Wolverines Continue Looting Of Morgantown
Will be able to keep 95% of his wardrobe
Michigan West Virginia North finally found their guy.
Only 8 months after hiring Mountaineer basketball coach John Beilein, the Wolverines plucked football coach Rich Rodriguez to replace Lloyd Carr and become the schools 18th head football coach.
No word yet on whether they’ll also make a run at the “King of Pork“, in an effort to get the stadium renovation funds cooking.
The hiring finally ends the 28 days of pain endured by Wolverine fan as they come out of the ordeal with a good hire. Maybe not the guy they wanted most, but in the long run, probably a better selection. In one move, Michigan advanced their offensive scheme 20 years.
As SVM pointed out in the comments, Terrelle Pryor is now in play for Michigan and the thought of going from front-runner to potentially having to gameplan against Vince 2.0 is not exactly inspiring pleasant thoughts. They better hope they can land him because the thought of Luc Longley Ryan Mallett running that set is inspiring inspiring pleasant thoughts.
Rodriguez has a pretty hefty buyout clause ($4m) with Michigan expected to pick up most of that. He’s also taking some heat on the way out for deciding to leave the team prior to their Fiesta Bowl matchup with the Sooners.
UPDATE: Rodriguez will reportedly be making $2.4m per.
Mallett is practically behooved to transfer. A 6′8 tree forced into that quadruple-option spreadzonereadetcetc offense doesn’t get him to the pro level like I think he was expecting when he committed to the Wolverines.
Of course, he could stay and make it fun for me to watch. A guy can hope. If he does, someone find that Chariots of Fire instrumental to cue up and play in real time whenever Mallett runs an option keeper before he gets gangtackled behind the line of scrimmage.
The Chariots of Fire reference just caused me to spit my drink out.
BHGP said something about Mallett going to Arkansas, but you’re right he has to leave town.
I think that’s what makes Tressel so great. He could put dominating teams out with Ryan Mallett or Pat White. He adapts to his personnel.
Rodriguez will coach well at m*ch*g*n, but I don’t particularly fear playing against him. Teams within the Big T(elev)en are going to the read option, anyway (see Illinois, for example), so it’s not as though Ohio State didn’t need to prepare to see it regularly with or without Rodriguez’ presence in *nn *rb*r.
The guy is a duplicitous sneak with a lousy academic record. He does a terrible job keeping his guys out of trouble off the field. He takes players with very questionable characters. He can’t coach a defense that could stop a drain. He’ll score thirty points a game, and give up forty. Big deal. Bring him on.
The best part of this process was watching m*ch*g*n get turned down by its first three choices. I guess even the folks in *nn *rb*r can’t roll their helmets out onto the field and get whoever they want, can they?
Can one serve humble pie a la carte?
I don’t see it either. He may get Pryor, but his record against top 25 competition speaks for itself.
At least for the next 2 years we will whoop their ass. When they get a system QB and slotbacks we’ll have a run for our money. I still don’t see them coming into Ohio and stealing players. Tress has pretty much locked the gate on that front. Was he Rodriguez the biggest name out there? It seems that’s what Michigan was looking for.
I still like the fact that it proves how far gone Michigan is as an Athletic Department that they’re turning to West (redacted) Virginia for all of their higher education new hires.
As a side note, I actually know some dudes from Eastern Ohio who think we have some sort of rivalry with West Viriginia which has yet to be explained in a coherent, grammatically correct fashion. Either way, we can probably count West Virginia/E. Ohio as Buckeye Nation now.
I can say for a fact that WV fans have become Buckeye fans (future in-laws live just south of Morgantown), at least for the Michigan game. WVU faithful were already pissed at RR for his inability to win the important games and I think their grumblings may have helped his decision. The way he left town is not sitting well either, calling Terrelle Pryor before telling his current team or school officials. Apparently he sent a grad assistant on the errand of turning in his resignation to the AD, classy individual.
I think it is going to be a struggle at UM for a couple of seasons and this hire will send Tressel into overdrive on figuring out how to stop this spread attack. If Terrelle Pryor wants to go to UM, then so be it, I think landing Josh Jenkins maybe a bigger deal, giving OSU 4 of the top 15 OL in next year’s class. Tressel has this machine rolling and if Terrelle doesn’t see that, too bad for him, he can follow in Chad Henne’s non-winning ways against OSU. However, we will see who wins this first battle between Rich Petrino and the Vest.
“Rich Petrino”…that’s classic. I wonder if Rich is capable of adjusting the offense to his talent. Seems to me that the offense he runs is designed to neutralize an overall talent deficit by taking advantage of the running talents of two or three guys. Now that he has a team with better overall talent at every position, could he change to a more traditional offense? It’s a ridiculous waste to insist on running a read-option offense if you already have the players to run a pro-style offense.
I think it’s a mistake to think that someone has yet to concoct a way to stop this offense. It’s beatable. If any team – ANY team – coached by Dave Wannstedt can beat a read-option squad, anyone can.
It’s really not difficult. It’s all about assignments, staying with your man, not over-pursuing, staying in good discipline and making open-field tackles. It requires a defense to absorb the opposition, rather than attack him, which is tough for some defensive coordinators to swallow, but it’s true.
This guy is not unbeatable, and his years at WVU amply demonstrate that he is more than willing to beat himself, especially in big games, against good competition. I could be wrong, but I think Rodriguez is a 9-3 coach, with an occasional 10-2 in him. I don’t think they’ll consistently be better than that.
off-topic — but not that off-topic — but how cool is this? I think this is just too funny. http://wbgv.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/nick-sabans-agent-contacts-wvu/
I think he’s a decent coach, but it should be interesting to see how he fits in at UM and in the Big10. I’m no Big East expert, but it seems as though the stadiums alone will be quite an adjustment in the Big10. It’s a little different playing Rutgers-small and USF-pro on the road (no disrespect to those up and coming programs) compared to rolling in the ’shoe or Beaver stadium.
The pressure to win at UM is pretty crazy and I wondering how long the faithful will wait to win. Four straight losses makes me think they don’t want to wait very long. WV was in the driver seat this year and the pressure seemed to be something they were not completely prepared for (I realize White got hurt, but Rich looked like a deer in headlights to me).
The choice of R.R. is very interesting. He is an offensive genius, of this there is no doubt. Just ask OSU assistants as they have made a large number of visits to Morgantown in hopes of recreating this system when tOSU had Troy Smith. WVU never had much of a defense but when you score enough it does not matter. Even though this was Michigan’s third choice I think they hit a home run.
U of M will be really surprised once the media gets a hold of what R.R.(Road Runner) is really all about. He is a F-bomb throwing foul mouth Hill Jack. I am wondering how well the academics will pan out with a man who barely graduated. We all know WVU is Academic powerhouse, The Harvard of Appalachians. Road Runner is a classic example of WVU and he can barely be allowed out in front of media outlets.
One thing is for sure Ann Arbor will certainly increase their chewing tobacco sells. Shoot I bet this might be Jason’s second favourite team just for the DIP factor……….
This comment is copywritten by GDC Inc.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SVM, that Saban rumor makes me even happier to have Tressel.
The coach who recruited the felonious, talented likes of Chris Henry and Pacman Jones will soon be looking for similar qualities in the fine Young Man of this country. Hopefully a few axe murders recently releases from some of our finer institutions will bring pride to the Wolverin nation.
The specualtion continues as ( RR ) makes a new start in UM. We assume Rich will run the same offense he historically has run per the link below.
http://wbgv.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/which-one-will-rich-impregnate/
Sounds like Suckeye nation is a little scared. Uh Oh, keep up these entertaining speculations and good luck against Les.
JIMBO – thanks for stopping by Suckeye Land. I “speculate” it has taken you 38 days to muster the guts to run your yap. I “speculate” you will lose ANOTHER bowl game. Oh, and thanks for “speculating” that the team that beats you like a drum is “scared”. The “Suckeye Nation” line was great – you like switched the “B” with an “S” and stuff. Do you have any other zingers, we dumb Suckeyes love a good zinger. Tool.
Mmm…Zingers
(drool)
Hey HAL3,
I’m a Wolverine thru and thru, but I gotta give you credit. Your response to Jimbo was freakin’ hilarious.
Until we (like I’m on the team or somethin’) can find a way to stop the Streak against you guys, you all have scoreboard…I give you that.
I’m just EXTREMELY happy that our offense has jumped from the leather-helmet era to the modern era with one hire. For the first time in about 6 years, I’m looking forward to facing the Scarlet and Gray.
It may take RR some time to completely transform the Wolverines, but the fact that he’s willing to try is a HUGE step forward from the Carr die-nasty.
Seeya next November. Maybe Pryor will be our starting QB by then? So far, Santa’s been really nice to Ann Arbor. :D
Thanks for the laugh, though…it really was hilarious!