Go Blue, a U of M fan ever since he left the friendly confines of the 270 highway loop surrounding Columbus to travel north to get his certificate of attendance from U of M has recently opined upon the reasons that the U of M should not fire Rich Rodriguez.

As an OSU fan, I could not agree with him more.  Rodriguez has been an important pipeline of talent for OSU’s offensive line.  Justin Boren, a Michigan recruit, and a fellow who started on the offensive line for U of M as a true freshman (and playing well in the victory over Florida in 2007), left Big Blue last year and enrolled at OSU after he found Rich Rod’s coaching atmosphere to be less than family friendly when compared to Lllllloyd Carr’s.  We will need a guy with playing experience next year given the graduations on the OSU O Line this year, and thanks to Rich Rod, we will get one just in time.

Further, Rich Rod has shown an alarming (if you are a Michigan fan) grasp of the fundamentals of coaching.  Little things like not getting the plays in to the defense in the game against OSU were obvious even to the likes of Bob Griese, who commented on the fact that seniors on the Michigan defense were yelling at their coaches for not getting the play calls in.  As a coach, an argument can be made that you can’t improve the talent on a team that you have just taken over.  But you certainly can get your play calls in in time to have your players attempt to execute them. 

This may have been going on all year, but we would not have known it because the Michigan players were afraid of getting benched or kicked off the team if they expressed such outrage in earlier games.  But this being the last game that these seniors would ever play for Michigan (there being no bowl game in sight for teams with 9 losses), they likely felt free to exercise their rights to free speech.

So I say keep paying the man for the product he has put out.  I say keep doing it for at least 11 years, or at least however long John Cooper was at OSU.  Go Blue is right on this one.

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