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Rich Rodriguez: Five burning questions

by on Nov. 21, 2011, under Arizona football
Rich Rodriguez

Rich Rodriguez coaches in his final game at Michigan -- the 2011 Gator Bowl, a 52-14 loss to Mississippi State. Photo by Mark Zerof-US PRESSWIRE

And away we go …

Is Rich Rodriguez a good hire for Arizona?

The Wildcats just hired a man who couldn’t win at Michigan, going 15-22 in three seasons. The last coach to leave Michigan with a losing record did so in 1891. Yes, 1891.

Losing at Michigan is hard to do, but RichRod did it. So, that’s not good.

But here is what I have always thought about Rich Rodriguez at Michigan: “Wrong man, wrong time” and not “bad coach.”

This is the ultimate “buy low” opportunity for Arizona. If the Wildcats had to make this hire four, five years ago, Rodriguez wouldn’t have paused to return a text message from Arizona. This is a guy who turned down Ala-freakin-bama after the 2006 regular season.

Then came a messy departure from West Virginia (allegations that Rodriguez shredded personnel files and other documents on his way out, and a lawsuit over the $4 million buyout in his contract) and the washout with the Wolverines (which included NCAA violations regarding limitations on practice time and off-field activities).

Those are not small marks against his record, but they did make him available to a school like Arizona, which otherwise wouldn’t be in a position to hire a guy who won four Big East titles in seven years. He was one victory away from having the Mountaineers in the BCS national championship game before a devastating 13-9 loss to Pitt at the end of the 2007 regular season.

If he’s that coach — the one who went 32-5 in his last three seasons at West Virginia — then Arizona got itself a bargain.

Now, I don’t believe for a second that Rodriguez was athletic director Greg Byrne’s first choice. I believe recent negotiations with former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti were serious before cooling on one side or another, possibly both.

Not that it matters now. Rodriguez is the guy. Let’s judge him on what he does here. Plenty of excellent coaches weren’t the No. 1 choice at their school.

I have little doubt that Rodriguez, the 48-year-old son of a coal miner, will “win the press conference” Tuesday afternoon and charm fans and boosters in the offseason with his folksy personality.

Good hire? Time will tell — how’s that for a cop out? — but it’s a swing-for-the-fences hire, which is what we expected from Byrne.

What becomes of the offense?

Rodriguez is a pioneer of the read-option offense, the kind that Oregon uses to run over most Pac-12 defenses. Arizona fans have gotten used to a passing spread offense; this will be a running spread offense.

UA is passing in historic numbers this season, averaging 48 attempts and 370.5 yards per game. Senior quarterback Nick Foles is setting all kinds of season and career records, and they might stand for a while.

West Virginia, in Rodriguez’s final season in 2007, averaged 20.4 passes per game. The Mountaineers attempted 17.9 passes a year earlier and just 16.1 the season before that.

Hey, whatever works; West Virginia averaged 36.9 points in those three seasons.

This all sounds like a good fit for athletic quarterback Matt Scott, a senior-to-be who can handle the run game. This is bad news for Rutgers transfer Tom Savage, who is a pocket passer. He has two seasons of eligibility left but just spent his redshirt season on this year’s transfer to Arizona.

What about recruiting?

Rodriguez isn’t from the West and hasn’t really recruited hot-bed California (didn’t we hear the same complaints about basketball coach Sean Miller?). It’s a resume deficit that can be overcome with the right assistant coaches and a little bit of time.

He’ll have ample time to keep together and/or add to Arizona’s current recruiting class. The Wildcats had two players de-commit after the midseason firing of coach Mike Stoops; 16 committed recruits have been playing the waiting game to see which coach landed in Tucson.

After Rodriguez was hired at Michigan, he made headlines (and enemies) around the Big Ten when he swooped in at the last moment to grab three players who had been committed elsewhere — two to Penn State and one to Purdue.

Then-Purdue coach Joe Tiller called Rodriguez “a guy in a wizard hat selling snake oil.”

Will any of the current assistants be retained?

At Michigan, Rodriguez retained only one Wolverine assistant, importing most of his staff from West Virginia. It is expected that he will bring in a mix of his assistants from Michigan and West Virginia.

An exception could be quarterbacks coach Frank Scelfo, who was on the same staff as Rodriguez at Tulane in 1997 and 1998, working for head coach Tommy Bowden. The Green Wave went 12-0 in 1998, and quarterback Shaun King led the nation in passing efficiency.

Considering how Scelfo did wonders last season with Matt Scott’s throwing mechanics, the coach could be a valuable guy to have around in 2012.

Arizona sports information director Tom Duddleston tweeted that Rodriguez, who arrived in Tucson late Monday night, said he hoped to quickly hire two or three assistants.

What does Rodriguez do about the defense?

His preferred style of play is a 3-3-5 defense that worked well at West Virginia but flopped at Michigan without the right coordinator. Look for him to try to pry his old Mountaineers’ defensive coordinator, Jeff Casteel, out of Morgantown, something he couldn’t do when he left for Ann Arbor.

RichRod’s Michigan defenses got progressively worse, from 67th nationally to 82nd to 110th in 2009.

Arizona, with ample young defensive backs, has the personnel to make the 3-3-5 work — and the Cats just played with a three-man front last week against Arizona State.

The defensive coordinator will be Rodriguez’s most important hire.

Related stories:

Rich Rodriguez reaction: ‘He will love it’ in Tucson

Greg Byrne tweets: Rich Rodriguez is Arizona’s new coach

Video: Rodriguez on the theory of the pregame speech

This entry was posted on Monday, November 21st, 2011 at 11:48 pm and is filed under Arizona football. Tags for this post: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • Bill

    Huge mistake! Burn not byrne is a fool. This guy played patsies to get in the bowl games then got rolled. He is a liar, unethical, and a cheat. Look what the guy that took his place is doing at Michigan. With rr’s players that rr couldn’t win with he is 7-3. The type of offense this numbnut wants to run will not win in the PAC. It is to one dimensional and defenses in this conference are way to athletic. This is why it wouldn’t work at Michigan. It worked at WVU because that conference and the non-conference teams they played are not as big or as athletic.
    It is painfully obvious that “burn” is an ignoramus and does not know how to evaluate a coaches resume. It will be boring painful losses, “burn” and rr will be canned and we will have to start all over again. By 2014 this will be realized and it will be another four years, 2018, before we might have a real team. Pathetic.

    • Jconnard

      Great hire for AZ. He’ll get a top DC and once he gets his pat white, Robinson, AZ will eventually look like his wvu teams.

      Michigan was foolish for letting him go, he would have them in title talks on a yearly basis given 1more year. But it was a mess to start with. Michigans loss and Arizonas gain.

      If he can get his Florida and down south recruits to come out west, he will have AZ competing for a Rosebowl bid frequently. It’ll take him 4 years but once he gets it rolling, things will be great for AZ. The problem is, once he gets things turned around, he’ll once again be one of the hottest coaches available and maybe leave AZ for a bigger program.

    • Jay

      Michigan was, is and always will be a power football team.  RR’s system at Mich didn’t work because the players that were at Mich were power football players when he came in, not spread option players.  Don’t think there is a difference?  Then you know squat about football and putting together an offense.  UA is a spread offense team, has been for several years and those players are already in the system.  If Scott was not here, RR would struggle until he got that ideal QB in the system – next year they will be good because of Scott, whether he can recruit the next QB in here remains to be seen.  But he has the right players at the school today for his system to work immediately.

      And in terms of this offense not working in the PAC 12..  LOL.  Yeah, tell Chip Kelly and Oregon that the rest of the PAC 12 doesn’t think his zone read offense won’t work in the PAC 12 because teams are big and too athletic.

      Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and nobody says you have to like the RR hiring…  But your complete lack of football knowledge completely negates your “opinion”.  You’d be better off saying you don’t like the RR hiring and walk away without any supporting facts – rather than pretending you know what you are talking about – because it is painfully obvious you don’t. 

    • Mike

      Bill – You should get your facts straight. RichRod’s team are 2 and 0 in BCS Bowls. WVU beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and Oklahoma in the Fiesta bowl.  I wouldn’t consider that “getting rolled”. Also the offense RichRod runs is the same offense that Oregon runs. I’m pretty sure that’s been working out well for them the pat couple of season.    Do you homework before posting.

  • Austin

    Are you serious dude? How about this: before you start clamoring around, saying this is the worst hire possible, how about you get to know coach RRod before you say he’s an awful coach. Does that sound like a good idea? Step 1) read “3 and out.” Hopefully, you start to understand why Michigan was so rough on him at the start. Until then, shut up. How many high profile coaches would want to take over for a program who isn’t making a bowl game, losing its top 2 overall players to the draft, and is predominantly a basketball school? Get your head out of your ass, please. You’re embarrassing us all. I mean, really. “this type of offense will not win the PAC.” yeah, Oregon sucks at offense. I agree. Great hire, personally love it. Seriously though, read that book.

  • Ed

    As a Michigan fan I wish Rich the best at UA.  What will make or break him is his choice of assistants.  If he can get Casteel that would be great (not getting Casteel to come to Michigan, in hindsight, was the single worst mistake that was made there).  If not he needs to hire a DC with west coast (i.e. California recruiting) ties.  Then let that DC run what he knows and have input into hiring the rest of the D coaching staff.  A big problem for Rich at UM was an extremely dysfunctional defensive coaching staff.  At the center of that was DB coach and Rich’s best friend on the staff, Tony Gibson (now at Pitt).  The best thing for UA would be for Rich not to bring in Gibby at all.  The next best would be if he came in as special teams coach/recruiting coordinator.  Gibby was the worst position coach I ever witnessed coach at Michigan (going back to 1973) and because he was Rich’s best friend he had more power/influence than the DC.  That caused a lot of problems because the DC had to run a system they (there were 2 DC’s in RR’s time there) didn’t know because Gibby wanted to run what he was used to at WVU.  If Casteel comes, that will solve some problems because he is strong enough to overcome Gibby.

    Calvin McGee (OC) and Rod Smith (QB) were the best position coaches Rich brought with him to UM from WVU. so if you get those two at UA you should be happy.  McGee is at Pitt right now, Smith at Indiana.

    Another mistake Rich made at UM was not hiring guys with stronger midwest recruiting ties.  UM needs to recruit places like Ohio and Illinois well given their location.  Rich kind of ignored that.  The staff he brought had very strong Florida recruiting ties (McGee and Smith are very strong there), but they also needed to get someone strong in Ohio and didn’t.  At UA he’ll need at least a couple of guys already plugged into California.  Hopefully he does that and doesn’t make the same mistakes he made when he went to UM.

    Rich is a great guy and an honest and ethical one.  It is a total bunch of BS that his name is associated with NCAA violations.  There was a total and discpicable witch hunt led by the Detroit Free Press that  caused him and UM tremendous grief and resulted in the NCAA findings (which by the way were a total joke).  Read “Three and Out” by John Bacon for details of that.  

    Good luck, and hopefully Rich make some good decisions in picking his staff. 

    • UM Class of ’81

      Great analysis. I second your recommendation to add “Three and Out” to any Arizona fan’s short reading list. I will be watching the Arizona program closely, am really excited to see Coach Rod get the gig.

  • handwind

    There should be an “undecided” choice on the poll above. The guy isn’t from the southwest, has no ties in the southwest, and has some baggage. Larry Smith wasn’t from the southwest…I’m willing to give the coach a chance. His learning curve is very short, though.

  • Jaime Guttierez

    Tuesday morning and jaime is liking RichRod even more.  Jaime thinks another hispanic in the Cat family is just mucho gusto.  Aye Carrumba!  Jaime likes!!!

  • Mark B. Evans

    Duane Akina, DC?

    • oldwest2

      Nice what could be more awesome than that hire? None.

  • sethers

    I like the hire. I didn’t know much about Rodriguez before this, but the more I read the more I like. I kind of hope he hires a strong DC and lets him run with things. I don’t personally like the 3-3-5 that much. I would love to see him keep Kish on board and let him run the defensive system, but I doubt that will actually happen. No doubt that points will be scored and I think Matt Scott and Kadeem Carey will be very happy in this offense.

  • sethers

    I’ll add – I really hope he understands how good QBs have to be in the Pac-12 in order to win. I know he runs a QB centric offense, but Pac-12 QBs tend to operate on a different level than in other parts of the country.

  • tja80

    Arizona Wildcat fans please listen. I am a Michigan “insider” who made it my business to be informed about the RichRod railroading at Michigan. You have hired a terrific coach. He will succeed unless your university foundation is rattled by resentful insiders and an iconic retired Head Coach who preferred a different candidate and mobilize program alumni against RichRod while also reporting to an equally angry and increasingly irrelevant press minor institutional problems in a sensationalistic way and in reckless disregard of the facts in order to undermine him and sell newspapers. For every Wildcat fan looking for the whole story I recommend reading John Bacon’s revealing new, best selling book, “Three and Out.” It will make your blood curdle to read how dysfunctional my beloved Michigan football program became. The main criticism of your new coach is that his defense was terrible. This is a valid criticism. Make sure he hires a sensational coordinator. RichRod had a right to expect that he would inherit a decent defense at Michigan. In truth, we were thread bare. The lack of institutional support contributed to his inability to recruit his way out of his defensive problems. Having dreadful DC’s also contributed. Get this right and you win Pac 12 titles. He is honest, decent and an offensive genius.
     

  • DonAZ

    Coin toss … might work out, might be merely adequate.
    I’m a long-time Michigan fan and I watched him for three years.  I had hopes the first two years, but grew weary of the same mistakes made game after game.  He has no personal regard for defense, so you better hope he gets a DC who can make it work on his own because whoever that DC is won’t get help or backing from RR.
    Rodriguez’s legacy at WVU was made in the 2005-2007 seasons with Pat White and Steve Slaton, two surpremely gifted athletes.  Before that he was mildly successful.  At Michigan he was horrible as he tore down the house before having the materials to rebuild it.  He had a 5-star QB in Ryan Mallet and could have retained him were it not for his stubborn insistence on running the read-option spread right away.  His entire offensive philsophy is based on getting another Pat White / Steve Slaton combination.  Short of that he’ll be merely adequate … 7-5, 8-4 maybe.
    I am prepared to be proven wrong.  I don’t think I will be.

    • oldwest2

      Those records are considered winning seasons at Arizona.

  • NateVolk

    Arizona fans. There are a couple members of what we called the Rich Rod Mafia on here trying to sell you too much on his failure at Michigan. What they say is true about the lack of a support base within in the University. But he was the head coach and that was a lot on him in failing to build those bridges.  The head coach holds way more power to effect the outcomes on the field, than the media, the old guard university cronies or disgruntled ex-players combined.  People who think otherwise aren’t in reality.

     Rich failed at Michigan because he didn’t win enough. In fact the losing he did there was considered impossible at a school like Michigan. Still he pulled it off. He inherited a defense with NFL talent at 3 or 4 positions in 08 and so alienated them that they went through the motions and wholly underachieved. He made no serious effort to adapt to the talent that was left on either side of the ball. Don’t be fooled, it was Michigan and there was still more talent then most schools.

    You’ll see that the guy is in love with his offensive genius label and is not adaptable to the talent he will inherit in any shape or form. If you can ride that out, he’ll deliver an interesting and at times explosive offense. Don’t expect that offense to be highly productive against big athletic defenses though. It never was in the Big Ten. Except in blow outs when the other team would gladly let him run his quarterback into the line while they nursed 20 plus point leads. He’ll face a lot of bigger athletes in the Pac 12 too.

    Be mindful that he was no where near installing anything like we saw at Oregon after 3 years at Michigan. The systems may be similar, but Kelly has a great eye for talent. Rich was tanking in recruiting at Michigan. Especially recruiting good local defensive talent, which he frankly seemed indifferent to doing.  He preferred 2 and 3 star guys who fit his offensive system over mega talents higher rated players. The other issue is after 3 years, I still had no idea what he wanted as far as defensive recruits. His performance in recruiting talent on defense was abysmal by Michigan standards.   I would say it was abysmal by Mike Stoops Era Arizona standards too. So keep an eye on that.

    The facts are the offense was interesting and blew up some serious numbers against weak teams but was no where near worth the pain of the 3 basically rotten years it took to achieve it. Rich is a good guy though and he is probably ok character wise. The guys who said he was the victim of a witch hunt by local media are right on. 

    Be careful not to overestimate the guys ability as a football coach based on the WVA thing. If he learned his lesson about going after big time defensive talent and he brings in a competent defensive staff, you might compete and maybe go to a Rose Bowl.  But he’s in love with his ego and if he looks at Arizona as the chance to recreate the thing he built at WVA, he’ll fail. Teams like USC, Utah and ASU will handle that offense and score a million points on you.

    Not sure how it will work out. I wanted to make sure you got some balance away from the Rich Rod Mafia version of his Michigan days. In that world, everyone undercut this genius coach right before he took the team to greatness. It’s bunk. He was treated poorly but he never won anything in 3 years and that’s what happens. 

    • UM Class of ’81

      Seems like his defensive recruits at Michigan are doing pretty well given a good DC. Not to take away from a lot of what you are saying, but it assumes that he had power that they never really let him have.

  • dtownwolv

    I do think this is a good hire for both UA and RR.  I thought he would end up in the ACC.  However, I am  not sure if RR can win at the highest levels in a real conference… The Big East is not close to the same level of weekly competition as SEC, B10, Pac 10, or Big12 and his record at Michigan was disastrous when you really look at the schedule and the numbers, most of the large offense stat were put up against weak competition and/or after Michigan was basically out of the game and teams were in prevent .  IMO RR still has a lot to prove…  it will be interesting to see, especially with his offense philosophy, which although can be explosive and fun to watch, puts a lot of stress on his own teams defense with quick 3 and outs, quick scores, etc… 
    As to Michigan, it is true he didn’t have the support he should have from the ex-coach and some alums (some of which is not his fault and some of which is his fault for the way interviewed the old coaching staff, constant comments about building the program, not adhering to the team captain tradition, etc read the book if you want more) and the NCAA violations were a joke and really shouldn’t be a concern for UA, the reason he was terminated was for lack of performance… his record, especially in the Big Ten… each year his teams performed worse as the season progressed…NateVolk is spot on… I do think RR deserved to be treated better by some, but Michigan deserved better as well, I mean RR let MSU out recruit him the state of Michigan, something that I could never remember happening.
    My predictions is UA will be an above average Pac10 team with occasional break out season every once is a while with a possible Pac10 championship… I wish both RR and UA the best of luck.
     
     
     
    he was fired for one reason and one reason only lack of performance.  His record speaks for itself, especially in the Big Ten and every year his teams seemed to be getting worse as the season unfolded and the blow outs by the strong teams every year.  Well said NateVolk.  Rich Rod was fired for one reason only his teams performance on the field, especially against B10 teams and how each year his teams would get worse as the season progressed. 

  • rod

    To the person stating that RR teams played “pasties and then got steamrolled”; defeating Georgia, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma (with RR players-) winning two BCS games in two of four years and winning the other bowl games in that four year span is not playing losers and getting beat; quite the opposite

  • MFan23

    University of Arizona Fans: 
    As a lifelong Michigan fan, Rich Rod is a good coach and a good man. He was a bad fit for Michigan from the start. He was not prepped well for the opening press conference (didn’t really grasp the Ohio State rivalry) and it only got worse from there. He was undermined internally when the ex-coach signed transfer papers for any player wanting to leave, Remember, he was inheriting a team that beat the Tim Tebow-led Florida Gators. And Rich Rod did himself no favor by not retaining some Michigan assistants which would have helped in the transition (see: no support from Lloyd Carr) and by not hiring a good DC and defensive coaches. Simply put, his UM defense was horrible. By not winning and losing every year to your our two biggest rivals: Ohio and Michigan State, sealed his fate. Hopefully, he has learned from his mistakes and will be successful at Arizona. Even if he puts together an average defense, Arizona will be successful with a high-powered offense. I have a lot of respect for what he went through at Michigan. He is a good and decent family man and is an offensive genius. Look at what his players are doing on a 9-2 team this year. Good Luck and Bear Down!

  • AggieWolv

    My jaw is still on the ground after hearing of this hire. All I can say is, “I’m sorry Arizona fans.” As a true blue Michigan fan, I watched RR drive our program into the ground. He knows how to talk a good talk. After each lost game (and we suffered a bunch with RR) he would always say “my system takes time, I need more time.” Give me a break. The guy is a liar, he cheats, and he’s stupid. Yes, I’m sorry, he’s stupid. He’s going to make very bad decisions because he just doesn’t know better. The author of the article is right; RR was the wrong coach for Michigan. He’s the wrong coach for every organization and y’all have got to STOP looking at his WVU record. Come on folks, this is WVU, Big East, not a real football conference and no where near the caliber of Pac12 play. Listen, I’m also connected to Texas A&M where Greg Byrne’s father is AD; yes, the same school that left the Big 12 to join the SEC in an effort to snub UTexas. .. good luck with that Texas A&M. The Byrne’s are idiots, and RR is a poor choice for coach at Arizona. Mark my words, y’all will regret it.

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