shaken his confidence, but he never doubts he will finish the job former athletic director Bill Martin hired him for.

“I don’t think there is ever fear,” Rodriguez said. “The fans have been good, they’ve been great. The support has been great. It’s just taken longer than we want.

“But I’m still as confident as ever it’s going to happen and I say that because of what I’m around, the morale, the staff and the players and we start practice a week from now I’ll have that same confidence that ‘Yep, we’re on our way.’ It’s just taken a whole lot longer than anybody wants.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.