U of M thread (in the Lions Forum) :)

[Kapture1]

Chemi is going all Gonz on the recruiting issue ....

Gotta give it a few years. When Hoke gets the players he wants, then Michigan will be a threat for the national title again. It's not going to happen overnight.

Then there will be no excuse to lose to State, right?

[chemiclord]

Chemi is going all Gonz on the recruiting issue ....

I very well might be wrong. I'm not pretending my information isn't anything but roughly 5 years outdated. I don't know. What I do know is that the U-M has been reluctant to change... it pretty much has to happen kicking and screaming (they were roughly 10 years behind on compensation for coordinators, for example).

Maybe they have. Maybe they haven't. If they haven't, they're going to have trouble recruiting in a much more competitive landscape. One good class (in a year with a couple significant variables) doesn't inherently prove or disprove anything... no matter what Jamie wants everyone to believe.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Your premise is inherently and fatally flawed.

[chemiclord]

If you say so.

[The Ken]

Glad this game happened today so the Wolverines can fall off the rankings as they should not be a top 25 team.

Not a hater but they aren't their yet by any means.

[Kapture1]

Glad this game happened today so the Wolverines can fall off the rankings as they should not be a top 25 team.

Not a hater but they aren't their yet by any means.

They have not been as strong as their ranking suggests. Let's be honest, who have they played?

[chemiclord]

Glad this game happened today so the Wolverines can fall off the rankings as they should not be a top 25 team.

Not a hater but they aren't their yet by any means.

They're getting there.

It's a process. I'm not sure if they'll have a better record next season (as I suspect Hoke and company will be phasing in RichRod's players for their own that won't have the experience), but they'll get better, especially if they keep building the talent level.

That's what's really lacking right now; talent overall, and especially talent that fits what Hoke wants to do.

[fredsue]

They were not as good as their ranking...now it will be interesting to see how they hang the rest of the year.

Michigan was not going to win this game but sheesh the officiating was not the greatest..missed some calls...lateral...turning of the head of shoelace....some spots used to palce the ball for both sides was off a number of times...just seemed sloppy...

[WingsFan]

#18 now AP and BCS I think Michigan should be ranked #24/25

MSU is #15 AP and #16 in the BCS

[nhwbrooklyn]

Here is enough material to fuel Chemi for another decade. You're welcome.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/daily-take/201110/new-book-les-miles-would-never-say-no-michigan-michigan-men-said-no-him

New Book: Les Miles 'Would Never Say No To Michigan,' But Michigan Men Said No To Him
Monday, October 24, 2011 12:26 amWritten by: Jeff Arnold



Les Miles was prepared to come home and all Michigan had to do was wait a few weeks.

But in a bungled coaching search that included unexplained and inconsistent behavior by former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, a "very un-Michigan like" hiring process finally set Rich Rodriguez up to fail.

That's the takeaway from "Three And Out," the new book by John U. Bacon that gives readers an all-access pass to Rodriguez's three cringe-worthy years as leader of the winningest college football program of all time.

The book may surprise Michigan fans, as Bacon is the Michigan professor who wrote a book with legendary coach Bo Schembechler. But here Bacon reports that those left to uphold the coach's legacy chop-blocked Rodriguez so much that Schembechler’s "The Team, The Team, The Team" mantra seems like a punch line.

While the best part of the book -- which will be released Tuesday ($28, Farrar, Straus and Giraux) -- is the access Bacon had to Schembechler Hall once Rodriguez arrived, the drama begins well before "Coach Rod" is introduced.



A December 2007 conference call with Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, former Athletic Director Bill Martin and Miles lays the groundwork for the search to replace Carr.

Miles tells the Michigan president he "would never say no to Michigan," but insists he can't jump from LSU until after the Tigers' upcoming bowl game. If Michigan waits and asks in January, Miles says, "I will be your coach."

At that point, instead of entering a holding pattern, the coaching search veers improbably.

Bacon writes that it is Carr -- winner of Michigan's most recent national championship in 1997 -- who first reaches out to Rodriguez. It is Carr who calls Rodriguez to gauge his interest in becoming the Michigan coach. And that call takes place only hours after the conference call with Miles.

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"Even if you haven't thought about it," Bacon reports Carr saying, "you should think about it now."

Readers are left to infer that Carr had a big role in picking Rodriguez, who took the job days later without setting foot on the campus. But then Carr, whose strong objections to Miles are documented early in the book, holds a team meeting after Rodriguez is introduced as the Wolverines' new coach, informing players he will sign their transfer papers if they want to leave.



Even in the infancy of Rodriguez's tenure, the outsider seems to be fighting an uphill battle against a tradition left by Schembechler, who ironically liked the West Virginia native quite a bit. Rodriguez's flaws are not hidden by any stretch, but many others' blind spots show up as well.

Indeed, the most chilling quote in a book full of them comes from Schembechler himself, who tells former Wolverines' quarterback John Wangler and running back Jamie Morris before his death in 2006: "When I leave this earth, we are going to see the true Michigan Men come out."

Schembechler proved prophetic, as too many supposed Michigan Men did too little to help the new guy, while the true Michigan Man emerges only toward the end of the book. And we're not talking about Brady Hoke.

The going narrative around Ann Arbor these days is that Rodriguez was a poor fit and more concerned with his own reputation than the success of the team. But that doesn't ring quite true in Bacon's book, as the interloper is painted as far too trusting and lenient in an environment where threats are both obvious and unseen.



Throughout the book, Rodriguez's emotions are put on full display. In private times, he demonstrates his pained desperation to meet expectations, while on other occasions, he grows weary by the mess swirling around him. Hopeful until the time he is fired by Athletic Director Dave Brandon, Rodriguez comes off as far more tone-deaf than selfish. He's clearly in over his head, unable to patch together a serviceable defense or convey his inner leadership skills, but his public drowning is greeted mostly with turned backs. After Rodriguez is fired, and tons of Michigan alums praise Hoke, one Wolverine tells a Detroit News reporter, "Where have they been the last two or three years?"

While Bacon succeeds in earning Rodriguez's trust in delivering behind-the-scenes observations, he fails to fully provide both sides of the story. The perspective of several key figures -- including and especially Carr -- is not included. The former coach didn't reply to any of Bacon's 11 interview requests. That leaves Rodriguez's predecessor looming eerily in every chapter as the proverbial man behind the curtain.

Carr's ubiquitous absence keeps "Three And Out" from being a complete record of undoubtedly the toughest stretch Michigan football has faced in its 132 years. We may never know if Carr, who has an incredible philanthropic legacy in Ann Arbor, was vindictive or simply heartbroken that the program he loves with all his heart was no longer the way he wanted it. But in a way, the omission is fitting, as readers will surely wonder what certain high-profile Michigan Men could possibly have been thinking. (A representative of the Michigan athletic department, reached by email Monday morning, declined to comment on the book.)



That includes Brandon, the A.D. who considered both Jim and John Harbaugh for the Michigan job in 2010 but is indirectly quoted as saying Miles would get the position "over my dead body." Brandon, a visionary at Domino's Pizza, ends up looking myopic in an awkward interaction with quarterback Denard Robinson after Rodriguez is fired. The climactic scene reveals that it is actually Robinson, Michigan's most electric offense-only player since Bo recruited Anthony Carter from the same South Florida region, who is most able to lead a bruised program forward.

Schembechler was right: A Michigan Man did show up. But it turned out to be Robinson, a mature-beyond-his-years Rodriguez recruit who probably would never have had a chance in Schembechler's spread-averse system.

Readers will finish the book knowing exactly why Rodriguez failed, but also wondering if anyone -- including Miles -- could have succeeded in the shadow of Fort Schembechler.

[chemiclord]

The book merely confirms much of what I personally saw. If Michigan fans didn't want to believe it then, they aren't going to believe it now. Arrogance is really all they have left.

The only problem I had with the book was that Rodriguez's own failings kinda get lost in all the infighting (that's not Bacon's fault as much as how venomous the clan fighting was at that time). His insistence on the 3-3-5 defense, for example. He was over his head, and was a coach no one wanted. He was completely set up to fail, yes... but I am doubtful how successful he would have been even with everyone behind him.

As for Carr... he really gets painted in a very bad light, but much of that is because he refused to offer his side of things when Bacon asked to interview him. Probably because he didn't want to have to face questions about his involvement in Mitch Rosenberg's hit piece on Rodriguez (he is largely believed to be the mole that was leaking information to the media about "Practicegate" and the Miles hiring and anything in between).

[chemiclord]

But I can answer Arnold's question about Carr:

100% vindictive. He was pissed no one wanted to give his shitty coordinator Ron English the job, and was terrified that Les Miles would eclipse him. Carr is not a noble man. He is a self-absorbed, selfish, arrogant cockhole who would willfully destroy the Michigan program when he didn't get his way.

[whodean]

bullshit.

per the book, CARR was the one who originally called Rodriguez about the job!

[chemiclord]

bullshit.

per the book, CARR was the one who originally called Rodriguez about the job!

Carr called Rodriguez because he wasn't Miles.

That was pretty much the end all, be all of it. Carr wouldn't have cared if the guy was named Alex Rodriguez. The moment the search was no longer about Miles, it was time to destroy the RichRod clown, by any means necessary.

[nhwbrooklyn]

How about the theory goes that Carr wanted the next guy to fail so people would miss him?

Sounds good. Set it in stone. It's fact now.