Apocalypse Rod: Michigan's Colonel Kurtz Mission

I began this season thinking Michigan would have a very rough time of it but eventually start coming around. My theory was that the defense, which was expected to be very good, would carry the offense, which wasn't, and that by the end of the season Michigan would get back to being Michigan again.

Somewhere on my homepage blog, following the Utah game, I noted that I wouldn't be surprised if a rapidly improving Michigan was 5-6 going into the Ohio State game and yet good enough to pull the upset. That, after all, is the kind of thing Michigan does: Win when their backs are absolutely against the wall.

It's what makes them Michigan.

I don't believe any of it anymore.

I think what is happening right now IS the new Michigan. While they'll obviously not be this bad for long, there's mounting evidence that the Wolverines have inked a contract with mediocrity.

Back on May 12, I was predicting a serious adjustment period by Michigan standards, but hardly extreme for the rest of the college football world. Still, I was going further than most by picking them to go 6-6 and finish sixth in the conference.

"6. MICHIGAN (6-6 and 4-4)

"In addition to conference defeats against Mich St, OH ST, Penn St and Wisc, they may also get beat by Toledo and Utah—two potential champs in their respective conferences—or maybe Notre Dame (hey, if App St could do it...). Perhaps the weakest Michigan team in 20 years plays a deceptively tough schedule..."

On July 28, I was considering the possibility of a modest losing season, but still granting that Michigan would eventually get back to being Michigan again...

"My worldview does not include a Michigan team that does not win at least 50 percent of its games, but that is a possible outcome this season. Not probable—I think nine wins is as likely as five—but a losing season is weirdly thinkable..."

But all this was because I was being realistic about the challenges facing the new coaching regime. I argued a couple of weeks ago, following the Toledo game, that the current struggles didn't necessarily reflect poorly on Rich Rodriguez, noting that he is...

"...a proven coaching talent, and once he’s had time to build his kind of system the results should happen on the field. A new winning culture may finally grow..."

That last part is the conventional wisdom on this situation, something I usually try very hard to avoid buying into.

I'm now ready to take it all back.

The Spartan game did it for me. I've NEVER seen a Michigan team playing at home get handed that many mistakes by ANYONE, let alone Michigan State, and not make them pay for it. The Michigan that I know doesn't let that sort of thing pass, particularly with their backs against the wall and needing a win more than at any time in the last 40-plus years.

No, this isn't the Michigan football team anymore, at least not in any way that I recognize the term.

While there's nothing to back up making foolish predictions of endless losing seasons, I think it's exactly the right time to peek at the available evidence and seriously wonder whether the new coaching staff is a second-rate replacement for what came before it.

Start with defense, which everyone (including me) thought was going to be one of the very best in the conference, if not the nation. Since fur trappers began navigating the Great Lakes, the Michigan Wolverines have been about defense. Last year's group was ranked 24th in the nation for total defense, a very typical Michigan ranking.

The new coaching staff inherited a healthy seven starters from that group and generations of tradition, yet now they're 79th for total defense. If that doesn't improve, it will be their worst finish for that stat since at least 1999 (maybe longer—the NCAA website doesn't go back any further.)

And it's not getting any better. During the opening game, Utah put up 341 yards of offense on the Wolverines. This is the third-worst offensive performance to date by the still unbeaten Utes. Likewise, Notre Dame's 260 yards of total offense two weeks later against Michigan was the very worst offensive outing of the season for the Irish.

For the early games, the Michigan defense wasn't great, but it was pretty good, and you had reason to think it would get better.

But fast forward to Michigan State last week: The 473 yards that Ringer and Co. hung on Michigan was their second-best outing of the year, eclipsed only by the 497 yards that the Spartans rammed down the throats of Indiana's defense several weeks earlier.

Only the defenses of Coastal Carolina, Temple, and Syracuse gave up more yards to Penn State than the Wolverines did.

This growing and very uncharacteristic problem for Michigan on defense obviously has little to do with Rich Rodriguez trying to install a new offense. Teams are getting better at moving the ball on Michigan as the season gets older.

On offense, it's just the opposite.

For game number one, the Utah defense allowed the Wolverines just 203 yards, the Utah defense's third-best such performance to date (they are currently ranked sixth for total defense.)

The ongoing problems with the Wolverine offense since then are too numerous to recite, but even here it is stunning to note that their SECOND-worst yardage total of the season came in their most RECENT game against Michigan State.

Just as revealing, the 252 yards gained by the Wolverines last Saturday was the second-lowest total allowed by the Spartans on the season. Only Florida Atlantic, a pass-heavy offense playing very cautiously in a monsoon, gained fewer yards against the Spartan defense.

Even after this, the Spartans are still ranked just 56th for total defense.

Gaining 203 against a good Utah and then just 252 against a medium-good MSU seven weeks later—that is not much progress at all. It is even realistic to call it regression.

Michigan is 111th in total offense. Their punter has kicked the ball more distance than the Michigan offense has moved it.

After the Toledo game, Michigan AD Bill Martin compared this disaster to Nick Saban losing to Louisiana-Monroe last season, as if Michigan would also rise from the ashes to No. 2 next year.

The small difference is that at one time last year, Alabama was a 6-2 football team that had been as high as No. 16 in the polls. They were still 6-4 when the upset to La.-Monroe happened and eventually finished 7-6 after going to and winning a bowl game over Colorado.

So, yeah, Toledo would have been exactly like La.-Monroe if Michigan were a mediocre team going through tough adjustments, rather than an awful team digging itself into deeper holes.

Most (but not all) of Rich Rodriguez's strongest résumé bullet points come from the three consecutive 11-win seasons put up in his final years at West Virginia. Without that, he doesn't get the Michigan job.

When he arrived at West Virginia in 2001, winning the Big East conference title required beating teams like Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College. By the time he actually started winning Big East titles, those heavyweights were gone to the ACC, and in their place names like "Rutgers" and "South Florida" began creeping to the top of the conference standings.

With all of the Wolverines' troubles, one can't help but wonder how much better Rodriguez's first season would have gone if Penn State, Ohio State, and Illinois had all left the conference upon his arrival.