RichRod Gamely Tries To Inject Perspective Into U-M Football; Good Luck With That

It’s the economy, stupid.

That was the mantra during Bill Clinton’s drive toward his successful bid for the presidency in 1992, spread by his Johnny Appleseed, James Carville. And Clinton rode that focus on the economy straight into the White House.

Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez seems to want to use that same strategy to divert attention from the white elephant in the room — namely, his football team.

RichRod bristled during his Monday press conference about some of the vitriol and personal attacks that he’s had to weather because of U-M’s unseemly 3-8 record — the most losses for a Michigan football team. Ever.

He said that those fans — which no doubt included more than a few alumni — should “get a life”. His words. Then Rodriguez borrowed another campaign theme, i.e. redistributing the worry.

“I mean, look at the economy,” Rodriguez said.

Nice try, coach.

But this is Ohio State week, and even if every single Wolverine fan were homeless, penniless, and financially hopeless, the focus would be on the Buckeyes — no matter how much you’d like to hide that 3-8 white elephant.

Hey coach — nice try! But it’s the team, stupid!

An unlikely win over the Buckeyes — and make no mistake, this would be about as unlikely as it gets — would go a long way toward making this muck somewhat digestible. Rodriguez’s team could, in one fell swoop, send Wolves fans into the bowl-less season with a degree of holiday cheer.

And as far as the “get a life” comment: they already have one, those types. It’s called Michigan football. Don’t you know that by now, coach?

Yes, it would be lovely if all the critics — and that train is so full that a second has just been summoned to carry them all — would look at the state’s failing economy and put things into perspective. It would be grand if they suddenly said, collectively, “You know what? This whole Michigan football thing — not really all that important. How am I going to pay the mortgage?”

But here’s the rub: fans use sports as an escape route from life’s daily problems. Two or three hours away from the bills and the angst life brings is just what the doctor ordered, even if what you’re escaping to is dysfunction. So to tell people to “get a life” and pay attention to the economy is counter intuitive; they want to ESCAPE their lives and the economy — stupid!

No, Rodriguez isn’t stupid. He’s just stupid about the football fans in Michigan. But he’ll learn. He’ll come to know that they don’t want to be told to channel their anger and frustration to more important things; they’re perfectly happy channeling it toward your football team, coach. And they’re perfectly unhappy with being told otherwise by the man presiding over the worst season in U-M football history.

The timing of the “get a life” comment couldn’t have been much worse, coming during OSU week. Even Bo Schembechler’s amazingly ironic death two years ago — on the eve of the Big Game — failed to dwarf the game itself. Of course, in 2006, the Wolves and Buckeyes were actually playing for something more than one team simply wanting to spoil the other’s season. But once the ball was kicked off, Bo’s death was set aside for three hours, despite the numbing shock of its news.

I know what RichRod is trying to impart. I truly do. Good intentions are terrific. Well-meaning pleas for perspective are honorable. And to a more sane, reasonable, and significantly less spoiled electorate, maybe Rodriguez’s words would have taken hold. But these are Michigan football fans, and this is all they’ve got, many of them. So don’t go ruining it by injecting sanity and perspective, OK?

Rodriguez will learn soon enough. He’s not in West Virginia anymore.

Get a life? Sure — as soon as you get a clue.

Spartans Have Golden Opportunity To Put “Arrogant Asses” In Their Place

I’m telling you, I don’t know what’s happened to football coaches names anymore. They’ve gone and gotten themselves called things like Mike and John and Pat and Mark and Rich.

Pshaw!

Don’t they know that properly-named football coaches answer to Knute and Bo and Woody and Bear? Or Biggie and Duffy?

Certainly not Darryl.

Thirty years ago, there was a Darryl in our midst; twenty years ago, he faded away, and mercifully so.

But Darryl Rogers made a mark around these parts. Better put that more often than not, he left a mark.

Duffy was gone in 1978 – Duffy Daugherty, that is, the head football coach at Michigan State University. He retired in 1972 and gave way to the kind but bland Denny Stolz. The lineage went Munn to Daugherty to Stolz: Biggie to Duffy to Denny. Not a Mike or John or Pat in the group.

After Denny proved mostly ineffective – including managing to get the football program placed on probation – he was swept out the door and this dude from small California schools like Fresno and San Jose State came eastward to coach the Spartans: Darryl Rogers.

No one knew much about Darryl. Quickly, though, it was evident that a physical quirk forced him to talk out of one side of his mouth, literally. Eventually, we’d discover that a character flaw meant that he talked out of both sides, figuratively. But I digress.

Rogers came to East Lansing in 1976 and coached two mostly bland years. Then the Spartans came alive in 1978. One of their stars was a bombastic, caustic receiver who also was pretty good at baseball: Kirk Gibson.

Yet the Spartans were still losing football games again when the 1978 season began. Ready or not, they were on a collision course with their in-state rivals, the Michigan Wolverines, for a tilt in mid-October. The game would be played in Ann Arbor. The usual posturing began as the game drew nearer. Then Darryl opened the good side of his mouth and called the folks from U-M “arrogant asses.” Not that he was lying or anything.

The comment caused a low boil on Michigan’s campus, which grew to a rolling one as Saturday approached. The Wolverine faithful – the folks that Rogers had called, in so many words, over-confident posteriors – couldn’t wait to see what their team would do to MSU. The Spartans were annual victims to the Wolverines. They were beaten down by U-M in Rogers’s first two seasons. And MSU was 1-3 in ‘78 when Rogers made the remark. The series had taken on an almost Harlem Globetrotters-Washington Generals persona.

Rogers led his Generals/Spartans into Michigan Stadium, fresh off losses to big-time football programs USC and Notre Dame. Over 101,000 over-confidents sat on their posteriors, waiting for the slaughter.

Except that when the day was done, the Spartans/Generals had whipped Bo Schembechler’s boys, 24-15. In Ann Arbor.

Rogers: Hard to tell if he’s packing or unpacking

Rogers’s team kept right on winning. They wouldn’t lose another game all season, in fact, speeding to the finish line with an 8-3 record, including 7-1 in the Big Ten – co-champions of the conference with … Michigan! But because of Denny Stolz’s little probation, the Spartans were banned from appearing in the national polls or any bowl game. Despite knowing there wasn’t any carrot at the end of the stick, MSU still kicked everyone’s ass in the Big Ten – including the arrogant ones from Michigan.

The Spartans faltered in 1979, and that’s when Darryl Rogers revealed that he could, indeed, talk out of both sides of his mouth after all. Rumors started to swirl that Rogers, after a few seasons in the Midwest, was itching to get back to the Pacific time zone. Arizona State University was courting him. It was reported.

Rogers said no. He kept saying no. Right up to the moment, almost, that he hopped a plane for Arizona and was introduced as ASU’s new coach. It was behavior that would be repeated five years later, when he would deny to the ASU folks that he was about to bolt to the NFL to coach the Detroit Lions. He pulled the same stunt – managing to work both sides of his crooked mouth before ending up in Pontiac, hours after denying that he would coach the Lions.

Michigan State has a great opportunity this Saturday to kick some over-confident posterior, when said rear ends are down and out. The 6-2 Spartans will invade Ann Arbor to play around with the 2-5 and almost-1-6 Wolverines. This time, MSU is Harlem and U-M is Washington. Or so you would think.

Two things are certain in October in this state: the leaves fall, and so do the Spartans. It’s becoming an annual tradition: MSU starts fast, then fades. They raise hopes, then crush them. This year, a 6-1 start turned sour when the Ohio State University barged into Spartan Stadium and manhandled the Spartans, 45-7. That loss had a familiar odor to it: that of impending doom.

Michigan’s program is down. They haven’t even been able to handle the likes of a mediocre MAC school, Toledo, in their own Big House. Penn State toyed with them before racing away like a gazelle. This is, by far, the worst Michigan team that MSU has played in decades.

Yet it won’t surprise too many people if the Spartans lose Saturday – not true football historians, anyway. MSU has perfected the art of spoiling promising seasons for themselves.

Spartans coach Mark Dantonio is a nice man, by all appearances. Definitely not one to create bulletin board fodder with accusations of being arrogant or posteriors. Or both. He’s smarter than to think his team has this one in the bag, even if they do.

Besides, his name is Mark and his counterpart is named Rich. That’s not a rivalry, that’s a business lunch.

Let’s see if the Spartans belch it back up, once again.

42 Years After Their Biggest Game Ever, Spartans Still Trying To Find Themselves

Rich Rodriguez is the fourth head football coach at the University of Michigan in the past 40 years. Mark Dantonio is the fourth head football coach at Michigan State University – in the past nine years.

And therein lies part of the reason why the Spartans have been playing catch-up with the Wolverines for most of the last four decades, when it comes to football.

It’s time for another college football season, and once again U-M is hogging the spotlight. This time it’s because, for the first time since 1995, the Wolverines are about to be led onto the gridiron by a new man. A coaching change in Ann Arbor is truly news; in East Lansing, where it happens more frequently than presidential elections, the shock factor is almost nil anymore.

You have to be pushing 50 (a group that, sadly, includes me) to recall when it was the other way around. A time when Michigan football was in upheaval and MSU football’s foundation was as solid as oak.

“Kill, Bubba, Kill!”

That was the chant around campus in the mid-1960s, when defensive end Bubba Smith headlined those great Spartan defenses, along with linebacker George Webster. MSU football was the bee’s knees, constantly ranked in the Top 20, and often in the Top Ten. Once, it was no. 1. That was in 1965.

The next year, in ’66, MSU played Notre Dame in, some would tell you, the greatest college football game in the modern era. Certainly one of the most anticipated, and maybe the most talked about – at least around these parts.

No. 1 Notre Dame (8-0) and No. 2 Michigan State (9-0) got it on in East Lansing on November 19 that year. And the MSU student body, all week leading up to the game, urged Smith to kill Fighting Irish quarterback Terry Hanratty. It’s still unclear whether the pleas were literal or figurative.

Both teams boasted great defenses, so the 10-10 score late in the ballgame was hardly surprising. Hanratty wasn’t dead, but he WAS out of the game, courtesy a first quarter sack by Smith.

The Irish got the ball for their final possession with 1:10 left, on their own 30 yard line. They would have needed about 40 yards to get themselves in field goal position.

But Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian would have none of it. With backup QB Coley O’Brien in the game, Parseghian chose to run out the clock. Once the MSU crowd sensed what Ara was doing, they launched into a chorus of boos. There would be no resolution on this gray Saturday afternoon. No satisfaction, for either side. A lousy, rotten, 10-10 tie. In the biggest game of the century!

Meanwhile, in Ann Arbor, U-M was plodding along under coach Bump Elliott. Their teams were OK. Not great. Not ranked in the Top Ten. Not like Michigan State.

In 1968, Michigan went into Columbus to play their annual rivalry game against Ohio State. They lost to the Buckeyes, 50-14. Late in the game, OSU went for a two-point conversion, despite their huge lead. After the game, the reporters went after Ohio State’s irascible coach, Woody Hayes. Why had Hayes gone for a two-point conversion with such a big margin in score?

“Because,” Woody snarled, “I couldn’t go for THREE.”

Elliott resigned soon after the OSU blowout. His record was a very pedestrian 51-42.

Michigan then turned to one of Hayes’s old assistants to run their football program.

Glenn “Bo” Schembechler swooped into town and was greeted warmly with this headline from one of the local fish wraps: BO WHO?

The unknown Schembechler lasted 21 years on the U-M sideline. And for those two-plus decades, he turned the tables on stable, always-ranked Michigan State. Gradually, it was Michigan that rose to football prominence in the state, and in the country. And it was Michigan State that became pedestrian, winning some, and losing some more. Michigan began to dominate the U-M/MSU rivalry. The November tilts against Ohio State, with Bo going up against his mentor Hayes, were so legendary that books were written about them. Bumper stickers were printed. They said things like “Woody Is A Pecker” and “Oh How I Hate Ohio State.”

Fun times.

The truth of the matter is that Michigan State football has never really come close to the sort of stature and relevance it enjoyed in 1966 when the Spartans battled the Fighting Irish in a game for the ages. They’ve spent most of their time trying to nip at Michigan’s heels. They haven’t been able to conquer the state, so how can they conquer the country?

Dantonio is in his second season at MSU. He came from Cincinnati, a nice little football program, but in three years leading the Bearcats, Dantonio’s overall record was 18-17. If Michigan had hired a coach with such a mediocre resume, Athletic Director Bill Martin would’ve had to enter the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Before Dantonio there was John L. Smith, a fine man but out of place. He lasted four years. Before Smith there was Bobby Williams, even more out of place than Smith. Williams lasted three years. Not since Nick Saban (1995-’99) has an MSU football coach lasted even as long as five seasons. In the world of college football, where it takes a couple years for the recruiting labor to start bearing fruit, those stints are extremely short and smack of poor hiring decisions and un-thorough due diligence.

There’ve been some peaks at Michigan State, but the distance between them is beginning to grow larger and larger. There was a Big Ten co-championship in 1978 under Darryl Rogers. A Rose Bowl win under George Perles, some 20 years ago. A bit of winning under Saban. But Michigan still beats them like a drum every fall.

It’s been 42 years since Michigan State played the “game of the century” against Notre Dame, another fallen program. Mark Dantonio, it wouldn’t appear, has anything tangible in his background that suggests he can bring the program back to national fame.

Of course, that’s what they said about Schembechler.

BO WHO?

R-Rod Comes With More Baggage Than Any U-M Coach In Memory

This isn’t the first time that I’ve imparted this nugget to you, so I apologize if you’ve read it here before.

I was talking to the late Mark “Doc” Andrews, then a member of Dick Purtan’s radio chuckleheads, back in the early-1990s. This was when the Tigers were in search of a new radio team, with the forced retirement of Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey still fresh in everyone’s minds. I knew that Andrews, for several years, was the Pistons’ radio voice in the late-1970s to early-1980s.

“Are you going to throw your hat in the ring for the Tigers job?,” I asked Andrews. There were many candidates at the time.

He frowned. “I won’t be the guy to replace Ernie,” Doc told me. “But I’ll be the guy who replaces THAT guy!”

Indeed — an easier act to follow.

With all due respect to Lloyd Carr, his emergence as the head football coach at Michigan in 1995 was, frankly, made easier by the circumstances under which it happened.

His predecessor, Gary Moeller, had lost the job in the wake of a very humiliating, drunk-in-public ordeal in a Southfield restaurant. Bootlegged audio tapes of Moeller’s arrest made the airwaves, in which his loud, slurred, emotional words were heard, and he’s lucky it was a time before the Internet got hopping, because we’d probably all own a copy on our computers by now.

So in stepped Carr, and while he was definitely qualified, expectations were a little stunted, considering the distraction that Moeller’s fall from grace had caused. But Carr made things easier on himself, and the program, by guiding the Wolverines to a 9-3 record and a berth in the Alamo Bowl.

Before Carr, there was Moeller, of course — and Mo had to fill the shoes of Bo Schembechler, no less. But Moeller was another whose resume qualified him for the job, and he was that quote-unquote Michigan Man that seems to be so desperately needed.

Ironically, it was Schembechler himself who wasn’t a Michigan Man, when he arrived in Ann Arbor in 1969 to take over after the uneven Bump Elliott Era. In 1968, Bump’s last year, Ohio State beat Michigan, 50-14. That didn’t go over too well in Ann Arbor. Elliott’s overall record at U-M was 51-42-2, so Schembechler wasn’t exactly replacing a coaching legend. You couldn’t last anywhere near 95 games at Michigan nowadays with such a winning percentage.

Rich Rodriguez is on the scene now, and he comes with so much baggage, he needs his own conveyor belt.

Rodriguez has endured, before he’s coached one football game at Michigan, more off-the-field distractions than any U-M coach has for his entire career, almost. Most of them have been legal, and have involved his acrimonious departure from West Virginia. But some have involved messing with Michigan tradition (read: the great “Who wears jersey no. 1?” controversy), and players fleeing the team (Justin Boren). Then there’s following Carr, who might not cast as great of a shadow as Schembechler on campus, but who was pretty darned good, and certainly respected. The fact that Michigan’s last National Title was 11 years ago hasn’t lessened or lowered the expectations. Any Michigan coach has to win, and he has to win now. And Rodriguez must do this, regardless of the challenges posed by the transition from one coach to the next.

Rodriguez arrives in Ann Arbor under, perhaps, the strangest conditions ever for a Michigan football coach. Some of it was inevitable, coming from the natural drama that ensues when you don’t hire from within. But there were no clear-cut candidates already at Michigan to take over. Carr didn’t really groom anyone. Mike DeBord and Ron English, the offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively, weren’t deemed fit for the job, for one reason or another. There was Les Miles with his Michigan ties, but Miles rightly looked at the Michigan job and listened to his mind rather than his heart, and stayed at LSU — the proper decision, from a purely football perspective.

Rodriguez also doesn’t have anywhere near the trust factor from the fan base and alumni, yet, that Carr and even Moeller enjoyed. Again, you have to go back to Schembechler in 1969 to find a comparable situation in this regard.

All this, and R-Rod must win, and win now. What helps his cause is that expectations, from the national scribes, is relatively low — although Michigan does find itself in the pre-season Top 25. Yet there are three Big Ten teams, sometimes four, picked above them. Not too many folks think all that much of Michigan’s Big Ten title hopes, but that hardly matters, when it comes right down to it. Even in a so-called transition year, six or seven wins won’t be acceptable. Losing to Ohio State, despite the fact that Michigan will almost certainly be considerable underdogs, won’t be acceptable, even if it is expected. Michigan fans will recall what new OSU coach Jim Tressel said when he was hired lo those many years ago: We WILL beat Michigan this year! And Tressel did, and he hasn’t really stopped.

Michigan fans might bemoan the fact that their school didn’t hire that elusive Michigan Man to coach the football team, but who would you have hired, Miles excluded?

Boren Brings Conjecture, Speculation Upon Himself

Justin Boren’s father just wishes that all the speculation and murmurings surrounding his son’s self-ziggy from the Michigan football program would all go away.

Well, tough. His son created this monstrosity; he can now deal with the fallout.

Boren, a starting offensive lineman and Honorable Mention All-Big Ten player in 2007, abruptly left the football team this week. No great crime there. Student-athletes are free to drop out whenever they’d like. But Boren didn’t just quietly walk away.

“Michigan football was a family, built on mutual respect and support for each other from (former) Coach (Lloyd) Carr on down. We knew it took the entire family, a team effort, and we all worked together,” Boren said in a statement.

“I have great trouble accepting that those family values have eroded in just a few months. … That I am unable to perform under these circumstances at the level I expect of myself, and my teammates and Michigan fans deserve, is why I have made the decision to leave.”

And Mike Boren, who played at Michigan under Bo Schembechler, has the temerity to be agitated by the furor that those comments of his son’s has spawned?

If you want to leave, leave. Boren was a starter, so simply leaving without saying anything at all might have been strange, too. But a simple, “I’ve chosen to go in a different direction” would have sufficed. You can’t torpedo ALL speculation, but you can certainly do things to discourage some. And you can certainly do things to egg it on, which is what Justin Boren did with his cryptic, silly statement.

What in Hell’s acre is he talking about? Family values? Talk about a hackneyed, overused, now almost meaningless term. You can’t get much more broad, speculative, and non-committal than that.

In the first paragraph he lauds former Coach Lloyd Carr and the environment that he created. (“We knew it took the entire family, a team effort, and we all worked together”). Then in the next paragraph he says of new coach Rich Rodriguez, though he doesn’t refer to him by name,
“I have great trouble accepting that those family values have eroded in just a few months.”

So here’s what any clear-thinking, sane person can gather from Boren’s statement.

Coach Rodriguez has, “in just a few months”, fostered an environment where it DOESN’T take a team effort, and everyone DOESN’T work together. He’s eroded those mystical family values, after a few spring practices.

Here’s father Mike: “We wanted to have this go away quietly, but we didn’t want people to think he’s a quitter or couldn’t handle the system. There were definitely problems. It just could not work. Justin went to the right people and tried talking to people, but no one wanted to listen.”

Note to dad: if you want things to “go away quietly”, then you don’t toss out head-scratching, vague statements such as the one your son issued. This is MICHIGAN. Your kid didn’t leave some small, podunk school here. And as for Justin wanting to talk to people and no one wanting to listen, that’s just more fodder for everyone to kick around. Another cryptic remark.

So now we’re all left to submit our own version of what went down between Justin Boren and Michigan football, i.e. Rich Rodriguez. The coach, for sure, won’t comment. He only likes to talk about the kids who play for Michigan, as it should be.

It amuses me when people plant seeds then act incredulous when things start sprouting. Yes, this will pass. We will move on. But don’t whine about the interim storm, when you created those conditions to begin with.

Institutions Of Higher Earning

(note: this column was written Saturday, before U-M hired Rich Rodriguez. It was supposed to run on Sunday)

Wanna know when a college football coach is thinking of leaving the school he’s coaching at currently? When he says things like, “I’m very happy where I’m at. I have no desire to leave.” Then you know you got him dead to rights.

This is the time of the year when you can cue the phonograph and begin the game of musical chairs in campus football – between the regular season and the bowl games. Those fired have been canned weeks ago. Those mulling a change of venue are in the peak time of mulling. Some coaches drop their current employer like a bad habit and flee to greener pastures – pun intended. And those schools without a coach can find themselves engaged in very public, very awkward searches. But more about Michigan later.

It’s been going on for decades, this blarney from the college football coach.

Why, in our backyard practically – in Ann Arbor and East Lansing – one man rose above the whispers and rumors, while the other issued denials until the jig was up.

In the early 1980s, Texas A&M was very sweet on Bo Schembechler, who was in the prime of adding to his legend at Michigan. The courtship started the usual way – thru hush-hush conversations and rampant speculation.

But Bo would have none of the media circus that can surround such wooing. Before we knew what hit us, Schembechler went public, spilling the beans: Texas A&M had come calling, and was waving some serious bucks in his face. And this: Yes, I considered it, Bo said. Seriously. But in the end, he couldn’t bear to leave Ann Arbor and his kids. Not even for more dough.

The story had ended not long after it began.

A couple years earlier, Darryl Rogers was coaching at Michigan State. He was a popular flavor, having lifted the once-moribund Spartans to a co-Big Ten title in 1978. He had beaten Michigan that year, not long after calling the folks in Ann Arbor “arrogant asses.” Other schools looked at Rogers and got some ideas.

Rogers, presumably NOT cleaning out his office in East Lansing (but we know better)

One of those institutions was Arizona State.

But unlike what Schembechler would do later, Rogers went into denial mode – once the story broke that the college in the desert was showing some interest, that is.

The denials were rather stringent in their tone – almost defiant. No way, Rogers told us, would he ever leave MSU for Arizona State University.

No way.

The story picked up some steam, and the cat seemed to be out of the bag: Rogers would be, indeed, the new coach at ASU.

But the coach still declared the reports fiction.

He did so, in fact, until just hours before he stepped onto a podium on the Sun Devil campus, introduced as ASU’s new coach.

It was wondered how much longer Rogers felt he could get away with his denials, which were considerably less truthful than the stories he was refuting.

Several years later, in 1985, the Lions, it was reported, were seriously considering plucking a college coach to lead their team. Monte Clark had been given the ziggy after seven years. Maybe the new coach, he of the college pedigree, could bring the team out of its morass.

But the college coach pooh-poohed the rumors. He was perfectly happy where he was, thank you. No way would he be leaving for the NFL, to coach the Detroit Lions.

No way.

One day after feeding us some more denials, Darryl Rogers stood before the lights and cameras at the Pontiac Silverdome, grinning that crooked grin of his, accepting the offer of a clearly misguided Bill Ford Sr.

One afternoon at practice, three years and some change later, Rogers would stare at the ceiling in the Dome and wonder aloud, “What does a guy have to do to get fired around here?”

I thought of Rogers as I watched the Bobby Petrino ordeal play out.

Petrino, happily ensconced as the football coach at Louisville University this time last year, issued the typical denials as rumors bobbed to the surface that the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons were knocking on his door. The usual “I’m happy here” blather.

Then he went and signed with the Falcons – a five-year commitment.

I’m not sure what he told Falcons owner Arthur Blank, but it must have been quite a bill of goods, because there were many more, better qualified candidates than Petrino for that job.
Last Monday night, Petrino coached the Falcons to a very uninspiring loss on national television. His record sat at 3-10.

The next morning, he was on a plane to Arkansas, being introduced as the Razorbacks’ new coach. Just like that.

He left a brief letter in the stalls of his players. It had all the warmth of an employer’s rejection note.

Bobby Petrino had quit on his team, and had fed a bunch of blarney to his owner.

The comments from the Falcons players included words like “classless” and “not what a man does” and “I have no respect for someone like that.” Some of them were uttered even as the locker room TV beamed images of a smiling Petrino at an Arkansas pep rally.

Now I also think of Nick Saban, who assured the Miami Dolphins last winter that he was going to be their coach for a good long while. Less than 24 hours after the most recent “assurance”, Saban took the job at Alabama. Among those blasting him for his blarney was longtime Dolphins coach Don Shula – whose son David was the one being replaced by Saban at ‘Bama.

Michigan, twice rejected – that we know of – is now wining and dining Rich Rodriguez of West Virginia. Unfortunately for the Maize and Blue, the two men they’ve pursued the most – Les Miles from LSU and Greg Schiano from Rutgers – have made good on their denials, and are staying put. Bo Schembechler all over again – in reverse.

Former Pistons coach Butch van Breda Kolff said it best, and the most succinctly. Having just signed a contract extension with the Pistons in 1971, VBK was unimpressed when reporters asked for his comment.

“Hell, they can always fire you. And you can quit if you want to.”

Care to argue with that?

Yes, Michigan Is #5 — And Here’s How

The way I see it, the pre-season college football pollsters got it right. They rarely do, because how can you legitimitely rank teams that haven’t played a game yet? But this time they were spot on.

Those pollsters had Michigan ranked #5. And they were right. U-M is, indeed, #5. I say that despite the two opening losses — to Appalachian State and Oregon, both at home. I say that despite the fact that the team started poorly in Week 1 and got shockingly worse in Week 2.

The Wolverines are the fifth-best team, alright — in the state of Michigan.

Certainly you can’t put them ahead of Michigan State. The Spartans are 2-0, and despite a mild scare from Appalachian State-wannabe Bowling Green (who beat Minnesota in Week 1) last Saturday, the fact of the matter is that they’re undefeated and that puts them far ahead of Michigan.

You can’t put U-M in front of Grand Valley State, either. The Lakers are 1-0 and ranked #1 in Division II. They have been a powerhouse in the thumb area for years now.

Don’t slot Michigan ahead of Central Michigan. The Chippewas are 1-1, and that’s one game better than the Wolverines.

And, finally, though it’s rare, you can’t even say U-M is better than the Lions, who are 1-0 and looking like they could give Appalachian State quite a tussle — maybe even beat them.

So there you have it — U-M is the fifth-best team, and is struggling to fend off 0-2 Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan for #5 honors.

You might think this is oozing with sarcasm and cynicism, but is it fair to put any of those four teams behind Michigan in terms of anything other than disappointment on the grandest scale? If it’s wrecked, ruined seasons and national humiliation that are your categories, then yes, U-M is #1 in the land. No one is even running a close second right now — not even Notre Dame, the next team set for an Ann Arbor football date, who is also 0-2 and is playing such bad football that even their coach agrees with a victory guarantee made against his team.

U-M running back Mike Hart made one of the emptiest victory guarantees in recent memory when he boldly predicted a Michigan triumph over Notre Dame, in the aftermath of the Oregon Ducks’ demolition of U-M, 39-7, on Saturday. That declaration had about as much resonance as an MRI of his team’s heart. (OK, now THAT was oozing sarcasm).

Anyhow, ND coach Charlie Weis had no problem with Hart’s guarantee.

“After watching the first two weeks of film, I’d maybe say the same thing myself,” Weis said, oozing witty candor.

Will Michigan move up in the state polls this week? MSU hosts 2-0 Pittsburgh, so maybe there’s hope there. Grand Valley is, like I said, #1 so they should win again. CMU is at Purdue, so that might be U-M’s best chance to leapfrog someone. The Lions are at home, and they’ll be fired up — and will probably even win.

Here’s my prediction after the dust settles Saturday:

1. MSU
2. GVSU
3. Lions
4. U-M
5. CMU

The sad thing? Moving Michigan up to #4 is almost like a pity vote. Hell, it is.

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SPOOKY CURSE?

I thought that this should be mentioned, though I’m hardly the first one to point it out.

U-M is 0-4 after Bo Schembechler’s death on the eve of the Ohio State game last November.

Clearly, this is a coincidence, right? I mean, it’s not like Bo would have wished anything ill on his school, like some other famous sports curses. So it’s not a curse in that regard. But it is, I don’t know, kinda spooky, don’t ya think?

I think so.

Weird.

U-M Now Has Their Central Michigan, But To The Nth Degree

I was at a friend’s house that September Saturday, in 1991. We were taking in the U-M/Notre Dame game, watching it on a TV in the garage, when someone burst into the backyard with the news.

“Michigan State lost to Central Michigan! Michigan State lost to Central Michigan!”

We laughed and howled and wondered how such a thing could happen: a Mid-American school beating a Big Ten school, in the Big Ten school’s house.

It couldn’t have been too flukey; CMU did it to the Spartans again in 1992.

Every MSU fan must, today, feel like the kid who did something embarrassing at school, only to have the popular kid do something even MORE embarrassing, taking the first kid off the hook — forever.

Never again should the Sparty faithful have to put up with the CMU talk — which still does crop up from time to time, some 16 years later. Never again should they have to defend or try to rationalize that loss. Never again.

“Michigan lost to Appalachian State! Michigan lost to Appalachian State!”

There’s a new mantra in town.

Heck, I thought it was going to be bad enough when it appeared the mantra was going to be, “Michigan ALMOST lost to Appalachian State!” Even if the Wolverines hadn’t allowed that last field goal drive, or even if their own FG attempt at the end had been between the uprights instead of between an ASU player’s numbers, sealing a precarious victory, the critics would have had a field day.

“Michigan ALMOST lost to Appalachian State!”

Well, lose the “almost” and that mantra has shelf life like you wouldn’t believe.

Oh, how much will the MSU folks be able to squeeze from this one? Or any other U-M hater out there. You think they danced a little jig in Columbus Saturday evening? Blew a kazoo on the USC campus?

It’s been written that Michigan’s season is now over with, before Labor Day. If the sole goal is National Championship, then that viewpoint might prove to be correct. But it’s always about how you finish. Look no further than last season, when U-M started 10-0 but then a loss to Ohio State ruined their BCS hopes. Folks remember what happened most recently.

U-M will never, and I mean NEVER, live this loss to ASU down, from a historical perspective. But if they pick themselves up, and just keep winning football games, and end up with just the one loss … who knows? So the season isn’t over with. They just can’t lose any more games.

Michigan lost to Appalachian State, and we won’t stop talking about it. Nor will our grandkids.

But the season isn’t over. It just feels that way to the Michigan faithful. It’s coach Lloyd Carr’s job to make sure it doesn’t feel that way to his kids.