Rich Rodriguez and Michigan

The speculation continues to swirl as to whether Michigan fires Rodriguez or not.  Whether they  have a quick trigger or not depend may well depend on Jim Harbaugh.  With his Michigan ties, success, and system philosophy he'd be an obvious candidate as a coach.  Standford however had preemptively made an offer to sweeten his contract.  They say he intends to sign it.

These days that doesn't mean anything until you actually start the next season with a guy as your head coach.  See Nick Saban and Lane Kiffen in the recent past.  If Harbaugh decides to stay with the program that gave him his big coaching shot as opposed to his alma mater, I'd be surprised if they axe Rodriguez.  That would mean going back to the drawing board again with an offensive system.  You wonder then if Denard Robinson would be the QB for a non-Rich Rodriguez offense.  His throwing has gotten a lot better from last year but he still runs way better than he throws.  Who know, maybe the throwing will improve even more so he would be productive in a system where he wasn't going to carry the ball 25 times for 150 yards every game.  They already changed systems once, which made Ryan Mallett obsolete so that he moved on to become one of the best quarterbacks in the nation at Arkansas.  If Michigan changes coaches and systems again they could find themselves going back to a system that was Mallett friendly while the kid is still in school at Arkansas.  So you lose a Heisman caliber quarterback, and the new system that made him expendable doesn't even outlast his college career?  That would be stupid.  And you're also making your Heisman caliber quarterback in Rodriguez's current system obsolete as well.  So that would look twice as dumb.

If they could get Harbaugh, given he's a direct link in the Bo Schembechler-Lloyd Carr coaching chain, that would probably be worth it.  Anyone else, and good question.

I am still very uneasy about Rodriguez's offense.  The Big Ten has some of the most stout and physical defenses in the nation.  When Pat White was running wild at QB for West Virginia some years ago, making Rich Rodriguez and his offense look spectacular, White also wasn't getting drilled on a regular basis by linebackers as big, physical, and fast, as what the Big Ten featured, with all due respect to the Big East.  White also had an elite running back in Steve Slaton who took part of the load and was an equal ground threat to White.

Robinson doesn't have that yet.  So for the most part it's a very heavy dose of him, and he's taking a pounding.  He's already been knocked out for segments of 4 games this season.  At present, Michigan's backup QBs just can't run the QB heavy offense as prodigiously as Robinson can.  Given that the defense is an embarrassment and can't stop anyone, if Michigan isn't scoring 50 points they're not winning.

So as it stands right this moment, Denard Robinson has 50 some plays where he's being exposed to taking big hits, between the runs and the drop backs for passing.  He's pretty much the entire offense.  Their defensive "scheme" right now is pretty much to give up one less point than the offense and get out of town.

All that is very shaky and no solid blueprint for a football program, regardless of how good the offense looks when everything is going well.  So something has to change.  First with the defense.  Also, more threats within this offense in the running game so Robinson can hand off to someone else who can threaten any defense they face, not just the bad ones.  Maybe that change needs to be Harbaugh.  If he wants the job I wouldn't complain.  I don't dislike Rodriguez.  He just has some glaring flaws.  Some stuff that worked in the Big East doesn't seem to be as viable in the Big Ten perhaps.  If he does stay on I can't see him surviving after next season if they still have pretty much the worst defense in college football, which parks Michigan decidedly in the second tier of the Big Ten, far behind Ohio State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin.  That would also put them one serious Denard Robinson injury from being at the bottom of the Big Ten again.  They improved this year solely because Denard Robinson ran the offense better this year than the combination of Tate Forcier and Robinson did last year.  The defense is still horrible.  The special teams is horrible.  It's pretty unacceptable at this level of football to totally give up on kicking field goals because your kicker has no chance of hitting something unless it's within 25 yards right in the middle of the field.  They have no capability to do the little things to win a game, on defense or special teams, in the event that the offense isn't piling up 500 yards of offense and 50 points.   In the Big Ten there are too many good teams and good defenses to expect the offense to be that good week in and week out.