The State of Affairs

For many of you that know me well, this article is going to come as somewhat of a surprise to you. I will lay a little ground work here before I jump into what is bothering me. I was born and raised in Shelby Township, MI and grew up a die hard University of Michigan fan from the very beginning. I always loved the Maze and Blue uniforms, block M, the winged helmets, and at a very early age was completely drawn to the fact of 100,000 people showing up at one place every single Saturday to root on the same team. As soon as my oldest brother had his buddies over for the 1989Rose Bowl and I saw how passionate they were, I was hooked for life. The fab five put me over the top, I read Mitch Albums book, watched every game and knew everything I could about every player. I couldn't get enough of Michigan sports, Football, Basketball, Hockey, didn't matter I was rooting for the maze and blue with every last ounce of energy I had. Case in point, I cried when Chris Webber called the infamous "timeout" and Michigan lost in the 1993 NCAA tournament championship game for the second year in a row. Yes I admit it, I was 10 years old and I cried.

These days you wont see me doing much crying anymore unless I'm cutting up an onion for my salad, but you will see me bitching and moaning about the state of the university and its athletics. The entire university has become entirely to political and their giant ego is getting in the way of letting a coach do his job. Michigan has always held itself as an institution of higher learning with some of the best medical innovations and knowledge you will find anywhere in world. It's business school is second to none, Harvard withstanding. However, recently they have started to interfere with the success of Rich Rodriquez. I can already hear you now, are you kidding me?! Rich Rod is a bum, the guy is 8-16 in two years, hasn't made a bowl game and lost too far inferior teams year and after year. Believe me, nobody knows Rodriguez's record and stats better than I do. Their is a huge question mark over his head right now and his coaching seat is hotter than a whores ass on dollar day, but please let the guy be and coach for five minutes.

Ever since RR walked onto the UM campus he was set up for failure. He was the 4th option for a university that thought they deserved better than him but got turned down by its other leading candidates. Ninety percent of the players he inherited didn't fit his system and every top player on the team either graduated to the NFL or left early. He was forced to start a walk on QB and traditional drop back passer in a QB read spread offense. The media has been all over him like flies on shit over every single move he makes. He hasn't even gotten the vote of approval from his predecessor who sits in other teams press boxes during road games he attends (ahem, Lloyd Carr). I know he has created a lot of this bad press himself and made some stupid decisions, but to me it seems like every time the slightest thing happens, its front page college football news. Things that happen with major programs like Florida, USC, Oklahoma, OSU, etc but all get brushed aside like nothing ever happened. Case in point with this most recent infractions with the NCAA, sure he was over practicing his kids and making them put in extra hours, 95% of all schools in the FBS do this. Whether is Football, basketball, hockey or lacrosse, it doesn't matter. College athletics is big business these days and if you want to keep your job and you want to produce a winner 20 hours a week simply isn't enough time, period. The only difference with these other programs is they didn't have players who left the program because they didn't want to put in the extra effort run to the local reporting newspaper and blow the whistle on it all. Furthermore, how many local newspapers are looking to sabotage the major universities in the state they reside? When Mike Dantoni had 8 players walk into a college dorm room and beat 4 guys senseless after leaving a football banquet earlier that night, did that make front page news? Then he goes ahead and starts one player after he was just recently released from jail, does this become a big front page story? No, it gets a small one page column and you never hear another word about it. And why, because he won one more game than RR in 2009, yet you would think he is the second coming of Paul Bear Bryant if you asked a sparty gomer? Rich Rod has been doomed since the beginning, set up to fail and not welcomed into Ann Arbor but not only the university, but both local and national media.

Lets put this most recent case of 4 star DB/SS recruit Demar Dorsey in the fore front. Everyone talks about letting RR bring in players for his system and how badly he needed defensive help. Michigan got absolutely torched last year verse the run, pass, reverse, special teams, under throw, back flip, whatever. Didn't matter what teams threw at them it was successful, bottom line was they needed help on the defensive side of the ball. So on signing day Rich Rod goes all the way to Florida and steals a 4 star that Urban Meyer was absolutely drooling over. On signing day this is a huge pickup for Michigan and Rich Rod. The admissions department approves it and is all for it. The kid is a NCAA qualifier with a 2.6 GPA and 18 act or higher, but since the free press did a huge piece on why Rich Rod shouldn't be taking the risk on players who have previous legal troubles (the kid has a past) the university is considering not admitting him and letting him go to another FBS school and tear it up. Michigan and its giant ego, can't let anyone think we are bringing in bad athletes to the university and all because the local newspaper made a huge story about it. You ask any college football recruiting analyst about that signing and they were very impressed that RR was able to land him. Did the free press write a huge article about Lloyd Carr when he recruit Boubacar Cissoko who coincidentally isnt on the team anymore because of legal troubles. How about Vladimir Emilien or Marlin Jackson?! No these all got overlook and you never hear about them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Rich Rodriquez is the guy for Michigan, I'm not even sure that the spread can be consistently successful in the Big Ten. Bottom line, this could very well be his last season as the university of Michigan head football coach. But listen up Michigan, whether is Rodriquez or the next guy you bring in, get the heck out of his way and let him do his thing. Try setting him up to succeed instead of setting him up to fail. Start adapting to modern times and being a little humble. Your high and mighty b.s is growing very tiresome. You know who else has a giant ego, Notre Dame and how many bowl games have they been to in the past 5 years?! Exactly. For crying out loud let a coach do what he is brought in to do, coach.