F or many, it might have seemed like another big upset. Michigan started off its second consecutive football season with a loss at home to a seemingly innocuous team like Utah.
Utah has since proven to be a real threat on the national scene. But if you have been catching the warning signs all along, you would have seen the Wolverines' loss coming well before it happened, regardless of how good Utah was. And you surely would have figured out by now that Big Blue has steadily been sinking into a dark era in the legacy of its storied college football program.
The ugly start of last year's football season was only the first indication of tough times ahead, losing to a FCS team and getting slammed by Oregon - both at home - in the first two weeks. Two losses to end the regular season, including a fourth-straight loss to Ohio State, the retirement of an embarrassed Lloyd Carr and the loss of offensive weapons Chad Henne, Mike Hart and Jake Long to the
NFL draft only made things worse.
The hiring of a new head coach capable of providing stability to a team in turmoil could have gotten Michigan back on track after a really rough year.
Instead, they got a basket case.
Enter Rich Rodriguez, born and raised on West Virginia soil and heralded alumnus of West Virginia University. He is a skilled man that had great success coaching at Tulane and Clemson and later became a highly successful head coach at his alma mater. In nearly seven years with the Mountaineers, he led his team to six top two finishes in the Big East conference, three Gator Bowl appearances and a BCS bowl victory in the 2006 Sugar Bowl.
Now, why a man who had pioneered his team - the team he cheered for and played for as a young man - to elite status and was earning more than $1 million coaching for that team would want to leave, one can only guess.
But as it happened, Michigan made an offer to Rodriguez that he felt he had to take before he had even finished coaching at West Virginia. He bailed from West Virginia, leaving them scrambling to find an interim coach to lead them in the Fiesta Bowl.
This alone should have sent up red flags for anyone with an ounce of common sense. Rodriguez coached his team through a national championship caliber season, only to trip at the finish line, losing 13-9 to Pitt in the game that could have catapulted his team into a national title game. Sixteen days later, driven mostly by emotion, he was announced as the new head coach at Michigan, before his tenure at West Virginia was officially over. He ditched West Virginia, despite his team's berth in a BCS bowl game.
The point is that Michigan hired a train wreck to head up a team in need of a stalwart leader. Since signing his contract in Ann Arbor, Rodriguez has cost Michigan $2 million in lawsuit money for luring him away from West Virginia, scrapped a traditional football system for one he preferred and lost 10 players from his squad who decided they would rather transfer than play for him. He also enraged former Wolverine and current NFL star Braylon Edwards by giving the No. 1 jersey to a defensive back, even though the number has a scholarship attached to it specifically designated for a deserving wide receiver. Oh, and he lost two out of his first three games of the year, including a home loss to a mid-major, unranked team.
There's getting off on the wrong foot, and then there's what Rich Rodriguez has done in Michigan.
Looking at the Wolverines' schedule this year, don't expect things to improve.
Michigan will lose at home against Wisconsin in two weeks, at Penn State next month, at Purdue in November and in the season finale against Ohio State, but could very easily drop games against Illinois and Minnesota - yes, Minnesota - as well. In all likelihood, they will not even break .500 this season.
Why? Because Rodriguez does not fit at Michigan. He is a talented man who made a brash decision on a whim that he will likely regret after his team loses to Ball State in the Motor City Bowl. That is, if he makes it to a bowl game at all. He gave up a good thing in West Virginia to try and be the next great thing in the history of Michigan football.
He got greedy, and his history since the loss to Pitt has been troublesome at best. Rich Rodriguez is bad news for Michigan football and the Wolverines are just seeing the start of more tough days to come.
Think Michigan still has the talent to
give the Badgers a tough game in two weeks? Tell Andy about it at avansistine@wisc.edu
