First of all, Big Ten rules would get in the way of the shenanigans that are allowed in the SEC--that, yes, every coach down there takes advantage of. Everyone does do it down there, it's just a fact of the matter. It's just that most people take ownership instead of bleeding out of their ass and running to the press. Because, the story at the center of this problem (and to date, the only real viable, credible thing to criticize LM with) revolves around a 3rd string QB who came back from the summer 15+ lbs. overweight for the second time in a row. The quotes that come to mind are: "those who stay will be champions," and, "I'm going to treat you all the same: like dogs." PS, that same kid has now transferred twice after his time at LSU. Draw your own conclusions.
Second, within the Big Ten alone in the past two years, we've had teams:
-kick starting, first-team caliber players out for multiple drug arrests in season
-entire parts of teams organizing gang-style beating of other students
-a starting QB with a new loaner car every month and 5 other of his team's best players in trouble for selling their apparel to get free tattoos
So kicking a fat, problematic 3rd string QB off of the team is somehow abhorrently worse than any of these infractions?
And finally, you tell me what's worse:
- cancelling a scholarship for a kid who couldn't cut it in the classroom partied all of the time and couldn't stay in shape, or, having your entire university investigated for its football student athletes taking no real classes at all, and instead, having private classes they all earn As in and earning a degree other students bust their ass for.
Bo wasn't perfect. LC wasn't perfect. RR wasn't perfect. But they are all, in their own way, good guys who do this for the right reasons. The only difference between them is that Bo won, LC won, RR didn't. LM would win here again, and never get in trouble for a thing other than running up the score agaisnt Ohio State and turning Tressel into another Cooper. That, in the end, is what I care most about.
all of the Les haters hung up on all of his "baggage" and "red flags" need to get a grip on reality. SERIOUSLY, the last guy who was perfect WALKED ON WATER. Get off of your high horses. Miles is the best candidate out there for our program. It's 2011. I would venture to guess that with the right digging, 25/25 of the top 25 teams on any given week have done as much, if not more, "red flag" activity as Miles has at LSU. Just put Snyder and Rosendyke in Columbus, alone, and we'd have enough to shut down the University's athletic department.
And really... Brady Hoke? Is everyone here high? The guy's had three winning seasons as a Head Coach (out of 8), he bolted a school HE PLAYED AT after the first really great season he had there, and his career record is 47-50. Give me a break. Now I know why Lloyd Carr is on this guy's nuts so bad--he knows he'll never upstage LC's record/legacy here! Seriously, the last thing a sycophant like Carr wants is an individual like Miles (and more like Bo than any of you realize) to come here and make Michigan relevant again.
His vacation home is in Scottsdale, Arizona. Miles' agent and the coaching convention Miles will be attending this week are both in Dallas. He's been riding on that jet. Draw your own conclusions as to why.
Meanwhile, David Brandon, the departing CEO, will remain on the Dominos payroll for a while. For starters, even though he’s turning over the reins to Doyle next Monday, he’ll earn his regular base salary of $70,621.83 for the month of March (the calculation comes from the 2009 proxy). After that, he’ll earn $25,000 per month in the newly created role of “Special Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer”, a position that will last through January 10, 2011. He will also continue to participate in the Annual Incentive Plan, and he keeps the right to use his “Yearly Aircraft Hours” on the company’s plane through the end of FY 2011, or until he stops serving on Dominos’ board.
All of this "red flag" garbage is coming from the LC contingent at UM. Get a grip, it's 2011... if you think the baggage Les brings with him is the worst stuff out there, you are sorely naive and even more pathetically ignorant.
Les Miles is a proven winner who his players would run through a brick wall for. He's won a national championship, and fought back tears the last time he almost became our head coach. (Which would have happened if not for the background BS from Lloyd Carr and the ineptitude of Bill Martin.)
This is the #1 problem with Michigan fans--they want to win with some messiah from the heavens who has never said a bad word in their life or yelled at a player or cut a player or said anything controversial. There's a place where that exists--Candyland--you all can have fun there.
I can't wait for Les Miles to come on board so we can run a train through Ohio State, bring the pride back to Michigan, and turn the tables on them. GO BLUE.
As much as I know RR was never a good fit for this conference, school, program, fan base, local media... I feel for him, his staff, and all of their families right now. Sure he didn't win, but the worst thing he ever got in trouble for was trying to practice too much--in a conference with teams organizing group fights against other students, starting QBs riding a new loaner car every week, and one of the best RBs in the conference riding dirty a week before his team's bowl game -- RR could have been running a program in trouble for much worse.
Yesterday, and earlier today, I've been irate, annoyed, and frustrated. I still have some of those feelings.
But recruiting cycle aside, how could we have SECURED a top-flight coach by firing RR in December? Didn't we lose our coach around that time in 2007? How'd that work out for us? DB played this coy from jump street, so I have to trust he's going to do what's best for our program. As much as I want to paint him this way (if only as a coping mechanism at this point), I'm sorry, but the guy just doesn't strike me as the bumbling, nerdy, useless AD that was Bill Martin.
Jill, you are saying that one of the greater reasons Miles wasn't/cannot be offered the job as head coach at Michigan is because he had sex with someone's wife? As in, someone deep within the program... or just at Michigan... or within the NCAA circuit??
Clearly I'm not about to start name dropping and get my friends into trouble, so, I am not asking you to do that--but, my God. Is this is a widely corroborated story? Or just a myth? Or just drama... ?
You can not listen to me or not believe me, but Les Miles very much wanted to come to Michigan last season, regardless of the championship run LSU had going on at the time.
The problem was that Miles was never contacted by anyone official at UM--he couldn't be. But several alums and boosters had contacted him enough, and with enough resolve, that he had even gone so far as to begin to buy a house in Ann Arbor (fact).
When Herbstreit hit the airwaves (with intel from these same alums & boosters), and the proverbial shit hit the fan on SEC Championship day... with having never been actually contacted by Michigan, Miles could only do so much. Risk one high paying job for one nobody official has ever contacted you about? LSU acted swiftly and in the best interests of its program when it cornered Miles, and signed him to a lucrative long-term deal. We know it from there.
Why was Miles never contacted by Michigan? Carr made it pretty clear from the get go that he was not in any way in support of that move, and from what I have heard from multiple people within the UM Athletic Department, Bo Schembechler had also voiced strong concerns about Miles as a coach at Michigan, before his passing.
Add all of that to an already inept AD, and overly-involved, self-infatuated President like MSC ... and voilà -- you have RR at Michigan and Les Miles at LSU. Martin ran and hid (on his boat) so that he wouldn't be perceived as the bad guy for not going after Miles. They thought bringing in a coach who has thrived in a talentless conference for years, running a gimmick offense, would ever have a real chance at success in the Big Ten.
It's embarrassing... and humbling. But we are as low as low can get (I hope). Time to start climbing back up that hill...
Recent Comments
First of all, Big Ten rules would get in the way of the shenanigans that are allowed in the SEC--that, yes, every coach down there takes advantage of. Everyone does do it down there, it's just a fact of the matter. It's just that most people take ownership instead of bleeding out of their ass and running to the press. Because, the story at the center of this problem (and to date, the only real viable, credible thing to criticize LM with) revolves around a 3rd string QB who came back from the summer 15+ lbs. overweight for the second time in a row. The quotes that come to mind are: "those who stay will be champions," and, "I'm going to treat you all the same: like dogs." PS, that same kid has now transferred twice after his time at LSU. Draw your own conclusions.
Second, within the Big Ten alone in the past two years, we've had teams:
-kick starting, first-team caliber players out for multiple drug arrests in season
-entire parts of teams organizing gang-style beating of other students
-a starting QB with a new loaner car every month and 5 other of his team's best players in trouble for selling their apparel to get free tattoos
So kicking a fat, problematic 3rd string QB off of the team is somehow abhorrently worse than any of these infractions?
And finally, you tell me what's worse:
- cancelling a scholarship for a kid who couldn't cut it in the classroom partied all of the time and couldn't stay in shape, or, having your entire university investigated for its football student athletes taking no real classes at all, and instead, having private classes they all earn As in and earning a degree other students bust their ass for.
Bo wasn't perfect. LC wasn't perfect. RR wasn't perfect. But they are all, in their own way, good guys who do this for the right reasons. The only difference between them is that Bo won, LC won, RR didn't. LM would win here again, and never get in trouble for a thing other than running up the score agaisnt Ohio State and turning Tressel into another Cooper. That, in the end, is what I care most about.
all of the Les haters hung up on all of his "baggage" and "red flags" need to get a grip on reality. SERIOUSLY, the last guy who was perfect WALKED ON WATER. Get off of your high horses. Miles is the best candidate out there for our program. It's 2011. I would venture to guess that with the right digging, 25/25 of the top 25 teams on any given week have done as much, if not more, "red flag" activity as Miles has at LSU. Just put Snyder and Rosendyke in Columbus, alone, and we'd have enough to shut down the University's athletic department.
And really... Brady Hoke? Is everyone here high? The guy's had three winning seasons as a Head Coach (out of 8), he bolted a school HE PLAYED AT after the first really great season he had there, and his career record is 47-50. Give me a break. Now I know why Lloyd Carr is on this guy's nuts so bad--he knows he'll never upstage LC's record/legacy here! Seriously, the last thing a sycophant like Carr wants is an individual like Miles (and more like Bo than any of you realize) to come here and make Michigan relevant again.
His vacation home is in Scottsdale, Arizona. Miles' agent and the coaching convention Miles will be attending this week are both in Dallas. He's been riding on that jet. Draw your own conclusions as to why.
Meanwhile, David Brandon, the departing CEO, will remain on the Dominos payroll for a while. For starters, even though he’s turning over the reins to Doyle next Monday, he’ll earn his regular base salary of $70,621.83 for the month of March (the calculation comes from the 2009 proxy). After that, he’ll earn $25,000 per month in the newly created role of “Special Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer”, a position that will last through January 10, 2011. He will also continue to participate in the Annual Incentive Plan, and he keeps the right to use his “Yearly Aircraft Hours” on the company’s plane through the end of FY 2011, or until he stops serving on Dominos’ board.
from: http://www.footnoted.com/my-big-fat-deal/freshly-baked-employment-agree…
All of this "red flag" garbage is coming from the LC contingent at UM. Get a grip, it's 2011... if you think the baggage Les brings with him is the worst stuff out there, you are sorely naive and even more pathetically ignorant.
Les Miles is a proven winner who his players would run through a brick wall for. He's won a national championship, and fought back tears the last time he almost became our head coach. (Which would have happened if not for the background BS from Lloyd Carr and the ineptitude of Bill Martin.)
This is the #1 problem with Michigan fans--they want to win with some messiah from the heavens who has never said a bad word in their life or yelled at a player or cut a player or said anything controversial. There's a place where that exists--Candyland--you all can have fun there.
I can't wait for Les Miles to come on board so we can run a train through Ohio State, bring the pride back to Michigan, and turn the tables on them. GO BLUE.
As much as I know RR was never a good fit for this conference, school, program, fan base, local media... I feel for him, his staff, and all of their families right now. Sure he didn't win, but the worst thing he ever got in trouble for was trying to practice too much--in a conference with teams organizing group fights against other students, starting QBs riding a new loaner car every week, and one of the best RBs in the conference riding dirty a week before his team's bowl game -- RR could have been running a program in trouble for much worse.
Yesterday, and earlier today, I've been irate, annoyed, and frustrated. I still have some of those feelings.
But recruiting cycle aside, how could we have SECURED a top-flight coach by firing RR in December? Didn't we lose our coach around that time in 2007? How'd that work out for us? DB played this coy from jump street, so I have to trust he's going to do what's best for our program. As much as I want to paint him this way (if only as a coping mechanism at this point), I'm sorry, but the guy just doesn't strike me as the bumbling, nerdy, useless AD that was Bill Martin.