Wolverine247 Board

In reading these responses, I noticed that some here commented on how much they enjoyed the offense.

But consider this:

While no doubt dynamic, the offense was absolutely stuffed against the better defenses that they played in OSU, MSU, Iowa, PSU, etc. GRANTED, Rich Rod had either the wrong QBs for his system (Threet/Sheridan), young QBs (Forcier/Robinson), or QBs who are poor decision makers (Robinson).

Still though, the overall showings against good defenses that his offense produced made me skeptical of whether or not it would really work in the Big Ten....

Dude you can't go off where recruiting classes are ranked to judge a teams talent. These recruits transfer, quit, or just don't turn out. Sure if u get good recruits your team should be good but you never know. Just look at Texas, based on recruiting classes they should play for the championship every year.

This is exactly what I told my dad regarding Rich Rod.
If he was willing to have a defensive coordinator hired, not telling him what to run and leave the defensive side of the ball to the newly hired DC, then that was the only way I would have liked him to stay.

Recruiting rankings determine talent, it's up for the coaches and players to live up to their billing, Rich Rod couldn't coach, so they didn't live up to their rankings. The talent was there.

I will argue this until I am blue in the face. At least that Michigan had better talent than 15 wins in 3 years. I couldn't stand "the cupboard is bare" crap that was thrown around. It was a BS excuse then and it's a BS excuse now.

Not a fair question. Do you think we have the same coordinators if Hoke was hired at that time?

That's not what I am talking about though. I believe with the same exact players RR had Hoke gets more wins. No way our D ever should of been that bad. That's on RR.

But that answer was based on your question the way you phrased it.
I highly doubt Mattison comes back if RR didn't destroy Michigan's defense but I could be wrong.

The attrition would be different, etc.

It is a question that is basically impossible to answer.

I think he likely would have had a better record but it is really impossible to know since our standard for Hoke is with the current coordinators.

Fair enough. That was my biggest gripe about RR as well was his dictating what defense to run even if the DC had no idea how to run it.

RR did what he always has done but needed to be told to stay away from the D and that didn't happen (or maybe it was and he said no).

If he would have been willing to allow a DC to run what defense they knew best and assemble their assistants, that would have been the only way I would have been willing to keep him.

LOL, don't forget the TERRIBLE season Evan Royster was having that year and ended up shredding the D in that game.

I'm not arguing that RR deserved a pass because lack if talent. I will admit there was less talent then usual when RR first came in though. My point to you was when you say rivals had our classes ranked high means we shoukd have a lot of talent on are team isnt always true. it makes sense but isnt always reality. over the last 6 to 7 years there have been a lot of talented players not make it through their four years. The class that vanbergen and Martin came in with after four years only had about half those guys on rivals left. I do think hoke would have done much better and less players would have left because he was very similar to Carr. Also it wasn't like hoke came to Michigan with all kinds of talent on the roster, hoke has down a incredible job for us

It wasn't 3-9 talent.