Post by elp525 on Sept 2, 2008 10:05:50 GMT -5
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Jerry Green
ANN ARBOR -- Michigan opened its celebrated anti-tradition era with its heavily publicized modern-style offense looking as though it were conducting a fire drill.
By that, I mean helter-skelter, willy-nilly and putt-putt!
This is what Rich Rodriguez brought with him from West Virginia along with all his baggage.
In the first game of this new regime, the Wolverines operated without a huddle. The quarterbacks -- and Rodriguez used three of them in his debut -- received the plays via semaphore from other quarterbacks on the sideline. Sort of like ancient dreadnaughts headed into sea battle -- or taught to soon-to-be teenagers at Boy Scouts camp.
The code had to be confusing for the young athletes. And the formations included a potpourri of everything witnessed at Michigan over the last century or so. Wingbacks, slots, an array of wide receivers, the direct center snap to the quarterback, one play from the T.
It included a bit of Fritz Crisler's single wing, a touch of Bennie Oosterbaan, even a slice of Fielding H. Yost and an occasional fillip straight out of Bump Elliott and Lloyd Carr. But nothing that Bo Schembechler ever endorsed, except on the overworked defense. The T formation is no longer in vogue at Michigan.
This was the new Michigan on vivid display before 108,421 spectators -- most of them clad in noxious yellow T-shirts -- plus a small contingent of workers in hardhats watching in the new skeletons of the under-construction area of Yost's visionary Michigan Stadium.
When Saturday's afternoon/evening event ended, Michigan had suffered another first-game defeat, 25-23, to Utah.
So what's different, other than this newfangled offense that made Rodriguez such a coveted football coach?
Well, it's now tradition-be-damned at Michigan!
Longer than a half-century ago, I learned there were certain individuals who qualified as what were referred to as Michigan Men. They were gentlemen of character and dignity. Their word counted. They didn't garnish the truth. When they made commitments they kept them.
Oosterbaan was a Michigan Man. Ron Kramer was a Michigan Man. Elliott was a Michigan Man. They all became All-Americans playing football at Michigan, and Bennie and Bump then became coaches.
It was tradition. And plain fact was that an individual did not have to attend Michigan to earn the right to be called a Michigan Man. The designation evolved from respect.
Crisler did not play his football at Michigan. But he became a Michigan Man because he had that special character that I have associated with this university.
Schembechler played football elsewhere and coached at other schools and he was groomed by Woody Hayes at Ohio State. But Bo, he became the quintessential Michigan Man. He had his moods, he displayed his temper. But to him his athletes mattered most, and he was an educator as well as a football coach.
Lloyd Carr grew up in Michigan but attended Northern Michigan. He, too, became a Michigan Man -- a credit to this university. So much so that the loudest cheers from those 100,000 or so infidels clad in yellow were for Carr during a presentation on the field at halftime -- the same folks who wanted him led to the guillotine not very long ago.
Fritz, Bo, Lloyd -- they were outsiders who bonded with Michigan and grew into Michigan Men.
It is more than winning football games. Character matters. It is part of the rich tradition.
Rodriguez came to Michigan as an outstanding football coach. He coached some of his West Virginia teams into national contention. His teams at Michigan -- once the athletes become adept at operating this flashy offense and once better players can be recruited -- should qualify as national contenders. He talks about reviving the Michigan football program, turning the Wolverines into Top Ten contenders.
But will Rich Rodriguez become what the proud alumni call a Michigan Man?
He talks about being his own man, doing it his way, not being fake.
But he came to Michigan after athletic director Bill Martin's embarrassing anti-tradition quest for a coach to replace Carr. The Les Miles capers turned into a fiasco.
Then Rodriguez arrived in Ann Arbor with a clouded past. Whether he broke a contract at West Virginia, whether he went back on his word -- those are moot questions and are now in the rocky past. But it reeks more of Nick Saban and his travels than it does of the Michigan football that Oosterbaan taught me about more than 50 years ago.
It is said that Rodriguez is something of a charmer.
Perhaps.
In his first game at Michigan, his team was outplayed by a terribly undisciplined Utah team. The supposedly sleek, sophisticated offense sputtered too often. Rodriguez used Nick Sheridan as his starting quarterback, and finished up with Steven Threet. Carlos Brown played one play at quarterback, one play up under center in the obsolescent T formation.
On the sideline, Threet and David Cone and then the replaced Sheridan wigwagged the signals to the quarterback of the moment. Assistant coaches in headsets, connected by wire to play-callers up above, translated the plays into the code for the semaphore artists. And on the field the players skipped around, here-and-there; in and out; three or four guys out wide -- an inside handoff here, a short pass there, an occasional toss down field.
It was all very tricky and innovative, Rodriguez's offense.
"You can't get experience until you play," he said about his young athletes. "We got a lot of experience today."
Then he turned into pure coach. The coaching clichés he imported from West Virginia sounded strangely familiar.
"I have to watch the films," he said.
By count, he mentioned he must watch the films seven times, during an unenlightening postgame media session.
So Rich Rodriguez is pure football coach -- but the debate will continue among the Old Blues: Can he become a Michigan Man?
Jerry Green
ANN ARBOR -- Michigan opened its celebrated anti-tradition era with its heavily publicized modern-style offense looking as though it were conducting a fire drill.
By that, I mean helter-skelter, willy-nilly and putt-putt!
This is what Rich Rodriguez brought with him from West Virginia along with all his baggage.
In the first game of this new regime, the Wolverines operated without a huddle. The quarterbacks -- and Rodriguez used three of them in his debut -- received the plays via semaphore from other quarterbacks on the sideline. Sort of like ancient dreadnaughts headed into sea battle -- or taught to soon-to-be teenagers at Boy Scouts camp.
The code had to be confusing for the young athletes. And the formations included a potpourri of everything witnessed at Michigan over the last century or so. Wingbacks, slots, an array of wide receivers, the direct center snap to the quarterback, one play from the T.
It included a bit of Fritz Crisler's single wing, a touch of Bennie Oosterbaan, even a slice of Fielding H. Yost and an occasional fillip straight out of Bump Elliott and Lloyd Carr. But nothing that Bo Schembechler ever endorsed, except on the overworked defense. The T formation is no longer in vogue at Michigan.
This was the new Michigan on vivid display before 108,421 spectators -- most of them clad in noxious yellow T-shirts -- plus a small contingent of workers in hardhats watching in the new skeletons of the under-construction area of Yost's visionary Michigan Stadium.
When Saturday's afternoon/evening event ended, Michigan had suffered another first-game defeat, 25-23, to Utah.
So what's different, other than this newfangled offense that made Rodriguez such a coveted football coach?
Well, it's now tradition-be-damned at Michigan!
Longer than a half-century ago, I learned there were certain individuals who qualified as what were referred to as Michigan Men. They were gentlemen of character and dignity. Their word counted. They didn't garnish the truth. When they made commitments they kept them.
Oosterbaan was a Michigan Man. Ron Kramer was a Michigan Man. Elliott was a Michigan Man. They all became All-Americans playing football at Michigan, and Bennie and Bump then became coaches.
It was tradition. And plain fact was that an individual did not have to attend Michigan to earn the right to be called a Michigan Man. The designation evolved from respect.
Crisler did not play his football at Michigan. But he became a Michigan Man because he had that special character that I have associated with this university.
Schembechler played football elsewhere and coached at other schools and he was groomed by Woody Hayes at Ohio State. But Bo, he became the quintessential Michigan Man. He had his moods, he displayed his temper. But to him his athletes mattered most, and he was an educator as well as a football coach.
Lloyd Carr grew up in Michigan but attended Northern Michigan. He, too, became a Michigan Man -- a credit to this university. So much so that the loudest cheers from those 100,000 or so infidels clad in yellow were for Carr during a presentation on the field at halftime -- the same folks who wanted him led to the guillotine not very long ago.
Fritz, Bo, Lloyd -- they were outsiders who bonded with Michigan and grew into Michigan Men.
It is more than winning football games. Character matters. It is part of the rich tradition.
Rodriguez came to Michigan as an outstanding football coach. He coached some of his West Virginia teams into national contention. His teams at Michigan -- once the athletes become adept at operating this flashy offense and once better players can be recruited -- should qualify as national contenders. He talks about reviving the Michigan football program, turning the Wolverines into Top Ten contenders.
But will Rich Rodriguez become what the proud alumni call a Michigan Man?
He talks about being his own man, doing it his way, not being fake.
But he came to Michigan after athletic director Bill Martin's embarrassing anti-tradition quest for a coach to replace Carr. The Les Miles capers turned into a fiasco.
Then Rodriguez arrived in Ann Arbor with a clouded past. Whether he broke a contract at West Virginia, whether he went back on his word -- those are moot questions and are now in the rocky past. But it reeks more of Nick Saban and his travels than it does of the Michigan football that Oosterbaan taught me about more than 50 years ago.
It is said that Rodriguez is something of a charmer.
Perhaps.
In his first game at Michigan, his team was outplayed by a terribly undisciplined Utah team. The supposedly sleek, sophisticated offense sputtered too often. Rodriguez used Nick Sheridan as his starting quarterback, and finished up with Steven Threet. Carlos Brown played one play at quarterback, one play up under center in the obsolescent T formation.
On the sideline, Threet and David Cone and then the replaced Sheridan wigwagged the signals to the quarterback of the moment. Assistant coaches in headsets, connected by wire to play-callers up above, translated the plays into the code for the semaphore artists. And on the field the players skipped around, here-and-there; in and out; three or four guys out wide -- an inside handoff here, a short pass there, an occasional toss down field.
It was all very tricky and innovative, Rodriguez's offense.
"You can't get experience until you play," he said about his young athletes. "We got a lot of experience today."
Then he turned into pure coach. The coaching clichés he imported from West Virginia sounded strangely familiar.
"I have to watch the films," he said.
By count, he mentioned he must watch the films seven times, during an unenlightening postgame media session.
So Rich Rodriguez is pure football coach -- but the debate will continue among the Old Blues: Can he become a Michigan Man?
