Mailbag question: Former assistant coaches:
Do you think it was a mistake for Coach Rod to not rehire some of the defensive coaches from the old staff? Since not all of his old staff came with him, it just seems like the smart thing to do in regards to recruiting.
I am not sure English would have taken the job but we will never know. Unless recruiting picks up a lot soon, it could be his downfall!
Chuck C.
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Thanks for the question.
This was answered before the Illinois game.
We can understand Coach Rod not wanting to hire Coach English, his pursuit of the head-coaching job at Michigan made it difficult for him to be hired as an assistant coach.
Also we believe that Coach English would not have accepted a demotion of being just a defensive back coach since he was the defensive coordinator under Coach Carr.
Coach English had a good relationship with the players and that could have caused some division as well, especially if he did not agree with how the new coaches were coaching the players.
It was best for all, we believe, in that Coach English looked at other opportunities and in which he was able to land another defensive coordinator job for a year before coming back to Michigan and taking over the struggling Eastern Michigan program as the head coach.
We think Coach Stripling would have been a nice addition, but for whatever reason this did not happen. We assume that Coach Tall was brought in when he told Coach Rod he wanted to come after debating on whether to stay at West Virginia.
Nobody was going to be hired in place of Coach Gibson, so Coach Bedford was not an option even though we would have loved to keep him. Coach Bedford is a great assistant coach and he had no problems landing a job with an elite team, the Florida Gators.
Coach Tall coached Bandits and Spurs at West Virginia, so his hire made sense when it appeared Michigan would play a 3-3-5 defense. But when Coach Casteel decided to stay things got a little murky with who was coaching what position.
We will not get into the debate about Coach Shafer because we believe he was in a bad situation and watching the defense this year you can tell not everything was Coach Shafer's fault as many tried to assert. Coach Robinson is trying to use duct tape, bubble gum, tie wire, and shoestrings to hold this defense together.
To your point we are not sure keeping any staff members from the previous regime would have made any difference. New Michigan is about winning with offense and quite frankly that is where we would have liked to have seen an assistant coach kept or rehired such as Erik "Soup" Campbell.
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Written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine
3 comments:
QUESTION: Then please give us your assessment of the coaching staff and what was truly Shafer's fault and what wasn't. Thanks.
Carr was accused of cronyism back in the day and we all though new blood would change this, but you know what....guess not.
There are so many dead weights in this coaching staff, and this is just by looking at the product on the field, have no idea about how they are recruiting wise. Maybe ERoc and co can chime in on who is a recruiting ninja and who is not.
Some of the position groups, especially on D have not even shown a hint of progress/ development. While some mistakes can be corrected only during the off season, most of the problems on D can be corrected by good coaching and dedicated learning.
Mike Williams repeatedly showing up late or completely missing the pitchman on the option sweeps run by Juice is a prime example of an "easily solvable problem" all that needs to be done is practice, sure he might missing some keys to the pays and these keys might vary week to week, but completely missing the whole play is not indicative of good coaching.
Would like to see a dynamic coach at LB, preferably a young guy with solid fundamentals and with an appetite for recruiting. He can then be groomed as a DC for a few years so that he is ready when GRob calls it quits. NOt seeing anybody on the current staff that can be called DC commodity, not even sure if they will get hired at any BSC schools....the talent level is pretty poor on D, players and coaches included.
RR is at a critical juncture in his coaching career, he needs to step away and make some hard decisions, and these include staff, and he must do whatever is necessary to make M elite, else its a failure and he will know and hate it. Time he stops worrying/looking out for the carpool buddies.
So do you have names of these coaches and what they can and can't do? Who should stay and who should leave? In your opinion of course.
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