Failure to Adapt: The Rich Rodriguez Era in Ann Arbor

In the wake of Rich Rodriguez’s firing, I find it curious that the talking heads on ESPN continue to insist that Rodriguez is a good coach.

It is a bit of conundrum to reconcile his success at West Virginia with his failure at Michigan. In Rodriguez’s own words, he didn’t start taking stupid pills when he arrived in Ann Arbor.

However, there was an underlying theme to the Rich Rodriguez era at Michigan: a failure to adapt. He was the same coach who led West Virginia to conference titles and BCS bowl victories. But he failed to adapt in several crucial areas as the Wolverine head coach. 

Defense:

The seeds for Rich Rodriguez’s downfall were sown when he failed to convince Jeff Casteel to join him in Ann Arbor. Jeff Casteel‘s record as the defensive coordinator for West Virginia University is impressive and extremely under-rated. He has made a habit of coaching top 10 defensive units and garnering coordinator of the year awards.

He was the perfect complement to Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia. Recognizing that he didn’t have the talent needed to be successful in a conventional defensive scheme, Casteel implemented the 3-3-5 defense. This scheme allowed West Virginia to maximize their surplus of speedy defensive backs and minimize their lack of gargantuan linebackers.

When Rich Rodriguez accepted the head coaching position at Michigan, Jeff Casteel decided to stay in Morgantown. And just like that, the Rich Rodriguez era in Ann Arbor was destined for failure.

For some reason, Rich Rodriguez could not make it work with another defensive coordinator. He drove off Scott Shafer, who went on lead a defensive renaissance at Syracuse. Then he forced Greg Robinson to run Casteel’s 3-3-5, a scheme that the former NFL coordinator was not familiar with. The results were disastrous, the 2010 Wolverines were the one of the lowest- ranked defensive units in the country and the worst in school history.

By year 3, Rich Rodriguez had found his quarterback in Denard Robinson and the offense showed signs of greatness. An impressive feat considering the fact that Rodriguez inherited a roster completely unsuited for the spread offense. But it’s hard to hold on to your office in Schembechler Hall when your defense goes from bad in your first year to absolutely abysmal in your third year.

Rodriguez could not adapt to not having Jeff Casteel in Ann Arbor. He forced his first DC to resign for being so thoroughly un-Jeff Casteel-like and then tried to transform his replacement into a Jeff Casteel clone. Needless to say, it did not work and Rodriguez is now unemployed.  

Recruiting:

A few years ago, when Rich Rodriguez as the hottest coach in the country, the college football world looked at his over-achieving West Virginia teams and wondered what he could do at a traditional powerhouse school. The athletic directors at Alabama and Michigan were so intrigued that they offered him the opportunity to coach the Crimson Tide and the Wolverines respectively.

In football, big and fast is the ideal. However, if you can’t recruit big and fast then you need to make a choice between recruiting big and slow or small and fast. Rodriguez designed an offensive scheme based on his ability to recruit small and fast to non-powerhouse schools.

The implicit assumption was that at Michigan, Rodriguez would be able to recruit the big and fast players that he couldn’t attract to Morgantown. And once he had that level of talent on campus, his spread offense would be unstoppable.

But for some reason, he didn’t recruit the big and fast players. For the most part, he continued to sign the same type of small and fast players he recruited at West Virginia. For some reason, he wasn’t able to adapt his recruiting to fit the expectations of the University of Michigan and the increased physical demands of playing in the Big Ten.

Culture:

Much has made of the fact that Rodriguez was not a good fit for Michigan. People love to throw around the “Michigan Man” term without elaborating any further. The genesis of the term is from a Bo Schembechler quote regarding a basketball coach’s commitment to the University of Michigan. Bo never said that the head football coach’s resume had to be printed in Maize and Blue before assuming the job. If he had, then Bo would have been a hypocrite. The ultimate Michigan Man came to Ann Arbor from Miami of Ohio and prior to that, gasp, Ohio State.

A good fit for Michigan is a coach who deflects all praise to his players and assumes all criticism in defeat. If you want to see how a Michigan Man behaves, look at Jim Harbaugh at the Orange Bowl. He never stops praising his players and refuses to be praised as a coach. The moment that he got up on the dais to accept the Orange Bowl trophy, he began to toss the oranges back to his players so that they could share in the glory.

That is what the type of behavior that the Michigan fan base expects from their football coach. Rodriguez failed to adapt to this as well and a majority of the fan base never really got behind him as a result.      

Rich Rodriguez is a good coach; his record prior to 2008 cannot be denied. However, he is not adaptable. He was not able to adapt to a new and challenging situation at the University of Michigan.

He will find another opportunity to be a head coach and he will, most likely, be a winner once again. But I am willing to wager that it will be in a situation that is very similar to the one he enjoyed in Morgantown.