As much as Michigan fans would like to forget . . .

Bo took over after the ’68 drubbing and lead the Wolverines to their greatest victory in his first season at the helm.

Well, it’s 5 coaches since the 60’s and 4 before Rich-Rod. Which is very good. But the thing about football is you get to choose your eras. Since 1979, of course, Iowa has had two coaches (that would be total? no caveat?) though only because one of them turned down the Michigan job.

Anyway, back to asserting Michigan supremecy, I think it’s clear that Rich-Rod has pluses and minuses:

Plus:

a. original thinker, and at a high (football) level.
b. great teacher.
c. likes to win, probably tortures kittens when he loses.

Minus:

a. the spread isolates men in space — so they better be better than the other guys. I don’t know if they will be.
b. Michigan, a rather lordly place, hasn’t had to adapt previously to someone who probably sings Merle Haggard in the shower (this, by the way, is Michigan’s problem, not his).
c. the guy has had a rather colorful private life. (This is his problem.)

I can see Michigan winning a few games this year — maybe 3 or 4, plus the cupcakes, if you want to count them. He’ll keep his job with that kind of year. (I think it will be harder than you think it will be, owing to the problem of teaching a 19 year-old the quadruple option while the most violent college football league (it is) is generally saying, “Blow him up, the punk freshman.”) Unless the colorful private life intrudes. Before you automatically object, refute, dismiss, remember: you’re Michigan, and you’re lordly, and where is Gary Moeller now?

Anyway, in regard to his private life, I am not discussing it on the internets. But he’s a fortunate dude indeed with his wife and nuclear family, according to WVU nation. And I don’t expect Mary Sue to be quite as forgiving as the governor of West Virginia.

In regard to SCM’s incredulity, no, I don’t think that the whole point was to win with inferiors. The idea was to win with creativity and superior athletes in the backfield, while gaining numerical advantage v. the defenses by turning the QB into a single wing tailback, and basically just confusing the shit out of people who expect an I formation/pro set. Which he did for a few years. Then, his biggest game, against an NFL DC/HC, and it all went pfffft. You all read Chris Brown, go over there. He makes the valid point: now that the spread is a known commodity, spreading the field with mediocrities who cannot win one-on-one, you are just highlighting your mediocrities, and isolating mediocrity in space. Good luck with that. Sport is about adjustment. I think the adjustments have been made for the run-first option spread.

Before you jump me, I know that Michigan usually has it’s pick of the litter, and that Iowa has maybe 10 guys who would make the two-deep at a Michigan or OSU. (Remember, we still play walk-ons from schools with 200 students. That’s 200 males and females across four grades.) But the spread, as Brown notes, may already have peaked. If you depend on one-on-one advantage, it’s a talent advantage you need, not a scheme-surprise advantage. The scheme itself must evolve again, if it is to surprise and befuddle. Can it? Probably. Will it? Dunno. The QB is going to be a child.

So I am looking forward to that night game in IC. So are Norm, Clayborn, Binns, Edds, Ballard … and Klug, our latest 240 lb hay-throwing tackle. (Angerer will be busy with Minor.) I guess Forcier is perfect, but a true freshman running a complex offense at breakneck speed against the best scoring defense in the Big Ten sounds like a ‘teaching moment’ to me.

It’s your site so I won’t write stuff if it’s annoying. Just send a smoke signal.

The spread, as you say, is far from dead. It’s just not delivering its unfamiliarity arbitrage any longer. I get the impression here that Rich-Rod’s offense is a kind of cold fusion elixir, a wonder drug, a shortcut to success.

Maybe. But, soon we’ll see, Why, even Minnesota is spreading. 55-0, I think it was. Anyway, if Forcier can run the very challenging Rich-Rod O as a true frosh like Pat White did as a senior, then, well, you’ll win 8 or 9. We’ll see. Supposedly, Rich-Rod is a superior teacher, and he’ll need to be. An awful lot of people have seen that Pitt/WVU tape by now.

I think, if I were Iowa this year, I’d spend a little more time worrying about the WVU/Oklahoma or the WVU/Georgia tape.

I don’t think anyone is claiming that the Rodriguez offense is a shortcut to success of any kind. What people ARE claiming is that there is a preponderance of evidence to suggest a quarterback who can throw the ball with a modicum of accuracy will improve the offense greatly. Does this equal 8 or 9 wins? Probably not. But it should equal a much much better season than last. 6 wins doubles our success from last season. I know it’s not what Michigan strives for, but hey, it’s a start.

Markus did a great piece: The Story About an Man Named Jed

The key point being that the original “shotgun zone-read run” play was born from a broken play and a discussion about it between coach and player. So the question that comes to mind when I ask myself if Rich can continue to innovate at Michigan is “Does he still listen to his players?”

Easier said than done. Rodriguez has had a measure of success, and this is a very different environment. He’s older now. But at least the track record is there — once the offense starts executing properly, then adjustments like the one with Jed Drenning can happen. Maybe nothing quite so grand as the SZRR, but enough to keep opponents just a little off balance every now and then.

The idea that U-M could fire Rodriguez after another disastrous season seems to be based on a perception that the high-and-mighty U-M will be unable to cope with losing.

It makes sense to Ohio State fans because that’s probably what they’d do if they were in our shoes. But for a WVU homer like this guy, it’s something else — the fear that Rich is going to be successful at Michigan. They want him to fail, they need him to fail. They don’t see the forest for the trees — they don’t see that having a West Virginian transform the “lordly” (to quote the Iowa fan above) U-M program, just like Yost did in another era, is something to be proud of. I get that losing to Pitt in 2007 really hurt, and I’ll admit that Rich may have been a little distracted by the news (two weeks earlier) that the Michigan job was opening up. But last I checked, the players still play the games, and you had lost earlier to a pretty mediocre South Florida team (4-3 in the Big East). Oh, and we’re really sorry about that 130-0 whipping Yost gave you in 1904. Anyhow, get over it and stop trying to convince yourself that they guy you were so proud of for so long was unworthy.