<p>and make no mistake, Penn State is one of the bottom teams in the big ten this year playing with an injury decimated OL, a walk-on at QB and a terrible DL to boot. We manage to not outscore them with our "superior" offense and made their walk-on QB look like a heisman candidate..</p>
<p>haha and some people on this board had the audacity to scream bloody murder as I was bagging on this hick all through the past few years.. classic. Cant wait for this hick to get fired.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was expecting us to win. I’ll always support the team but it gets disappointing seeing them fold like a lawn chair once we hit the Big Ten season… at least we have a shot at being bowl eligible this year.</p>
<p>yeah, this was ridiculous. I seemed to think the penn state game was in the bag and Illinois was the one we might lose out of the next 4… OSU and Wis are guaranteed losses and illinois is looking like it might be too now :(</p>
<p>We shouldn’t fire Rich Rod… maybe we could fire Robinson. Hopefully English won’t mind coming back. </p>
<p>But people really need to look into whats going on before they call for RRods head</p>
<p>The signs of a demise in Big Ten play were being foreshadowed while most of us were caught up in the hoopla of a 5-0 start and Denard-for-Heisman hype. Three of the wins were by a touchdown or less - a come behind victory against a weak Notre Dame team playing with back up quarterbacks, a narrow victory against a weak FCS team and a last minute victory against a perennial Big Ten door mat. UConn and Bowling Green are fighting to stay out of the basement of their respective conferneces.</p>
<p>In four Big Ten games this year we have yielded 148 points, an average of 37 points a game. Over the course of entire season, the Michigan defense gave up to Big Ten opponents only 67 points in 1976, 78 points in 1977, 57 points in 1978, 64 points in 1980, 60 points in 1985 and 78 points in 1997. We scored only 9 points when we beat Ohio State 9-3 in 1980. I think we will score at least nine points this year but how many more than 3 will we give up? Most likely more than double on their first drive.</p>
<p>We now sit in 9th place in the Big Ten - only Indiana and Minnesota are worse. This is a trend that is likely to continue as long as we have a head coach who apparently has little interest in assembling a strong defense and thinks the goal of college football is to score a lot of points rather than scoring more points than the other team. </p>
<p>What this season has come down to is that we must beat Purdue on November 13 on the road to secure bowl eligibility and a spot against the MAC champion in the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl.</p>
<p>Honestly, watching Michigan play isn’t even that much fun. It’s just watching the other team walk past our defensive smurfs and hoping our offense can outscore them. Every time. Of course, any team with a semi-decent defense can give our offense enough trouble to make that tough. And if we get lucky we get to watch them play Dumb**** University in the meow mix ****bowl.</p>
<p>I really hope they can turn this program around soon because I don’t want to watch these games rolling my eyes ever 3 minutes. Everyone agrees that the defensive coordinator needs to get the boot, but I’m not sure firing Rich Rod would make a difference. Hopefully they’ll get it together. Go blue anyway :D</p>
<p>RR is most likely out. Unless we find a way to win 3 of our last 4 games, he is gone. 2 wins will only save him if he keeps the OSU game competitive, but OSU should blow us out in Columbus. </p>
<p>It is too bad because he has a brilliant Offensive mind. Our team is just very poorly coached. The Defense, OL and special teams are so undisciplined. The defense cannot tackle, the OL commits costly penalties with great haste and conviction and our Special teams? Forgeaboutit!</p>
<p>In some ways, RR has shown great inflexibility. He loses his top 4 DBs to injury and defection BEFORE the season even beings and what does he do? He still insists on a 3-3-5 scheme! You need 10 AMAZING DBs to make a 3-3-5 system work effectively, and even then, you are going to give up a lot of yards. With our current personnel, we should be running a 4-3-3 system. Speaking of defections, why are so many players transfering out? Where there is smoke…</p>
<p>He was also very inflexible with Ryan Mallet. Any coach, regardless of coaching style, can make an offense work with a QB like Mallet. But RR just was not willing to compromise. </p>
<p>I am fairly certain that Dave Brandon has started his search as of midnight Saturday night. Obviously, Jim Harbaugh will be at the top of the list. He has taken average talent and turned Stanford into a solid 7-1 team. Gary Pinkel at Missouri is also a solid coach. Of course, Oregon’s Chip Kelly would also be good.</p>
<p>Any other thoughts?</p>
<p>“With our current personnel, we should be running a 4-3-3 system.”</p>
<p>Alexandre… this is not soccer lol…we need 11 people…if we run a 4-3-3 we would get killed with one less man on the field.</p>
<p>Hehe! I meant 4-3-4 or 3-4-4.</p>
<p>So a 4-3 or a 3-4, that last 4 seems redundent </p>
<p>I hope RRod stays and we either give the whole staff another year or we fire Greg Robinson. Like I said earlier, if only English was still here…</p>
<p>I swear if you steal our coach I will personally murder each one of you multiple times. You can have Leach or Richt… just don’t take Harbaugh.</p>
<p>-Stanford fan.</p>
<p>“So a 4-3 or a 3-4, that last 4 seems redundent”</p>
<p>Not with RR’s system. RR uses a 3-3-5 system, which works well against spread offenses, but not in the Big 10. </p>
<p>If the only problem Michigan were the Defense, I too would like to see RR stay on another season. But our issues have been in several key areas. The OL is undisciplined. The Special Teams unit is a disaster. These point to overall lack of control, and that falls squarely on RR’s shoulders.</p>
<p>soyeah, look at it this way. Stanford is borrowing Harbaugh from Michigan. It is only a matter of time before he comes back home to Ann Arbor! hehe!</p>
<p>
This Bear would be happy if 'furd coughed up its Hairball. :)</p>
<p>For this season, I’m just glad The Big Game is at home…we Teddy Bears are a much better team playing on home turf. </p>
<p>Boise State in the Rose Bowl over a 2nd Place 'furd team?.. “It’s a good thing”. ;)</p>
<p>Stanford completely intimidated the Huskies this weekend. H has turned then into a mean bunch of tough SOB’s. Their lines dominate and H likes to do that. He also took shots at all the former USC coahces now making big $$$ in Seattle. He’s the real deal and many have his next stop being in the NFL. I like him.</p>
<p>Greg Robinson is not the problem. The buck stops with RR, and as long as RR is the coach the defense is going to stink because he does not care about the defense. As long as the defense is a problem, even if it is the only problem, Michigan is going to keep losing games in the Big Ten.</p>