How Long Till Rich Rod is Fired?

[NAHSTE]

I like how you dismiss the speed adjustment factor. Lets assume that the playbooks are similar (though, it's laughable to think his high school playbook was just as complicated as Rich Rods), heres something to consider.

While relative speed may be the same (IE, both teams are going faster) the human brains reaction time does not improve. Certainly a person can improve their reactions, but, there is a limit to how quickly our brain works. In short, regardless of how experienced he may be in high school, the players are going to move faster and his reactions aren't going to be spot on.

Further, you mentioned previously how great they looked in practice, without a live defense. Defense tends to change things.

As for the Henne arguement, you seem to be forgetting his freshman year. He had (arguably) the greatest WR in michigan history, Braylon Edwards, jumping over defenders making grabs for him. He frequently just dropped back and lobbed it up. Under pressure? Throw it to Braylong. 3rd down? Throw it to Braylon.

It was hardly some great feet of quarterbacking.



Err, uh I wouldn't exactly call him a no talent assclown. He was a second round pick. You are correct though, he never improved over his 4 seasons. He was a consistently good college QB, never great.




The weather arguement is silly. What does it really effect? WR's catching? No, they all have gloves. QB's getting the snap? No, they have handwarmers. RBs catching a pitch? Again, no, they have gloves.

Bad footing helps the offense far more than the defense, it's much, much, much more difficult to cover a recevier if you can't plant and drive.

The regular season ends in November, often before the first snow of the year. You might get a cold game, but typically the worst weather you deal with is 40's and rainy Sure, it stinks, but it isn't going to ruin your spread offense.

Just to get into the weather = spread debate, I think southern schools do have an advantage in that it's easier to convince athletes to come play for your school when you have decent weather and quality of life 8 months out of the year.

Aside from the big powers like Michigan and Ohio State, there aren't too many cold weather schools that a big prospect is gonna choose to play at if they're holding offers from teams in better climates.

[Senser81]

My point is not that they wern't more talented, it's that they developed no-talent kids into NFL draft choices. If they can take relative "no names" like White, Slaton and Schmidt and turn them into NFL players, then imagine what they will do with 4 and 5 star recruits.

The arguement that they were way more talented than their opponents does an injustice to Rich Rod. They didn't start off more talented, they developed talent. It's not like Utah where they are a high class program than their competition, they simply out recruited and out coached their opponents to have more talented kids.

I don't know if he developed talent at WVU...IMO he took talented players who had deficiencies (White - short, average arm, Slaton - too small) which didn't make them 4 or 5 star recruits, and found a way to utilize them.

[Woy]

Just to get into the weather = spread debate, I think southern schools do have an advantage in that it's easier to convince athletes to come play for your school when you have decent weather and quality of life 8 months out of the year.

Aside from the big powers like Michigan and Ohio State and Penn State, there aren't too many cold weather schools that a big prospect is gonna choose to play at if they're holding offers from teams in better climates.

Fixed.

[Sven Draconian]

Just to get into the weather = spread debate, I think southern schools do have an advantage in that it's easier to convince athletes to come play for your school when you have decent weather and quality of life 8 months out of the year.

Aside from the big powers like Michigan and Ohio State, there aren't too many cold weather schools that a big prospect is gonna choose to play at if they're holding offers from teams in better climates.

The recruiting advantage in the south is definately true, though, schools in Louisiana, Miss and Alabama have their own disadvantages (Heat, humidity). Obviously, Florida and California schools can cleanup in that regard.

I don't know if he developed talent at WVU...IMO he took talented players who had deficiencies (White - short, average arm, Slaton - too small) which didn't make them 4 or 5 star recruits, and found a way to utilize them.

Isn't that what coaching is?

[Senser81]

Isn't that what coaching is?

Its part of coaching. Its not like he made a piss-poor team really good just with his strategies or offensive genius. And its not all that different than what Northwestern was doing under Randy Walker...its just that while Northwestern has slow white guys, WVU had fast black guys. Which, again, is my point about Rodriguez winning with superior talent.

And he basically did the opposite at Michigan...he found a way to under-utilize the existing talent. So I would stop short of calling him a good coach.

[mgoblue2290]

I'd just like to clarify that most Michigan fans are extremely obnoxious and will over rate their team yearly. We also like to cling to past accomplishments. These are reasons I've somewhat distanced myself from Michigan football.

Also firing Rich Rod would be idiotic at this point. He's already bringing in his guys, we have to give him two more years, after this year. Let him get his guys, and let them get used to playing with each other. Realistically, if all goes well, this should be a top 20 team again by 2011. We fire him now, then we are right back where we were last year, with guys suited for a different scheme, only now we've got undersized players.

[Buzzman]

I sorta cling onto michigans past by sayign I love the smash mouth football they played. Once Rich Rod gets his players, that will be over with.

[Senser81]

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[Sven Draconian]

Just concerning the first issue...

Why do you think the majority of players are even recruited to D1? It's because they already play at a faster and higher level than the rest of their competition. Physically they are faster, and mentally they are faster at the high school level...that's exactly the definition of a D1 football recruit (or any college football recruit for that matter) sans the few offensive linemen who get scholarships because they're massive, yet in shape.

It sounds to me like you are just lumping Forcier in there with the rest of the 99.9% of high schoolers who play on a yearly basis. Every player who gets a D1 scholarship is head and shoulders above the competition from a mental standpoint, that's what makes them good. That, paired with Forcier already at least getting practice against a D1 defense...you really think that adjustment is going to be *that* much of a factor?

This is the way I look at it...

---------- Typical D1 Mental Speed (Sophomores/Juniors) -------------
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----------- Tate ----------
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----------- 99.9% of high school seniors ------------

Bullshit. Absolute, complete, total, utter, homeristic, delusional bullshit.

First things first,

1) D1 coaches have no way of assessing a players intellegence off film because they do not know how they have been coached. You can't grade a LB's if you don't know his reads, you can't grade a safety if you don't know his coverage, you can't grade a QB if you don't know how he is supposed to make his progressions.

2) Most decisions are made based on performance at schools camps. These are unpadded, non-contact camps that only evaluate athleticism.

3) There are tons of morons that run 4.2 that get schollies becaue they're fast. Every coach thinks they can coach the kid up on technique and awareness.

Justin Feagin couldn't run a read option for christ sakes, there are hundreds of high school QBs that can make that read but don't have the speed.

Maybe Tate is better than the average freshman, who knows. But most starting QB's aren't freshman, they are often 3rd/4th year guys, obviously some 5th years. Of course, Tate got 14 spring practices so that more or less puts him on even ground. He also ran a similar offense in high school, so he's really more experienced.

Unless, of course, any other QB's participated in spring practice and ran the spread in high school....though I doubt it, because Tate is special.