The only Rich Rod supporter in Michigan

By now everyone knows the hot seat is on fire right now for Michigan football head coach Rich Rodriguez. Michigan football supporters and fans have been screaming for weeks and months now to fire Rich Rod, but should he really be fired after just three seasons?
I consider myself to be about the only Rich Rod supporter left in the Michigan football fan base. I know he went 3-9 in his first season, improved t0 5-7 last season, and got into a low end bowl game this year with a 7-5 record. Even with all of that I still feel he should be the Michigan football head coach for a minimum of one more season.
Rebuilding a football team isn’t easy and can’t be done overnight. The program was trending down in the last few years of the Lloyd Carr era and it was time for a change. Michigan decided not only was it time for a change, but it was time for a major change and that’s when they hired Rich Rod to come in and implement the spread offense.
I guess Michigan fans thought rebuilding would be easy as fans were upset with his performance after the first season. A season where Rich Rod didn’t have any of his players in that system. He called on Steven Threet to run the spread offense. Steven if you happen to be reading this I’m sorry, but you are not mean to run the spread offense.
Threet wasn’t the only one who wasn’t fit for that offense. I don’t think any of the offensive players were meant for that offense. So that’s why when I look at the Rich Rod era I throw out the first year all together. It was like taking an Amish person and sending them to work for Apple or Microsoft. It wasn’t going to work immediately.
The team made some positive strides in Rich Rod’s first legitimate season winning five games and the offense started to put up points in bunches, but remained inconsistent. Tate Forcier was labeled the next great quarterback in college football after his second or third game. I think these unreasonable expectations early on really hurt his progress.
The offense made more positive steps this season winning seven games and having a top 10 offense in the nation and a potential Heisman finalist in Denard Robinson. Michigan is going back to a bowl game too. Not a major game by any  means, but still making a bowl game is another sign of progress in rebuilding.
Firing Rich Rod wouldn’t be a good idea at all. He was asked to come in and rebuild the team from the ground up and that’s what he’s doing. This isn’t basketball; you can’t bring in five outstanding freshman and make a serious run. This is football where there may be up to 100 players on a roster, not 15.
Rich Rod’s first freshman class he brought it just finished up their second year. The more they play together the better chemistry they’ll have and they will earn more wins. To me it seems like Rich Rod is certainly on the right track as crazy as it may seem.
Yeah the defense has been terrible, but it’s a very young defense and a lot of players missed games because of injuries. Dump Greg Robinson and give the defense some time and they’ll come around too.
If Michigan lets Rich Rod go the Michigan faithful will more than likely be thrilled, but they shouldn’t be. Even if we get our Michigan man Jim Harbough from Stanford we’re still restarting the rebuilding process again. Harbough could easily come in and take one look at Denard Robinson and say he doesn’t fit the pro style offense he wants to run, and Denard is the immediate future of the teams success.
Let’s say Michigan fires Rich Rod. They go after Jim Harbough and offer him a five year contract worth $20 million. Then the Minnesota Vikings pick up the phone and offer him a five year contract worth $30 million. If Harbough is smart he’ll take the $30 million and go to the NFL. Coaching in the NFL should be the ultimate goal for any serious football coach at any level because the NFL is the highest level of competition for football.
So with Harbough gone in this scenario Michigan reaches out to Les Miles… again. Les says “thanks, but no thanks I’m happy down here at LSU.” Now what does Michigan do. It makes the program look awful if they fire a coach after just three seasons then swing and miss twice on two other big name coaches. Who else would there be in this scenario for Michigan to even get?
Jon Gruden?
Anyone remember Charlie Weiss? He came from the NFL and was hailed as the next great coach in Notre Dame history. He was awful. He struggled with adapting to limited practice times with his players and recruiting. Plus Jon Gruden is overrated anyways. The only reason he won a Super Bowl is because he took over a team that Tony Dungy built into a contender.
So Michigan fans look at what you’ve got right now. You have progress being made. You should have never thought that anyone could come in and rebuild the program overnight just because “It’s Michigan football.” That’s an unreasonable expectation for any football coach at any level.
Give Rich Rod at least one more year. They probably win nine games this next season and beat one of their big rivals (either Ohio State or Michigan State) and the team continues to gain more chemistry and more wins which is what all Michigan fans can agree on wanting.