Coaches' Corner: A little rant about Agendas
For some reason, every time we write a post that Coach Rod's "Mafia" disagrees with, we get accused of having an "agenda." Therefore, to give this "mob" even more reason to get their panties in a bunch, here's our take on Coach Rod and the 2008 season. I also wanted to get it off my to-do list. (Doh! I guess I do have an agenda.)
Assistant Coaches:
As head coach, Coach Rod has every right to hire any one he wants. In fact, we support him 100% in this vein. Head coaches, be it Coach Carr or Coach Rod, need to have assistants around them they totally respect and are comfortable with.
Consequently, he is 100% responsible for what these assistants do, same as Coach Carr, Coach Bo, or any other coach, even Coach George Halas.
What assistants do ends up totally on the head coach, for better or worse. That is why we had problems with some of the comments posted and why we were quick to defend Coach Shafer.
Many wanted to dump on Coach Shafer while giving Coach Rod a pass from any responsibility over happened on the defensive side of the ball. If Coach Shafer was not a correct fit, he needed to go. Coach Rod did right parting ways with him. Having said that, I am somewhat disgusted with how the firing/resignation was handled.
And I'm not saying this because I have any ulterior motives. So those who disagree with me, just take my opinion at face value, and let's move on.
The 2008 season:
Defections: Michigan lost a ton of players including some talented ones. This by itself was not surprising. The surprise came from who some of the defectors were, not how many.
Also surprising was attitude of some of the comments on the message boards who thought that no matter who, left it was no big loss to the program. Then as the season went on, these very same people complained more and more about the lack of talent on the team.
Regardless of the head coach, losing as many quality players as Michigan did last year would have hurt ANY program in the short term.
During recent Threet-defection debate, I went out of my way never to mention Coach Rod, because this was a loss no matter who was coaching. Yet, once again, the "agenda" accusations began to fly.
Dismal Win Record: Nobody, not Coach Rod, Coach Carr, Coach Bo, nor CoachVince Lombardi-on-steroids could've gone 13-0 with this group of players. There was not enough talent, nor depth at any position, for this to happen. However, in saying that there is no way this team could have gone 13-0 and won a National Championship, doesn't mean I look kindly on going 3-9 either. While there was not enough talent to be 13-0, there was too much talent to justify a 3-9 season. For this, Coach Rod needs to be held accountable. The buck, but unfortunately not yet The Buckeyes, stops with him.
Holding Coach Rod accountable for a dismal season, does not a Hidden-Agenda Hound make. It's just being realistic to have certain expectations for Michigan's season and holding the team -- and the head coach -- responsible for underachieving.
The Loses:
Losing to Toledo, Purdue, and Northwestern -- without their best player -- was unacceptable. Michigan had more talent and should never have lost to these teams.
Same thought with respect to Appalachian State -- losing was simply unacceptable. This has nothing to do with who was head coach.
Come on, Michigan without a proper quarterback still should've had enough talent to beat a three-win MAC school. Holding the staff accountable for losing these games that we should have won was proper, no part of some evil propoganda campaign.
How Michigan lost:
No head coach with this group of players was going to beat Ohio State. It wasn't so much the loss, as HOW Michigan lost that PISSED people off. Michigan showed no fight. They just shrugged their shoulder and benover. That was an unacceptable showing for players and coaches alike. We saw the same think when OSU beat us in 2007. It stunk then. It stunk last year. There's no reason to keep quite about it.
The most discouraging aspect was that not one player stepped up to say "Enough is enough" and went out ro rip a Buckeye's head off. What's going here? Is someone putting Prozac in the Gatorade? This was inexcusable. Are we The Wolverines or the Wooly Lambs? Did the whole team develop acute testoserone-deficiency syndrome?
No, don't have an agenda. JUST PISSED AND WASN'T GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE! Sooner or later, the head coach has to take the heat.
Some of us wanted to hold Coach Rod, and the team, accountable for their part of what happened in 2008. When "the other side" saw this, they came out and with a vengeance. They let loose the hounds on us. Went into attack mode. Why? I do not see how wanting to hold the coaching staff accountable for what happened on field means I bleed any lesser Blue than the next guy.
Let's just all agree to disagree.
Thanks for stopping by http://gobluemichiganwolverine.blogspot.com/
If you have any questions please e-mail erocwolverine@gmail.com
Written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine
11 comments:
The difficulty with this, and a lot of your posts, is that the people you are writing about -- Coach Rod's 'mafia' -- are essentially caricatures -- straw men. If you linked to some of these opinions or quoted some of the emails you receive from such folks, then readers could evaluate whether you're being fair, if they have solid points, etc. That's one of the really strong points of the blog format -- you can direct your readers instantaneously to what you're writing about. But you don't take advantage of this feature and it's therefore really hard to tell exactly who and what types of arguments you're taking issue with.
IMO you guys spend way too much time trying to defend yourself, posting disclaimers etc.... if you want to say something, just say it... avoid the 'us vs. them' and 'RR Mafia' comments because it just belittles your POV and arguments... turning it into confrontations with unseen evil people...when really you should just rely on your inside knowledge that you are supposed to have and just say it...people will respect you more if you did it that way...just my humble opinion.
PS: I totally disagree with the 'no fight' comment vs. OSU. We were in that game totally in the 3rd quarter with a squirtgun for a QB who couldnt do anything...and safetys who continually play the run and pass with their heads up their own butts. Despite these glaring deficiencies which occurred in just about every game all season (hello evil Threet vs. Toledo)... the team fought hard and was in every game in to the 2nd half despite glaring weaknesses at those 2 critical positions.
you guys may want to rethink the 'effort' part of your argument... it was there, but there is only so much a team can do to hang in when the QBs are the worst in UMs 130+ year history and the safetys just plain sucked.
peace
I completely agree with the anonymous poster above.
I started visiting this blog about a year ago, mostly because (a) you guys had good "insider" information about what was happening at spring practice under the new coaching staff, and (b) you helped someone like me -- who never played or coached football -- a little bit more about X's and O's.
But lately (actually going on several months now), this site has been less about Michigan football, and more about you guys. It seems as if you constantly feel the need to play "I told you so" about last season and/or respond to your critics (who, like the poster above, I've never actually seen -- maybe because I don't read the subscribers-only boards?).
In any event, I hope you take my comment for how it is intended -- i.e., as constructive criticism. I've long enjoyed this blog, but the quality of the blog has gone down as the site's focus has become more and more on its authors rather than -- as it should be -- on the Maize and Blue in the Big House.
Go Blue!
Amen to the anonymous posters above!
Whatever, everyone needs to suck it up. The offseason is boring and if you need to filter through a post or two of non-football related stuff, that's just the way it is. This blog still has a ton of content, considering they are going through each recruit and commit PERSON-BY-PERSON to talk about them. Lack of content? Sure...
The only problem I have is with some of these "Anonymous" people that like to post and hide behind it.
I have no problem with people that want to compain at what ErocWolverine, CoachBt and MaizeMan say.
The problem I have is when those people cannot even "man-up" and put there names on it. Most of them are probably from other blogs wanting to hate on these guys for what they provide to us.
I count these people as guys from places that do not like what these guys put out with their access because they cannot or dont have that type of information or knowledge to warrant it ... so they "hate" on these guys.
The funny thing is these "Anonymous" haters a lot of times keep coming back ... so they must like the information some what or they wouldn't keep coming around and that is what I bet these guys want is for people to want to read their stuff.
to the above poster...i am one of the "anonymous" posters who made 2 comments above... and in no way was I 'hating' on this blog at all...so you need to take a chill pill. What im saying is that they dont need to get so defensive about worrying about pissing anyone off...and the comments about "RR Mafia" are unnecessary and end up making them look smaller than what they really are... IMO, they should just say what they say...without disclaimers and would be perceived as stronger, if they did...thats all im saying.
My other point was directed towards their criticism for 'lack of effort' of the 08 team... well it is easy to say that a team has 'lack of effort' when they are not successful...but damned if it ever is true...(it rarely is at all, teams rarely lie down on purpose and dont work hard)... but what really happened is that the new system, combined with 2 very inadequate QBs and an inexperienced OL made things very difficult for the team to be in games... and for the most part, they were in every game starting the second half... with only a couple exceptions....so they did try hard, but just couldnt keep it up man...I mean with terrible QBs and bad offense in general combined with idiot types playing safety who seemed to play without any clue as to what the definition of "safety" really is... well those letdowns are very hard for any 'motivated' team to overcome... no matter how hard they would try, it would still look like.... they were not trying hard enough... even though they really were.
as for being anonymous...well im a nobody and no one knows me...so why bother putting a name here, it doesnt matter, and doesnt affect my opinion. peace
One final thing on the 'effort'... they say "what player said enough is enough",...well I saw Molk slugging an OSU player late in the game when the game was out of hand... yeah, he said "enough is enough" but it didnt matter one damned bit because the team did not execute. "kicking ass" is way overrated, if you dont execute the plays.
I have to agree with the anonymous posters. Who cares who gets mad and the I told you so's are lame. Just as lame as the I didn't tell you's. I never heard "Steven Threet is thinking of leaving the team, although it was very clear after he didn't make the trip to the uos game that it was over for him. OVER, in November, not Jan. or Feb., November. Why was there not even a single Steven Threet may be leaving post? Why would a first year starter not make the trip to uos? He was injured(???), does that stop him from being on the sidelines during the biggest game of the season? Maybe your inside information is not all that INSIDE after all. How could you miss that if you are so "INSIDE"? That's why you have a hard on for RR and his MAFIA. Because they are not letting you on the inside like you want to be. Thats why all of the disclaimers and I told you so's. Your starting to fall off of the fence again. I for one would like to know who the RR mafia is? Why would you refer to anyone connected with our program in the same sentence with mafia? That sounds real good to the future recruits. Inside information? Almost everything you post is available to anyone that wants to do the research. Do me a favor and LIST some things that are actual inside information. Bet you anything I can find all the same stuff on the net. NO PRESS PASS NEEDED. I know I sound bitter. But I do really enjoy this blog, but the disclaimers and I told you so's are really pointless. Like the previous anon. poster said it makes your information seem less legit and makes your blog seem more like a witch hunt.
As for the anon. posts, who cares. Are you gonna know someone by their BLOG name? I didn't think so. Or are trying to find out if the posters are part of RR's MAFIA? LOL
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