Making Sense of Your Wreckage Part 1

by Slate Quicksilver

The college season is almost over, sadly. For some, there is still another month and a half filled with late season in-conference bouts, conference championships, bowl prep and the actual bowl itself. But for a good deal of teams, the season ends shortly. At a time of such darkness, sometimes it is an outside source that lends the sense to a program racked with nonsense filled times. Thus, I begin a new series highlighting teams that were colossal failures this year, and I will try to make a bit of sense. As usual, biases and pre-conceived notions are in play.

This week's team to try to explain: The University of Michigan.

One may think: "Slate, why give such an arrogant fanbase..." any levity or credence at all, "let them burn in their own fumes of unspent self-satisfaction!" Well friend, it's an inner fear. It's proof to all people who are in a fanbase of a big time program. If Michigan can fall, anyone can fall.

Granted, it was their own hubris that did it. They fired a legendary coach, impulsively, after a few bad losses. Oh wait, sorry, he "resigned." But it wasn't just that. They also snubbed several potentially great candidates (Brian Kelly @ Cincy, Jim Harbaugh @ Stanford and Les Miles @ LSU) and then "settled" with a gentleman who had never gone undefeated even in the thin and fluffy Big East. That gentleman was the same one who would steadfastly eliminate several long standing team traditions and move his highly specified offense without shifting at all to an offense who was as prepared and equipped to run his offense as an army of kittens armed only with cuteness would be to invade North Korea.

Well, after a full year and some solid recruiting, Rich Rodriguez actually looked smart. Michigan was 4-0 and some Michigan fans even considered Rose Bowl tickets. But here we are in mid-late November and since then, Michigan has won exact;y 1 game since. That win? Against powerhouse Delaware State... a D2 team.

So what went wrong?

Problem #1: Youth
The Youth didn't really grow up for the Wolverines. The trial by fire didn't work well. Tate Forcier started off well but has shrunk to a husk of a human being. He now looks timid and has happy feet on the scale of Tim Couch. The other QB, Denard Robinson, who made that amazing run in week 1? He'll probably be a slot WR or a safety next year. Basically, the youth never got their stuff together.

Problem #2: Cupcake scheduling
Michigan had its first FOUR games scheduled at home. Their schedule: Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan and Indiana. Western is a big fish in the MAC vernal pond, Notre Dame is LOLZORZ bad, Eastern Michigan probably will not win a game this year and Indiana is better than most will admit but is nowhere near "good." So the second this young left the friendly confines of Ann Arbor, they got walloped. Michigan State crushed them for 55 minutes and Iowa spanked them for 58 minutes. They were close games thanks to late rallies, but those close losses clearly hurt the youngsters. They beat Delaware State, but then began their current four game slide in which they give up the butt on a major league scale.

Problem #3: Rich Rodriguez's Spread Offense
There is something inherent about his version of the spread. He wants to run as many plays as humanly possible as quickly as possible. That is a TERRIBLE idea in the Big Ten because most teams play a ball control offense. All that is required is to not let them score because you basically are given the clock battle on a silver platter. Go back to West Virginia with RR... they would either blow a team out or lose a close shootout. And that was when he had a defense, which leads us to...

Problem #4: Greg Robinson
Someday someone will be able to clearly explain why Greg Robinson is the defensive coordinator on this team. Robinson, as head coach, buried Syracuse in the core of the earth. He was 10-37 as a head coach. Worse still, of all people in the world who should know how bad he is at defense, it is Rich Rodriguez. RR at WVU vs. Greg Robinson's Syracuse squads: 111-38 in 3 meetings! Again, why is this guy defensive coordinator? Michigan's defense is always tired thanks to their team averaging only 26:22 minutes of possession each game. So let's review: The defense is always on the field and they have a terrible coordinator. That sounds like a recipe for success to me!