Michigan defense amazing stat (a slight RR bash)

[GoBlueInAtlanta]

In three years - or 37 games - under (Rich) Rodriguez, the Michigan Wolverines allowed 40 points nine times. From 1935 to 2007 - or 778 games - the
Wolverines allowed 40 points a total of nine times.

UNBELIEVABLE !!!

A statement we can all agree with.

 

[Guest]

Or blame the fact that RR made a career out of running up the score at WV against inferior opponents. He had a couple bowl wins, but so did TCU. One big win doesn't make up for the weak schedule that he played and his poor coaching philosophy. RR never stressed defense because he was content winning 50-40. His problem was that he could not score 50 points against quality opponents in the big ten, but they could still score 40. It was never a personnel problem, it was always a RR problem.

How about you go look back at WVU's total defense rankings when RR was there. He had a BCS win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, and the team he abandoned to come to UM beat OU in the Fiesta Bowl. That's two BCS wins for teams RR built and one for UM in that same time period. That's what makes this MORE frustrating. This was a guy who did it at WVU, and who couldn't do it at UM.

While I get the point and don't mean to interfere with he ongoing battle you're having with MC ... I think it's clear, for most everyone, that the Sugar Bowl over UGA was a very, very fortunate game for WVU and while the RR-coached team did win, it was eerily similar to too many RR games while at UM .... defense was utterly absent and WVU went from up 28-0 to holding on to win, 38-35 and there isn't a single WVU fan on the planet who credits RR with the win over perennial BCS-choker Bob Stoops.

Expecting success at UM based on these examples from WVU for Rich Rod is sort of like ASU fans expecting great things from Bill Frieder because his '89 UM-built hoops team went on the NCAA title under Fisher.

Not illogical, just not ....necessarily realistic.

 

[hungry]

How much longer do we have to endure the absurd absolutes regarding the RR tenure in Ann Arbor from people who know he failed, but have no idea of why?

How does anyone know how much was "teached" or not "teached?" You assume based on what you saw of something of which you have a very superficial understanding.

Obviously, you can say that some coaches know defense better than offense, or offense better than defense. But to make a statement that a coach "didn't care" about one side of the ball is stupidly ludicrous. You can say he didn't fully understand it, or focus on it, or hired the wrong guy to run it, etc. etc. etc.

You will never hear me call him an offensive genius either. He runs a gimmick offense that is dependent on one player to succeed. If he doesn't have that one player he cries. Even when he did have his one player he got smoked by the big ten. I know that you hate stats so I won't even bother looking up his points scored against ranked teams while at Michigan. I guess that you can "teached" us about it, because facts and figures are not working here.

He runs a gimmick offense that only relies on one player? So if the o-line doesn't block for that one player, how does that go? I can't count the number of long Denard runs that I didn't see an accompanying block by someone that sprung him free.

At WVU, his system relied on at least 2 players and, of course, many more secondary ones. He wasn't successful until he had Slayton AND White back there. Of course, their o-line blocked for them to.

He obviously didn't have anyone like Steve Slayton here at Michigan.

Every single scheme in football relies on certain players to be able to succeed. That's just common sense. How do you think Michigan would have done over Coach Carr's last 4 years without Mike Hart to accompany Chad Henne?

 

[hungry]

It has nothing to do with you. I did not demean you, and these stats were not hard to find. One thing that I did that you didn't do was actually back up my conclusion with facts. When did that become a bad thing? I know that this is a U of M board, but that doesn't mean that we all have to talk out of our pompous asses.

YOU stated that he was content winning 50-40, then you posted that only once did one of his teams give up 40 points, and it was a game his team lost. You also made a point about the Big East being weak, then you listed games against Big East opponents that were ranked nationally.

When his WVU team did hold a ranked opponent to a point total lower than what you would have liked it to be, you mocked the team, even though by your own admission they were ranked at the time, dismissing them because of seemingly no other reason than you don't want to accept a solid defensive performance against a ranked team by a team coached by RR.

Hell, in 2007 his team was one win away from playing for a national championship. In the two games they lost, they gave up 21 and 13 points respectively. An intelligent RR basher would point instead to these stats (that were not difficult to find) to show that maybe he's not the offensive genius that he's portrayed to be.

You didn't back up a conclusion with facts. Not every post including a conclusion and facts is a conclusion backed with facts. You made an assinine point, and then posted facts that didn't support what your point was.

Here were the WVU team defense rankings (nationally, based on yards given up per game) during the last 4 year's of RR's tenure when he was trying to win 50-40...

2007: 4th (1st in the conference)
2006: 53rd (5th in the conference)
2005: 8th (1st in the conference)
2004: 29th (2nd in the conference)

I think these show that a conclusion that "RR never stressed defense" might be a tad flawed. You could have argued that he didn't stress it ENOUGH at UM, or he ran the WRONG defense for the personnel, or he hired the WRONG COORDINATOR who ran what could have been the right defense but in the WRONG WAY, and you could make a point.

But you didn't. And I believe you, good sir, are the one talking out of his ass.

Key point to both of you:

It took RichRod 6 years to build what he built at WVU. If you look at this first 5 years, they are pretty insignificant. It wasn't until his 6th season that he had what Michigan fans would consider a 'good' season. Taking 6 years to build success was never going to fly in today's world at the University of Michigan.

 

[hungry]

How about you go look back at WVU's total defense rankings when RR was there. He had a BCS win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, and the team he abandoned to come to UM beat OU in the Fiesta Bowl. That's two BCS wins for teams RR built and one for UM in that same time period. That's what makes this MORE frustrating. This was a guy who did it at WVU, and who couldn't do it at UM.

While I get the point and don't mean to interfere with he ongoing battle you're having with MC ... I think it's clear, for most everyone, that the Sugar Bowl over UGA was a very, very fortunate game for WVU and while the RR-coached team did win, it was eerily similar to too many RR games while at UM .... defense was utterly absent and WVU went from up 28-0 to holding on to win, 38-35 and there isn't a single WVU fan on the planet who credits RR with the win over perennial BCS-choker Bob Stoops.

Expecting success at UM based on these examples from WVU for Rich Rod is sort of like ASU fans expecting great things from Bill Frieder because his '89 UM-built hoops team went on the NCAA title under Fisher.

Not illogical, just not ....necessarily realistic.

Vic, I agree with most of this, except when you discount the UGA game, just because UGA came back and made the score close doesn't discount the win. WVU and RR won this game. Its a 60 minute game. Would it have been better if it was neck-and-neck the entire way?

 

[hungry]

btw, not to anyone in particular, but these RR conversations are really old and are just being rehashed and are quite pointless.

RichRod is gone. Get over it. Time to move on.

 

[bamf16]

While I get the point and don't mean to interfere with he ongoing battle you're having with MC ... I think it's clear, for most everyone, that the Sugar Bowl over UGA was a very, very fortunate game for WVU and while the RR-coached team did win, it was eerily similar to too many RR games while at UM .... defense was utterly absent and WVU went from up 28-0 to holding on to win, 38-35 and there isn't a single WVU fan on the planet who credits RR with the win over perennial BCS-choker Bob Stoops.

Expecting success at UM based on these examples from WVU for Rich Rod is sort of like ASU fans expecting great things from Bill Frieder because his '89 UM-built hoops team went on the NCAA title under Fisher.

Not illogical, just not ....necessarily realistic.

Vic, I agree with most of this, except when you discount the UGA game, just because UGA came back and made the score close doesn't discount the win. WVU and RR won this game. Its a 60 minute game. Would it have been better if it was neck-and-neck the entire way?

Plus, in order to be consistent with the line of thinking, those UGA points would have to be considered GARBAGE points against a prevent defense, so we just throw those out when we evaluate the game.

 

[bamf16]

Knowing you typed,

"AAAAARGH!!!! THE TALENT POOL WAS NOT, AND IS NOT THE PROBLEM!!!!!

How many times to we have to go over this?"

in reply #29 to the "Does Kovacs start the first series?" thread, do you understand now why folks like me wonder if you have any clue at all what in the hell you're talking about?


(This should be good.)

Folks like you? You mean people that don't understand sarcasm and have no sense of humor whatsoever?

Okay, I can see how you would struggle with this...

Got it.

Type something dumb or contradict yourself, claim it was just sarcasm, go on with thinking you're the smartest one here.

 

[Guest]

While I get the point and don't mean to interfere with he ongoing battle you're having with MC ... I think it's clear, for most everyone, that the Sugar Bowl over UGA was a very, very fortunate game for WVU and while the RR-coached team did win, it was eerily similar to too many RR games while at UM .... defense was utterly absent and WVU went from up 28-0 to holding on to win, 38-35 and there isn't a single WVU fan on the planet who credits RR with the win over perennial BCS-choker Bob Stoops.

Expecting success at UM based on these examples from WVU for Rich Rod is sort of like ASU fans expecting great things from Bill Frieder because his '89 UM-built hoops team went on the NCAA title under Fisher.

Not illogical, just not ....necessarily realistic.

Vic, I agree with most of this, except when you discount the UGA game, just because UGA came back and made the score close doesn't discount the win. WVU and RR won this game. Its a 60 minute game. Would it have been better if it was neck-and-neck the entire way?

I get it. And UGA is probably one of the most underwhelming programs over the past 5yrs or so under Richt.

You can include Stoops at OU in that same group.

Ultimately, agreed .... this is all pointless and it's not necessarily to revisit the reasons why people wanted RR.

Clearly things didn't work out.

 

[hungry]

Vic, I agree with most of this, except when you discount the UGA game, just because UGA came back and made the score close doesn't discount the win. WVU and RR won this game. Its a 60 minute game. Would it have been better if it was neck-and-neck the entire way?

I get it. And UGA is probably one of the most underwhelming programs over the past 5yrs or so under Richt.

You can include Stoops at OU in that same group.

Ultimately, agreed .... this is all pointless and it's not necessarily to revisit the reasons why people wanted RR.

Clearly things didn't work out.

Whole OU and UGA haven't been expactularrrrrr in bowl games, still try for a second to consider these games if they were non-conference games and not just bowl games. IF WVU had beaten them during the season, it would still be a victory, but somehow people want to say they mean less because their bowl victories, when really, most of the time, we put more emphasis on a bowl victory.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad we got rid of RR for any number of various reasons, he had to go. I could list them all again, but to say that what he did at WVU is meaningless and that he didn't build that program into a good program is just a little silly.

 

[Michchamp]

Folks like you? You mean people that don't understand sarcasm and have no sense of humor whatsoever?

Okay, I can see how you would struggle with this...

Got it.

Type something dumb or contradict yourself, claim it was just sarcasm, go on with thinking you're the smartest one here.

ok, I'll spell it out for you: when I stated that talent wasn't the problem, I was being sincere. I never believed a lack of talent was the primary reason we went 3-9, 5-7, 7-6 over RR's tenure.

Then in response to M&B's post, I sarcastically implied talent was the problem. I thought the sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a knife here, esp. given the fact that I coined the phrase "Excuse Maker" in response to the people that blamed the supposed lack of talent (among other things) for our poor defensive performance under RR. I didn't suddenly turn around after years of maintaining this view and decide lack of talent really was a problem...

I'm sure other people got it, but I can understand that sometimes some people might miss the finer points of my writing style. no worries.

 

[hungry]

I knew you were being sarcastic. Thing is, I do think that the talent was one contributing factor, not the only factor, but it was one. I'm sure Bamf knew you were being sarcastic, as well, but feels the same way I do. Deciding who is to blame on why the talent was so bad over all 3 years is certainly debateable.

btw, I heard the phrase 'excuse maker' wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy before I ever saw it typed on a msg board and heard it applied to RR by many, so don't think you were the clever one that 'coined the phrase.' Get real!

 

[Michchamp]

I get it. And UGA is probably one of the most underwhelming programs over the past 5yrs or so under Richt.

You can include Stoops at OU in that same group.

Ultimately, agreed .... this is all pointless and it's not necessarily to revisit the reasons why people wanted RR.

Clearly things didn't work out.

Whole OU and UGA haven't been expactularrrrrr in bowl games, still try for a second to consider these games if they were non-conference games and not just bowl games. IF WVU had beaten them during the season, it would still be a victory, but somehow people want to say they mean less because their bowl victories, when really, most of the time, we put more emphasis on a bowl victory.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad we got rid of RR for any number of various reasons, he had to go. I could list them all again, but to say that what he did at WVU is meaningless and that he didn't build that program into a good program is just a little silly.

He didn't say it was meaningless... RR was, by any measure, a successful coach at WVU. Even I admit that.

it's just that, as Vic pointed out, a couple wins over non-BigEast BCS opponents, one of which he didn't even coach, is far too small of a sample size to conclude that those WVU teams really would be competitive outside the BigEast.