Michigan Football: Mailbag question — About "Black Thursday" at Michigan

Posted at 6:00am — 12/23/2007

Michigan Football: Mailbag Question — About “Black Thursday” at Michigan

Hey Guys,

What happened and why was all the coaches fired from the current staff and do you see if any would be retained by Coach Rod?

Also what is the reason to fire them if they are going to hire them all back?

Thanks guys,
Tom

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GBMWolverine Response:

Our first reaction to the firings was complete shock. We thought Coach Rod would keep some former staff members on board to help with the change over, but the more we thought about his actions the more we realized the wisdom of what Coach Rod did.

Easiest thing would have been to keep select former assistants on staff. Easy and extremely safe. One thing we know Coach Rod is that he is neither. He is an aggressive risk taker and he just a giant message that he is complete and total charge. Probably biggest question is why take the risk. First it is just his nature. But there are some excellent reasons more related to football.

The message he just sent his team is loud and clear. The old ways are gone. Things will be done my way. If you do not like that, good luck, no hard feelings, this program is just not for you any more. He know longer has to watch his back, And worry about players running to hold over assistants complaining about how things have changed. Coach Rod has his work cut out for him trying to get Michigan players prepared for his systems.

A staff in place who are at least familiar with his style and philosophies will make a tremendous difference in getting his systems taught. Not having to coach coaches as well as players will make huge difference. None of our former offense assistants have any experience in spread offense. Let alone Coach R-Rods version. With coaches experienced in his schemes available not bringing them in would have been questionable. Plus, Coach Rod spent time watching practices this week. Was this as much an audition for coaches as players, possibly. He very well could not have liked how they interacted with players, or thought their styles would not work with him. Sometimes it more about fit then talent.

Not saying this is without risk. To was some huge risk involved. First he has no coach with Big Ten experience. He and staff are going to do extensive and exhaustive film work to get up to steam on Big Ten opponents. And there just some things you cannot learn from film. There is also risk of losing many of this year recruits. And then having to establish connections with High School coaches in the area. Keeping support staff should help with that. But loses might not be as large as originally thought.

Many of these new recruits just might not fit into Coach Rod new system. And Coach and staff have already have some contacts in Ohio from time at West Virginia.

We think we just a got our first glance of how Coach Rod works. He is not going to be a status-quot type coach. He is going to be fiercely loyal, hard working, aggressive SOB. Players are probably going to be moaning and groaning. Good, it is about time we change this lazy, uninspiring attitude. And we just saw the first move. We are sure there are more to come!

As mentioned earlier we really could not understand why he did it that way, but after really thinking about it and then replaying his press conference he said that he was going to do this and have those guys go through the process. He said “there will be several WV people, there will be several outside that we will look at and also several re-hired I do not call it retained to be part of our staff.”

So after watching the replay of it again we understood why he did this and it does make a lot of sense. First off it shows that he is in total control evens if Bill Martin and he having a deal worked out about keeping so many coaches or at least a couple. Also shows the players that a new sheriff is in town and things aren’t going to be like they have been around Ann Arbor. We believe this will also show that he means business and wants to take this program over and do it his way.

Well after Friday we learned that Fred Jackson was “re-hired” and Fred made it seem like at least two more coaches from the former staff could be on the new staff. We know that Coach Rod will have Calvin Magee as his OC will he coach another position? Tony Gibson will be his CB coach, Bruce Tall as the Safety coach or Defensive Line coach. A lot of the other spots are up in the air and might depend on whom and when West Virginia hires a coach.

Biggest question mark is the Defensive Coordinator position and does Jeff Casteel follow Coach Rod to Michigan?

The sooner the better especially if you are hoping more of the former coaches get retained or re-hired. What happens to Scot Loeffler as the QB coach, Erik Campbell at WR coach and Steve Stripling as the DL coach who seem to be the guys possibly might have a chance to get re-hired as well, but again a lot will learned once WV hires a coach. Your allowed ten coaches total.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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