Finally!

Someone actually wants to coach Michigan Football! 

It was announced today by multiple sources that Rich Rodriguez would, in fact, become the next head coach at one of the five-most-storied-programs in the country.  As a UM fan, this is just kind of a, “Thank God it’s over,” moment.  The Les Miles saga went on for too long, the Schiano talks were premature (at best), and now there is finally a coach.  This is truly one of the hires that will just have to be a wait-and-see.

As I’ve grown older, I have lessened the teams that I would consider myself a fan of.  However, two have remained strong over the years:  University of Michigan Football and University of Kentucky Basketball.  The parallels between the two are obvious, and tradition runs VERY deep for both.  Both schools have won national championships within the last decade, and both saw coaches who won those national championships get (essentially) run out of town. 

For more tradition rich homerisms, jump with me.

The fun just began when the coaches bolted for greener pastures.  One would think that at schools like Kentucky and Michigan, people would leave ANY job to come there.  Nevermind the situation, time, or place… people just want to coach at these places.  As Kentucky fans saw eight (8!) months ago, and Michigan fans were just forced to endure; tradition really doesn’t mean a thing anymore.

Kentucky and Michigan both lost out on their first guys: Billy Donovan and Les Miles, respectively.  Billy D was not a Kentucky grad, but coached with Rick Pitino at UK, and was rumored to covet the job at a school where basketball was a bigger priority than football.  Obviously, he ended up turning the Cats down and will presumably be in Gainesville for a good while.  Les Miles is a true Michigan guy.  Everyone has heard the line, “He played there, he met his wife there, and he coached there.”  Bo Schembechler is his hero.  If anyone wanted the Michigan Football coaching job, it was Les Miles.  Yet, even still, he turned the job down!  What is it about these two programs that make people not jump at the opportunity to coach there?

The reason is that expectations are simply too high.  Tubby Smith won a National Championship in his first year as head coach, and Lloyd Carr did in his third year.  Both never took their teams to National Championship games again.  They both did fine jobs, both won the conference a few times, but that was just never enough.  When you coach at a school that has multiple National Championships, fans expect to win more National Championships.  When you can’t give the people what they want, the writing is on the wall, and you need to retire… or move to Minneapolis. 

Billy Gillispie was UK’s fourth of fifth choice, and Rich Rodriguez was UM’s third.  The interesting thing is that these are two pretty similar guys.  Neither would be considered a fantastic player at their respective sports, and both are self-made men.  They both, seemingly, have big egos, and appear to rub some people the wrong way. 

Billy G is already being run out of Lexington.  Rumors of partying, drinking, and flirting with many females are RAMPANT in Lexington.  With each loss (especially to UAB), these rumors just spread more and more.  I don’t mean to insinuate any of this is true for Billy Clyde, or that something like this would happen with Rich Rodriguez; but it just goes to show how a few losses at places like this means that the fanbase will turn on your quicker than you can say, “Seven National Championships.”

All this to say, I think Rich Rodriguez is a good hire for the Wolverines.  Hopefully he realizes that the 3-3-5 defense is NOT going to work in the Big 10, and leaves his defensive coordinator in Morgantown.  It will be interesting to see what happens with highly touted freshman QB, Ryan Mallett.  He’s obviously not athletic enough to run the system Rodriguez ran at WVU.  The good news is that national #1 recruit, Terrelle Pryor, has now added Michigan to his short list of schools that he is considering, solely because of the Rodriguez hiring. 

Bringing in the nation’s #1 recruit would definitely sit well with the Maize and Blue faithful… and only start raising those expectations.

Also, I didn’t know that Bill Martin could be the Athletic Director at both Michigan and West Virginia.