Michigan welcomes back football 'family'
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6383822
This article sickens me. So a real Michigan Man makes his players yell out team records? I understand fans being bangwagoney but former players?! That is unacceptable.
I think RR was set to win 9 games this year which means he probably would have won 8 (before getting fired). 10 wins would certainly be overachieving in my opinion and I don't see it happening this year.
April 19th, 2011 at 10:26 AM ^
Okay, if you insist. I will book it. And for a guy who mischaracterized the yearly expectations for Rich Rodriguez by the proprietors of MGoBlog, your asking us to "book it" just might be a very rich source of humor.
April 19th, 2011 at 10:38 AM ^
I think Hoke and his staff have done a good job of selling the transition.
The sell is easier: transitioning to pro-style will help everyone get to the next level. The recievers, the tight ends, the running backs, and the entire defense all have something to gain. Denard and Devin may have been more likely Heisman contenders under Rodriguez, but even Florida brought Scot Loeffler in to help prepare Tebow for the NFL. (After Saturday, anybody think we may need a QB coach?) Getting to the next level has to be on Denard's mind.
That said, Spring Practice has just ended. We are not to September 3rd yet.
April 22nd, 2011 at 12:16 PM ^
Ann Arbor in general took a huge hit, not just M fans....in my opinion. Not just the treatment of RR as a coach, which was reprehensible and inexcusable, from day one, but the treatment of his family, Rita being shunned because of her clothes/hair and his kids being tormented at school. I thought AA and M fans were above that sort of thing, but apparently not. Funny thing is, if it they were African-American instead of West Virginian, AA liberals would have been falling all over themselves to accept them. My opinion.
Former players 'coming back' should never have left. All the rhetoric about Hoke appreciating tradition more than RR is just BS and part of the 'Hoke is Great!' PR machine.
I don't care what anyone here says now, there was a HUGE segment of the fan base that wanted RR to fail from day one and openly acted in a manner detrimental to his success. The same fans now acting like anybody not supporting Hoke 100% and without reservation is somehow less than a fan. Shoe, meet other foot.
I like Hoke as a person, but he clearly is not the caliber of coach M needs and was about our 5th option. It is not impossible he will be successful, just not very probable.
I haven't been less excited about an M season as far back as I remember. I have seen enough of manball, 4 yard runs, old-style football to last 3 lifetimes and I am not at all excited to return there seeing where that got us previously. To be blunt, it just isn't going to work. the days of 'blowing people off the ball' ended a long time ago and it is too bad many M fans can't see that. Even if it works, it is boring, sooooooo boring to watch.
I used to be on here every day and craving every last bit of M football data, insight, recruiting news and analysis I could get my hands on, now I am lucky to check Brian's blog entries once a week and actually read some of them. Was skimming Google Reader for anything interesting in these forum posts, but same old, same old.
xenophobia?
are you serious?
...what this particular story reminds me of is the recent story about a computer program that was fed some game-stats data and churned out a print story about that game. NPR did a nice job with it:
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/17/135471975/robot-journalist-out-writes-human-sports-reporter
I presume that the 'bot that did this story was Larry Lage, the AP sports stringer for Detroit. Larry, there's no byline! Is that you? Why would the AP deprive you of a byline?
Anyway, I guess there's no stopping these stories. Even though they are boring tripe that hardly scratches the surface. Easy, uncomplicated narratives are apparently what a lot of sportswriting is about these days. Let's at least give Larry Lage a little credit for giving Rick Leach a paragraph. As always, a dedicated college sports fan could learn 10,000% more about Michigan football from this blog, than from all of ESPN and the Associated Press put together.
I learned that we will win a NCAA championship in 2009 when Rich Rod finally got a dual thread QB, no make that 2010 when Rich Rod will have an experienced dual threat qb, no 2011 when our defense will be good (if only he had 1 more year!).
Actually I learned that everyone's analysys on Mgoblog of where our team will go with Rich Rod was wrong every fucking year. I seriously doubt any analays by those who continue to defend Rich Rod's record at Michigan, by blaming everyone BUT Rich Rod. The reason you guys are so bitter is because you really believed in Rich Rod, and his record sucked.
April 19th, 2011 at 10:06 AM ^
You didn't "learn" any of that here. Reading Brian Cook, you'd have seen FAR more criticism of the Threet/Sheridan fiasco here, than just about anywhere else.
Here at MGoBlog, you'd have learned FAR more about the real Boren story, than anywhere in the mainstream media.
At MGoBlog, you would have read detailed, performance-based anguish over the performance of the defense under Scott Schafer, and the quandry over whether to fire him or not. ALL sides were expressed. And to his eternal credit, there are few Michigan-centric writers anywhere who expressed greater doubt and caution about the hiring of Greg Robinson, than Brian Cook and his MGoColleagues. Robinson was a classic cautionary tale from BEFORE the time he was announced. It was all here, for people with some semblance of reading comprehension, which apparently excludes you.
Of course my personal favorite moment in MGoHistory (and I mention this only in the hope that it will piss you off), was when, at the conclusion of the Monday Press Conference on August 31, 2009, when Rich Rodriguez was responding to the previous day's Sunday Free Press story, Brian Cook was in attendance, and was asking Mark Snyder, as the presser broke up, how exactly Snyder and Rosenberg had come to the conclusion that practice time had been exceeded by vast numbers of hours; Snyder turned his back on Brian and walked away, wordlessly.
April 19th, 2011 at 10:48 AM ^
... that Brian's pre-season reviews of our defense were alarmingly pessimistic, and everyone forgot that by week 4 of the past two seasons only to have it come crashing down around them in the Big Ten schedule.
There is a lot of homerism, but Section 1 is right - the level of analysis around every game (openly critical of coaching many times), all aspects of how we got to the level of depth we have on the team, various views on our odds of winning, etc. make this blog one of the deepest places to get information on Michigan Football. (I'll bet our opponents' GA coaching staff use MGoBlog as an information source in preparing for games.)
Here we go again....
You would think people would learn after the first 50 articles like this. Also, what's with the people angry about Hoke getting positive press? Who cares if it's not fair, positive press is something that has been lacking of late.
I don't think anyone's angry about the positive press (at least, I'm not... I'm all for Michigan being built up instead of torn down), but at the same time, contrasting it with all the negative reporting that RR received is just mind-boggling. I don't understand how two men can receive such different initial treatment. So basically, I'm not mad that people are (probably) over-inflating Hoke, but I'm still kind of mad that people worked so hard to tear down RR. Sure, the guy dug his own grave, but he was treated like crap from the beginning. I think I'm within my rights to still be pissed that the "Michigan family" could be so closed-minded (considering I'm a part of it).
Good points, and it was an unfortunate situation, but I'm just past the point of caring. I just feel like many mgobloggers are unable to move on, and that is why posts like these come about. I don't think I can take another 5 months of talk about RichRod. It just doesn't matter anymore.
The problem is -- what can we talk about for the next five months? That spring game did nothing to calm the fears some of us have about Borges and Hoke. (Even RR fans wanted the D situation to be addressed; Michigan finally opened the checkbook and it looks like it's addressed.) Hoke's resume (and the resume of guys like Hecklinski and Ferrigno) isn't going to change over the next five months. And we have Brandon in our face about how now we're going to play Michigan football, and the media telling us that Hoke will recruit tough players (anyone here think Vincent Smith isn't tough? Taylor Lewan not tough?) -- it makes me want to vomit.
Honestly, look at how he left West Virginia. Dude had bad karma written all over him, I'm not surprised at all that he received such bad press. Despite that, he came in with a lot of hype, but instead had probably the worst year in the history of Michigan Football on the field, followed by practice gate and and 2-6, 1-7, and 3-5 in the Big Ten. I can't believe your mind is boggled that he would receive bad press.
To building a football program is getting the players to buy into it. That's what he's trying to do, why do you have a problem with that?
They shout Hoo-ah all the time. In basic, when they are running they have their running songs. This is no different.
I really want to talk about this more.
Soon after Rodriguez replaced retiring coach Lloyd Carr, some former players returned to campus but a slew seemed to stay away.
...
Why?
"I can't tell you why, but I think it's because he didn't value the tradition like coach Hoke does," said Hart, an Indianapolis Colts running back. "Rich Rod let you come back, but he never really valued the tradition of Michigan. Coach Hoke is all about tradition."
Huh; that's an interesting theory, Mike. That Coach Rodriguez "didn't value the tradition..." Or even, "he never really valued the tradition..." "Never"?
What I'd expect, is for some decent, ordinary reporter to simply ask: Mike, we've heard that sort of comment from a small number of guys who played under Coach Carr. It would be helpful to everybody, if we could understand what you are talking about. Which "traditions" did Coach Rodriguez not "value"? How should he have "valued" them more? Do you agree, Mike, that there were some inexplicably damaging and self-defeating things said, along the lines of Braylon Edwards' "Lloyd Carr's University of Michigan" line? What do you say about those things? Did those statements "value the tradition"?
Well, half of what you propose is leading, and the writer (you) inserting themself into the question, putting words into his mouth, then asking him to accept or reject them.
Further, asking him to confirm your negative words for a team-mate of his and possible friend will never happen.
Third, you seem to think that Hart had any interest other than advancing boiler-plate, AD-approved talking-point that you'll hear almost anyone with a Michigan polo spout with a dead look behind their eyes.
You're angry because the media reported a point of view that you happen to disagree with, and you wish that you had a similar microphone.
Sorry.
"Mike Hart, when you claim that Coach Rodriguez didn't 'value the tradition,' what are you talking about? Can you please be specific?"
that's fine.
what's not fine is the portion where you propose a denunciation of Braylon Edwards be ventriloquized for him to accept or reject.
"Lloyd Carr's University of Michigan"?
And if Mike Hart doesn't like the question, he can always decline to answer. But the reason it becomes relevant, and the reason to at least ask the question, is to compare the understanding of "tradition," between a Coach who allegedly didn't get it, and a player who is now central to the supposed new-old family feeling.
I'm merely saying that no trained journalist would ask a question that ventriloquizes the answer they want to hear.
You're really big on being a watchdog for the media, so I'm amused that you're advocating it.
Since you seem to be confused about what part I'm referring to, it's this:
Do you agree, Mike, that there were some inexplicably damaging and self-defeating things said, along the lines of Braylon Edwards' "Lloyd Carr's University of Michigan" line? What do you say about those things? Did those statements "value the tradition"?
Journalists ask more leading questions than lawyers do! And they should!
Now I suppose, that if I were a simple wire service beat-writer, the questions might be:
- Mike, what do you mean by Coach Rodriguez having not understood "tradition" at Michigan? Can you give us some specifics?
- Mike, many of the supporters of Coach Rodriguez have been very angry at Braylon Edwards, for numerous comments he's made; do you have anything to say about those comments, in relation to "tradition" or loyalty?
If I had a bylined article or a column to write, I'd personally want to see if I could isolate Braylon Edwards and see to what extent I could get other players to condemn those comments. Journalists do that all the time; asking people to stake out a position, or to condemn an outlier position, by inquiring for a statement on the record, about what somebody else said. Not a single day in the media goes by without that occurring.
To what purpose, other than to perpetuate this asinine fight? Do you wish people would be rough on Hoke?
I do wish people would be rough on all of the individuals who made life much more difficult for Coach Rodriguez. Be rough on Rosenberg, and Snyder, and Drew Sharp. I wish people would be rough on Braylon, and on Stan Edwards. I wish people would not give a pass to statements like those from Morgan Trent, or these statements from Mike Hart. How "rough" to be on those guys just depends. Just ask good, hard questions. I cannot think of a more vague, question-begging assertion than, 'Coach Rodriguez just didn't get the tradition.' That's lame.
I will always like the stand-up guys. The guys who stood up to be counted for Coach Rodriguez. The Rick Leaches. The Larry Footes. Brandstatter and Beckmann. I'd love to have a complete, exhaustive, honor-roll of those guys. The other guys would probably be too chickenshit to allow themselves to be on an opposing list.
Seems like you are a Rich Rod fan, not a Michigan Fan. You really should just follow Rich Rod out the door. Defending a 15-22 coach over the #1 running back and the #1 receiver in Michigan history, is not something a Michigan fan would do. I think maybe that was before you got into Michigan though.
April 19th, 2011 at 10:56 AM ^
who simply thinks that in the best interest of the University, we treated Coach Rodriguez badly, and that the University made a mistake in terminating his contract early. I enjoy Michigan football, and it's just my opinion (everybody gets to have an opinion) that Michigan football did the wrong thing by firing him.* I appreciate the fact that David Brandon has publicly recognized that Michigan had made mistakes in the past, in failing to offer enough money to attract top assistant coaches; Brandon is right about that.
In 2010, all that I did was to choose to support our current head football coach (Rodriguez), over the disloyal and disruptive comments of some ex-players. Some immature and not particularly bright ex-players at that.
The rightful verdict on Braylon as a football player is that he's brilliant. The rightful verdict on Braylon's off-field judgment is that he's a prick.
*It is amazing to me, the extent to which people are swayed by events. Just a few short months ago, in December, there was wild enthusiasm for Jim Harbaugh and an overwhelming sense of expectation that he'd be hired as the next Michigan Head Coach. Michael Rosenberg in the Free Press and Lynn Henning in the Detroit News were practically guaranteeing it. People on this Board were speculating about everything from how much we'd be paying Harbaugh, to how many Stanford recruits he'd bring with him. And in all of that, the subtext -- at least here -- was that clearly, if Michigan didn't hire Harbaugh, the next best thing would be to retain Rich Rodriguez, with (finally) a new quality DC who was not a third- or fourth-best choice. It was basically:
- Get Harbaugh.
- Keep Rodriguez
- Nobody.
That wasn't my choice; I was always in favor of retaining Coach Rod. I had nothing against Harbaugh, as I have nothing against Hoke. But that was the "popular" state of affairs, then.
And just reflect now, on how much things have changed, with nothing more than a few press conferences, and a million dollars for a new Defensive Coordinator. And, most of all, an adoring press.
I can respect that, but your other posts make you look like a bitter RR supporter at all costs.
And no reporter, by the way, would insert the adjectives you used to describe Edwards' statement. They would quote it, and ask for a response.
Biased reporting and leading questions are OK, just so long as the reporter shares your views.
fact remains people didn't like the fact RR treated the OSU game to be 'as important' as any other. he knew we cared but he didn't jump up and down about it. simple as that. people want a cheerleader of core elements of the school. RR acknowledged them but didn't cater to them. simple as that. consider it dumb, i dont gaf. the fact your incessant drivel is forcing me to defend a comment i don't even fully agree with shows just how far you've gone with this incessant crap.
oh and btw - Hart wasn't even one of "those guys." he even poked at them a bit with his comment by noting he never distanced himself in those 3 years unlike others. yet he owes you an explanation. wtf?
Thanks for calling it OSU. Getting sick of the "scUM"-esque "Ohio."
scUM is just troll-y and immature. "Ohio" or tsio isn't much different than Woody Hayes calling Michigan "that school up north." You may be sick of it, understandably, but it's nowhere near the trolljerk status of scUM, Spartina, or O$U.
If the point of it is to needle or irritate our rival by using an incorrect name for them, well, I'd rather just let our play on the field do the talking. That's what I was getting at.
April 19th, 2011 at 10:50 AM ^
Wow! You play for Michigan. Cool!
like how their own band spells it?
Yes, I consider all of that dumb. Thanks anyway.
Spot on man.
I don't think that even RR is as concerned about all of this shit as you seem to be.
I agree. I'm sure he's relieved to not have to deal with the full of shit AD and former players who abandoned Michigan in its time of need.
Is that you, or are there mutliple douches on this blog.
Mike Hart is a Michigan football legend. He carried the program on his shoulders for 4 years. The man has earned the right to speak his mind.
So can Braylon. They should just be clear, and be specific. Braylon has said, and done, such a variety and volume of dumb shit, one might think he'd just want to shut the fuck up for his own sake.
These are highly visible guys, who should be used to answering questions and appearing in front of the press. They're not particularly good at it; hell, they are just football players. But they aren't immune, and they really ought to know by now, that they will be scrutinized very carefully when they comment on controversial matters.
want them to say? Man, I wish Rich Rod was still here, that 15-22 record plus all the scandals and negative press was so awesome. Why wouldn't they be upset at what was going on with the program, they have so much more at stake in this than you do.
They don't need to ask my permission to say any damned thing they want to. But why wouldn't Mike Hart expect a follow up question, to ask what he means by Coach Rodriguez "not valuing the tradition"?
This is going to bet me banned. So be it. Take the grief you've gotten over the last 3 years from your friends. Then add the grief you've gotten from co-workers. Now multiply that by about 10 and you probably have the amount of ribbing that goes on in an nfl locker room. That pain in your gut when Michigan loses to MSU or OSU--take that and multiply it by about 100 because these guys fought and bled for Michigan, and their pride is tied to the program in ways that we can never know.
My apologies to the current players in advance, but here comes the part that is going to get me banned: Football under Rodriguez was freaking embarrassing.;
Winning 3 and 5 games was freaking embarrassing. Losing to MSU 3 times in a row was freaking embarrassing. Watching mediocre teams set scoring, rushing and passing records against Michigan was freaking embarrassing. Mississippi State was freaking embarrassing. Now before you get all high and mighty and start telling me about "Protecting the player's feelings"...You think this is news to them? You think THEY aren't embarrassed about the last 3 seasons? You think THEY wanted Rodriguez back?
This is our chance here fellas. We may only get one. The media is saying, "Michigan is back". The former players are saying, "Michigan is back". And God willing, the recruits are saying "Michigan is back". Perception is reality here. Some of these recruits have only been watching football for 4 or 5 years. The ugly truth is that Michigan needs to distance itself from 3 and 5 win football. And they need to do it fast.
Who's embarassment was it? Yours? The dudes in the NFL? Fuck no.
I guarantee you that their level of embarassment was nothing compared to the people that fucking lived it - which is precisely why it's shitty that they had people turn their backs on them.
This is what RVB was talking about - where was "the Micigan family" then?
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