As I mentioned in one of the earlier blogs, this was a wild and wacky season for coaching changes for college football. You can thank Appalachian State for that. So, in honor of this 2007 season, I give you a list of some, with grades. Keep in mind that I factor in the type of hire, the search, the reason for termination, and my own personal opinion of those things as factors for the grades that are dished out. This is just purely for fun, as my opinion doesn't really matter anyway...but nonetheless, I promised, so here goes.There will be a new post for each fire and hire, with a story/reason explaining the grade given.
1. Michigan
Old Coach: Lloyd Carr
New Coach: Rich Rodriguez
Overall Grade: A-
Reason's: Carr's opening day loss to the defending NCAA D1-AA champs pretty much sealed his fate, and sixth loss to Jim Tressel just put the final nail in the coffin. The Monday following the OSU-Michigan game, Carr announced his retirement, effective after the Wolverines Bowl Game. Several media outlets immediately linked LSU's Les Miles to the job, and had pretty much started that rumor in week two of the season. It certainly didn't help matters that Miles danced around the question and earlier in his career at LSU had stated the Michigan job was his dream job. By championship week, the rumors of Miles to Michigan were a full blown media circus, with ESPN announcing that the deal was already done. Miles denied it, Michigan denied it and by the end of championship weekend, Miles had basically taken his name out of the hat for the job, opting to sign an extension with LSU instead. A few names danced around about the job, and ESPN refused to believe that they screwed the pooch as they still linked Miles to Michigan. It wasn't until Rodriguez flew to a meeting/interview in Toledo, and subsequently danced around the questions concerning the opening in Ann Arbor, that he became a legit candidate. Less than two days following the interview, both Michigan AD Bill Martin and Rodriguez confirmed that he was the new head guy in Ann Arbor.
Search: The media made more out of this than there really was. Overall, the lack of legitimate info from Michigan, followed by speculation and dodging of questions just added fuel to the fire. The actual hire is a good one. Rich will have a large talent pool with virtually no problems of eligibility issues from which to recruit from, and his style of offense (option spread, which is basically just the spread offense) is something that the Big Ten needs (no offense, Illini).
Bottom Line: Rodriguez is the big name hire that the Wolverines needed and means that Carr is able to step aside with grace and dignity. Everyone (with the exception of ESPN and Les Miles) is generally happy with the hire. It may take him some time to build a team around his style of play, but Rodriguez has had success everywhere he has been. And Ann Arbor should be no different.
