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Managing Expectations Isn’t Easy My Friends
[Photo from Michigan Exposures...It's an interesting pic - click to enlarge - Ken explains what he did in the first comment below]
After yesterday’s rather demoralizing beat down at the hands of Wisconsin’s 700 pound offensive linemen, my first thought was that I am still 100% behind this team and Rich Rodriguez. I truly am. Not because I’m happy with what I’m seeing on the field, but because of, lets’ say, about three reasons.
- Youth be all up on that field. Youth equals mistakes and it also equals potential for growth and future success.
- I like Rich Rodriguez as a head coach. Players like him, he’s a likeable guy, and I believe that he is a good coach.
- This team returns 19 starters next season, a record setting quarterback, and by all available accounts via the internets a bunch of guys committed to Michigan football.
Managing Expectations. If I recall, it wasn’t long ago that the majority of Michigan’s fan base viewed this season as a success and a step in the right direction with seven wins or more. So, remember what you essentially knew as this season was set to begin: Michigan would have a dynamic offense and a scary bad, inept defense. Welp! What do you know – that’s exactly what’s happened. You’ve got the most dynamic and statistically impressive quarterback in the history of dual-threat quarterbacks to make you smile, while you have the worst Michigan defense you’ve ever seen in your life to make you want to pull your hair out.
I, you, the media, everybody knows who this team is at this point in the season. The general freak out from Michigan fans about how horrendous RR and the coaching staff is just makes me shake my head. Michigan got beat by a top 5 team in the country with as many seniors starting as Michigan has freshman and sophomores starting. Literally, Wisconsin loses like 19 starters after this season is over. Is it frustrating to watch? Hell yes, it’s beyond frustrating. We are used to, we expect, we don’t understand how MICHIGAN can’t step it up at home and beat a top team. I’ll steal a line from RR in his post-game presser – this is just reality at this point.
My point, it’s extremely hard to manage our expectations regarding this team. But, in order to stay sane, you have to digest the youth, attrition, the transition, and all the injuries to understand why Michigan is not exceeding your expectations for this 2010 season. You might scream excuses, excuses, excuses. In part, they are excuses. But guess what, next season the expectations are no longer seven or eight wins. The expectations are nine, ten, or eleven wins and some impressive wins in the conference.
Gotta go here. Special teams is killing this team just as much as the defense. You HAVE TO BE ABLE TO MAKE A 30 YARD FIELD GOAL. You just have to. Upon Michigan missing that field goal – I had that sinking feeling like this was just going to be a bad day. Damn, was it ever.
Useful thoughts. Per usual, I’ll rummage through the emotions of the board at MGOBlog after a victory or a defeat. Some that I thought were worth pulling out that reflect some perspective and lack ledge-jumping indicators. This…
I have serious reservations about firing a coach after only 3 seasons, or even 4, particularly when the team has shown progress towards something special happening soon. Anyone who cannot see the potential for greatness in our offense, or realize that our D is severely hamstrung by the lack of experience, probably never liked the hire in the first place.
And for those thinking it, people like me are not happy, or even content with, a seven win regular season. We do, however, see the promise in this team, and we can place our expectations on the side of realism based on the team’s shortcomings.
And this…
God forbid our team of mostly freshmen and sophomores isn’t challenging for the Big Ten title. Yes, our defense needs to get better, and that likely means that GERG gets shown the door at the end of the season. Realistically though, how many teams with our lack of experience at so many positions would be expected to be any better than Michigan is this year. OP, you need to sit back and have a little patience. Let our young guys grow into their roles on the team. If we haven’t made progress next season, then that would be the time to bring up this subject again.
And this…
By the time Rodriguez coached his first game at Michigan, the wheels had completely fallen off the program (and teams with no wheels go 3-9). You can blame whoever you want to for that happening, but it was a done deal. Since then we’ve seen a team get markedly better two years in a row, a team poised to improve for a third straight season with 19 starters and virtually the entire two-deep returning next season. Not to mention the team now has some legitimate star players for the first time in Rodriguez’s tenure (aside from Brandon Graham and the best punter ever).
Maybe the rebuild isn’t going as fast as you’d like, but teams that go 3-9 and lose to Toledo do need to be completely rebuilt, whether you like it or not. We’ve finally got the wheels back on the car and the doubters need to just shut up and give Rodriguez one season to drive the damn thing.
Esta aqui…
I just did some research and discovered that in Rodriguez’s entire coaching career, not just at Michigan, NOT ONCE has he beaten a team which finished the season undefeated.
OUTRAGE!!!
From Jim Brandstatter’s blog.
This team isn’t bad. They’ve improved from a year ago. After a 48-28 spanking thats hard to hear…but it’s true none the less. It’s not going to fix itself overnight, or next week. It will get fixed over time, as players mature grow into young men, get bigger and stronger and can stand up and slug with the likes of Wisconsin. Make no mistakes, this offense at Michigan scares a lot of defensive co-ordinators. The defense doesn’t, and thats the problem.
Hey, RR didn’t do anything as egregious as Bo Pelini. Point for Rich Rod! During the strange 9-6 Nebraska loss to Texas A&M – dude rails his starting quarterback and Taylor Martinez appears to not really care as evidenced by his body language.
The pic is called a fake tilt-shift, it came from messing around in GimpShop (I don't have PhotoShop). Basically its an attempt to make the players look miniaturized. It was fun making but I need to do a little more work on it. At any rate, thanks for posting it.
Ken,
No problem. I always check out your pics because they are always interesting! That's a pretty cool effect….
Mike P.
Great post. Makes a lot of sense. We all expected seven wins and we got it — and possibly one more. NOBODY expected our offense and QB to be as good as they turned out to be, yet nobody mentions how they've exceeded all our expectations.
I've been quite frustrated with the defense, especially because I'm not sold on the whole 3-3-5 thing in the Big Ten. (However, I do recall that RR's last WV team, spanked a much bigger Oklahoma team in the bowl game immediately after RR left, so who knows?) But i do see improvements in the defense, even over the last few games. I'm willing to wait another year and hope RR doesn't throw Greg Robinson under the bus — I think another year of stability on the coaching staff is warranted and will better determine what changes, if any, will be needed after next season is done. The commentators during the Wisconsin game seemed to agree that it was inexperience and youth that was the defense's main problem, not the coaching. (Let's not forget that during Lloyd's last year, our defense had slipped to 68th in the nation.)
As for the offense, we couldn't ask for much more, even though we're due to get it, which is great! Let's face it, our offense is known and respected nationally which makes me feel proud and reminds me why I was excited when I heard of RR's hire.
When this team finally gets a defense, and it will, we will be vying for national championships and probably win more national championships under RR than Bo and Lloyd combined.
Bottom line: let's give RR and his staff the benefit of the doubt and at least another year. He's a class act and knows what he's doing.
Frank,
You can never please everybody. Michigan could go to Columbus this weekend and cross the state line on the way back with a fat W and there would still be people calling for RR's head and complaining about something.
Not a bad point about Carr's last few defenses. They whiffed at every spread QB and had their own set of issues. Like I said, sometimes I just shake my head when I read what people say about this team. It's not that the defense is poorly coached – it's the face that many of these kids were suited up on Friday nights last year at this time. You simply cannot fundamentally play sound against a guy that physically owns you.
All RR has to do is get one NC and he's tied Bo and LC combined. Don't forget, Bo never did win a national championship. That's in no way a knock in his career, he just never won one.
Mike P.
What I like about this team is the potential. The offense is mostly there; the defense has a long ways to go. Nonetheless, when this team clicks we will be talked about among the top teams in the country. Even in Bo's and Lloyd's hey-day, there were usually questions about whether we could match up against the top teams outside the Big Ten, and our bowl records (not getting there, but winning them) backs up that doubt. (And OSU's bowl performances in recent years doesn't help either.)
Yes, I know RR is just getting this team to its first lowly bowl, but it's obvious that there's going to be much better things to come. And when we're there, there will be no more talk about not being fast enough, or innovative enough, or explosive enough to compete nationally.
Go Blue.
Frank,
Right, offensively the potential is there and it's being realized in most games this season, but defensively it doesn't appear that the potential is there at this point.
I like and generally agree with your viewpoint on what could eventually come if RR is given the chance to stay.
You bring up an interesting point relative to the perception of a RR offense vs. a LC offense when vying for a championship. Chances are that Michigan's offenses under RR will always at least appear to be faster and more effective than a traditional pro-style UM O. See Oregon.
Mike P.