Rich Rodriguez Agrees To Coach Michigan

A new era begins today for the University of Michigan's Men's Football team as the school has hired Lloyd Carr's replacement. As ESPN reports (and unlike the last time ESPN reported a coach is coming to Michigan, they have it cold this time, West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez has agreed to replace Lloyd Carr as Michigan's head football coach. This all came together really quickly after Rodriguez met with University President Mary Sue Coleman and Athletic Director Bill Martin on Friday and after a few days of consideration (and rumblings that Rodriguez was going to stay at WVU) Rodriguez told his team at a Sunday team meeting that he was headed to Ann Arbor.

In an early afternoon meeting with his football team, Rodriguez announced he was leaving to become the head coach at Michigan.

Rodriguez walked into a scheduled 1:30 p.m. meeting with his team and emerged 10 minutes later without comment and walked briskly back to his office. Shortly thereafter the players began to file out of the meeting room, somber-faced and generally without comment.

(HT: M-Go-Blog.

After it looked very bleak, and after Les Miles turned us down (in fact, perhaps, turned us down twice) and Rutgers' Greg Schiano did the same it looked like Michigan was going to be caught without a top-tier head coach. Reports had the school contacting Sean Payton of the NFL's New Orleans Saints, but he wasn't interested either. But then the Rodriguez story broke on Friday and everyone in Ann Arbor got excited again.

As I wrote on Friday, Rodriguez may not be Les Miles, and may not have the connections to Michigan Miles did, but he may be every bit the coach. He turned a West Virginia team that was 3-8 in his first season into a national power, with a 32-5 record the past three seasons (11-1, 11-2, and 10-2 going into this year's BCS Fiesta Bowl) with two BCS Bowl births. He's known was an incredibly hard worker, and as an offensive mastermind, who helped turn Shaun King and Tulane into household names while guiding them to a 12-0 record in 1998 as the team's offensive coordinator.

It will surely be a change for Michigan, which may ditch it's usual pro-style attack for the spread offense Rodriguez has helped make famous. Whether current quarterback Ryan Mallett, who has a gun for an arm, but isn't nearly as mobile or athletic as Rodriguez' former quarterbacks, will be able to run Rodriguez complex offense is certainly a question mark. Rodriguez, though, is such a talented offensive mind, that one would think he would be able to adjust his offense to suit Mallett's strengths, while recruiting a quarterback who is better suited to run his offense. Mallett has so much potential, especially given his incredible arm-strength, so hopefully Rodriguez can design a system which gets the most out of a very talented sophomore quarterback. Michigan's defense will be interesting too, with that side of the ball never being a strong-suit for the WVU Mountaineers. Whether the team keeps current defensive coordinator Ron English, or Rodriguez brings in someone new, that will be an issue to keep an eye on.

Today is a great day for the future of the Michigan Wolverines. At only 44-years-old, Rodriguez has already amassed an impressive resume, and if successful, he could be the Michigan coach for the next 15-years (though, that may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves). We certainly will see a change from the traditional and conservative offense which has defined Michigan for decades, but it's a change Michigan needs to make if they will continue to be an elite program in college football. This coaching search may not have started on the right note, but it certainly finished on one.

Sporting News: West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez Negotiating With Michigan?

Thanks to my buddy Ben who sent this link along, the Sporting News is reporting that West Virginia head football coach Rich Rodriguez is in Toledo today with his agent to negotiate a potential deal with the University of Michigan to become the team's next head football coach.

There's a new twist in Michigan's ongoing search for a head coach: University officials are meeting with West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, according to Sporting News Radio correspondent Michael Bradley.

Rodriguez and his agent are in Toledo today to negotiate with Michigan athletic director Bill Martin and university president Mary Sue Coleman.

Michigan has been looking for a head coach since Lloyd Carr announced his retirement Nov. 19 after 13 seasons leading the program.

Rodriguez would be an incredible choice, may be every bit the coach Les Miles is, and would make the school two-for-two in stealing West Virginia coaches as Michigan hired former WVU men's basketball coach John Beilein last year. Rodriguez is 60-26 at West Virginia, an amazing turn around at a school which was 3-8 in his first season. Since that time (2001) he has never lost more than 4 games in a season, and the last three seasons he has led the Mountaineers to 11-1, 11-2, and 10-2 seasons with two BCS Bowl births (a Sugar Bowl win over Georgia in 2005 and another trip this season against Oklahoma).

This would be a an amazing coup for Bill Martin who has not had a good few weeks. Pulling Rodriguez away from alma matter is going to be tough, but if Michigan could pull it off, it would certainly make up for the mess that was the Les Miles courtship. It's actually kind of surprising Rodriguez name has not come up substantively before now considering Michigan's early hiring of Beilein. And considering Michigan's other options at this point (Brady Hoke? Ron English?) Rodriguez would be everything a Michigan fan could ask for and more.

The Dream is Over: Les Miles Not Coming to Michigan

Despite increased hopes in the past few days that LSU coach Les Miles was once again Michigan's top candidate for their head coaching job, it's over. Miles released a statement, read on ESPN this afternoon, saying that while he did speak with Michigan Athletic Director Bill Maritn and University President Mary Sue Coleman on Friday, it was only to assist them in their coaching search and not to place himself in that search. He will not be coaching Michigan next year. LSU has now posted the statement in full on its website, and it's about as pretty clear-cut as you can get (which is saying a lot considering how ambiguous Les has been so far).

“I had a conversation with Michigan last week that covered a wide range of topics. I was doing nothing more than helping them with their search for a football coach, just as any loyal alumnus might do. It was nothing more than that.

“I’m not a candidate for that job and I will not be a candidate for the job. I was only assisting them in their search for a coach. I have a great job at a wonderful place, a place that my family calls home. It’s time that Michigan goes on with their search for a football coach. I’ll say it again, I’m going to be the coach at LSU next season.”

So, what now? M-Go-Blog is floating Marvin Lewis as a possibility. Despite his lukewarm success with the Cincinnati Bengals, I like Lewis a lot, and I think he'd be better than any of the other candidates interviewed or talked about so far. The only good news? It appears Cam Cameron is not interested in the job. Well, there's something positive.

Pro Football Talk: Michigan After Cam Cameron?

Well, if you can't get the coach of the potential NCAA Champion Louisiana State Tigers, Les Miles, and you can't pry Greg Schiano away from Rutgers and the potential future of Penn State's head coaching gig, and Kirk Ferentz decides to stay at Iowa, why not go to the world of the NFL? Great idea actually. Talk of Sean Payton, a successful, innovative, young offensive mind was a giant step in the right direction. Word of whom the Wolverines may be targeting now? Well, not so much.

According to ProFootballTalk.com, the Wolverines, instead of Les Miles, coach of the potential National Champions in college football, they are focusing on another former assistant coach, but one whose season, well, has not quite gone as well as LSU's. The coach's record? A mere 0-13. Yes, 0-13, and most likely 0-16, the first coach to ever lead his team to such a milestone. That coach? Former Michigan assistant Cam Cameron.

With Saints coach Sean Payton not interested in becoming the next head coach at the University of Michigan, there's talk in league circles that Athletic Director Bill Martin wants to pursue Dolphins coach Cam Cameron, if Cameron is fired.

Per one league insider, Martin believes that Cameron's 0-13 (and counting) performance in his first year as an NFL head coach is an aberration.

Cameron was an assistant coach at Michigan from 1984 through 1993, and he was the head coach at Indiana. The program is looking for an offensive guru to lead the team after the retirement of Lloyd Carr.

Thankfully, the website reports that Cameron would prefer to stay in the NFL and that alumni (like myself -- I will have two degrees from here in less than three weeks time, when do I get some pull?) aren't likely to warm to a candidate who has been an abysimal failure in his first NFL season. He wasn't much better as a head coach at Indiana, his alma matter, where he went 18-37.

Cameron's best work has come as an offensive coordinator and assistant. At Michigan, (1983-1993) he helped develop a ton of top talent, including Jim Harbaugh and Desmond Howard. In the NFL, he found success as offensive coordinator in Washington and most recently in San Diego, where he helped turn Drew Brees and some guy named LaDainian Tomlinson (who had a great profile on 60 minutes tonight -- Seems like a genuinely good guy and guy the NFL should be showcasing for both his on and off field behavior, which are both exemplary) into Pro Bowl players.

While Cameron may be an offensive genius, if he's proven anything over the past two decades, it's that he's not head coach material. He failed at Indiana. He failed at Miami. To be fair, Indiana is hard to win at, and the Dolphins were a disaster well before Cameron arrived on the scene, and injuries to both quarterback Trent Green and running back Ronnie Brown haven't helped. But, I'm just not convinced Cameron has what it takes to be a successful head coach. Rutgers is not an easy place to win either, but Greg Schiano found a way. Brian Kelly, who isn't even a candidate for the Michigan job because apparently he rubbed some people the wrong way at some point (probably by winning at a school, Central Michigan, where current assistant Mike DeBord was a complete failure), won at both Central Michigan and Grand Valley State, not football hotbeds before he came around. Good coaches can win at run-down programs and can win without five-star recruits. Cameron couldn't.

Is Cam Cameron a brilliant coordinator? Absolutely. But can he run an entire program? I'm just not sold. 0-13 takes a special kind of ineptitude, one the Detroit Lions never reached. Is that really who we want taking over Michigan at this crucial moment? Especially somebody who prefers to stay in the NFL, but can't because he's not head coach material, and somebody who likely would jump back to the NFL at the first opportunity? And somebody who failed at their first college head coaching job? Bill Martin needs to think long and hard about that.

Greg Schiano Accepts Michigan Job -- Then Turns It Down -- Or Did He?

The University of Michigan cannot catch a break. First was the Les Miles fiasco, where apparently he was all set to accept the job but nobody could find Athletic Director Bill Martin because he was yachting (I wish I was joking about that, but I'm not) and now the next best candidate, and perhaps the only other candidate mentioned so far which would excite the Michigan fan base, has turned Michigan down. According to the New Jersey Star Ledger, Rutgers coach Greg Schiano accepted the Michigan job Wednesday night, but had a change of heart and is staying at Rutgers.

Greg Schiano told his players in an emotional team meeting this morning that he will stay as head football coach at Rutgers University , according to the parent of a player on the team.

The player's parent, who requested anonymity because of the nature of the meeting, said Schiano told the team he had tentatively accepted the Michigan job, but had a change of heart. The person said Schiano left the room in tears and it remains unclear if Schiano was indeed offered the job.

The Star-Ledger first reported last night Schiano had met with Michigan athletic director Bill Martin "for quite a while" Wednesday in New York City to discuss the Big Ten school's coaching vacancy. Those talks were described by a person who speaks regularly with Schiano and confirmed by a second party.

Schiano would have been a perfect guy for the Michigan job -- Demanding, intense, a defensive guru who not only demands the most out of his players, but gets it, and was successful at Rutgers where he had little talent and little power to recruit. Plus he was young and could have been the coach here for 15, 20 years if he wanted and he was successful.

Where does Michigan go from here, having lost their top two candidates (and their top three if rumors of Kirk Ferentz being near the top of the list but choosing to stay at Iowa are true)? I have no idea. Current defensive coordinator Ron English certainly seems like a stronger bet, but he's never been a head coach, and Michigan's defense has certainly not been the team's strongest link in English's tenure. And Ball State coach Brady Hoke, a former Lloyd Carr assistant keeps being named as a I candidate, but I can't see any way he gets the job.

The Detroit News reports the Wolverines may be interested in New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton. That would be a great hire. He's young, innovative, successful. Would probably be a great recruiter due to his NFL pedigree (he was a Dallas Cowboys assistant before becoming the Saints head coach). I would also, if I were Michigan, contact Bill Cower and Jon Gruden. Michigan needs something out-of-the-box here. Hiring English isn't going to get the job done, and I fear that if English is the choice, we'll be in this same position three or four years from now, after a few 8-4 seasons leave us looking for a new head coach, again.

2:30 Update: As my buddy Seth points out in the comments, it now appears Schiano may have never accepted the Michigan job formally, but considered it strongly before at the last possible moment deciding to stay at Rutgers. I'll keep the above blockquote because that part of the New Jersey story is now gone, and it has been replaced with this:

Schianio never committed to going, the person said. The coach stayed up until about 1:30 this morning watching ESPN and went to bed not knowing what he was going to do.

Schiano had already told his players to assemble at the Hale Center on campus for a 7 a.m. meeting, even though he had yet to make up his mind. When he arrived, he told the players he "still had work to do" at Rutgers. Schiano said "this was a hard decision," according to a member of the football staff who attended the meeting.

The member of the football staff requested anonymity because of the private nature of the team meeting, but said Schiano looked "tired, beaten up and physically exhausted." He said the Michigan job was Schiano's if he wanted it, but the job was never officially offered.

Either way, not good for Michigan, as we are back to the drawing board.

Video of Les Miles Press Conference - Les Says, Well, Nothing

Les Miles just held a very short press conference, just hours before LSU takes on Tennessee in the LSU title game, and he said, well, nothing. He didn't announce that he had signed a contract extension at LSU and he didn't announce he was leaving for Michigan. He did sound very angry that word had leaked earlier in the day that he was leaving, and he did say he was LSU's head coach and that he had no interest in leaving, and that he would answer questions later. It was, odd to say the least. If he does indeed have an agreement on a contract extension with LSU, why not announce it? Here's the video of the short and curt press conference from an obviously perturbed Les Miles. (I originally captured and posted the video of the press conference, but after reading Sean's post over at Michigan Sports Center and seeing ESPN has their own embed-able video, which is of much higher quality than my capture, we'll use that instead.)

The conspiracy theorist within me thinks this: The only reason why Miles would not announce that he had agreed to a contract extension, is because he hasn't. That word leaked earlier today that he was leaving, he and LSU's athletic department knew that such word leaking out would be a huge distraction to LSU's team going in to today's SEC Title Game, and thus, they decided to leak word he was staying, hold his pseudo press-conference in hopes of reassuring the LSU team and getting them ready to play this afternoon's game, and still leave Miles free to leave sometime later this week. I think that's highly unlikely a scenario, but, I have no other explanation for why Miles wouldn't just kill all speculation and announce he signed a contract extension if he has indeed signed (or even simply agreed to one).

Very very strange day and it keeps getting stranger as at 10:15 I was posting about ESPN.com's report that Miles was headed to Michigan then taking that back at 12:30 when I wrote about Jim Carty's report he was staying at LSU. Stay tuned, this thing may not be over yet.

Change In Plans: Les Miles Staying at LSU

Just hours after ESPN reported that Les Miles would become the next head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, MLive.com and the Ann Arbor News are reporting that Miles will instead sign a multi-year contract extension with LSU.

Sources close to both Les Miles and the LSU administration report the coach has reached a multi-year contract extension with his current school and will remove himself from consideration as the next Michigan coach.

Details of the extension are expected to be released by LSU shortly.

LSU will reportedly make Miles one of the highest-paid coaches in the country.

If true, and Jim Carty, the reporter who broke the story, is usually dead-on with his reporting, it's a big blow to Michigan. Instead of hiring Miles, one of the best coaches in the country, and a Michigan-man to boot, and bringing along one of the best defensive coordinators in the game according to some (in Georgia Tech's Jon Tenuta) Michigan will have to go back to the drawing board. Potential names you are likely to hear are Iowa's Kirk Ferentz again, Cincinnati's Brian Kelly, and Rutgers coach Greg Schiano.

Update: The story does indeed appear true. Both the Detroit News and the New Orleans Times Picayune confirm that Miles is staying at LSU, and that there will be a press conference to that effect at 1:50 EST, two hours before LSU takes on Tennessee in the SEC Title Game.

ESPN Reporting Les Miles to Michigan

ESPN is reporting, though announcer Kirk Herbstreit, that the University of Michigan will announce early next week that former player, assistant, and current LSU boss Les Miles will be the next coach of the Michigan Wolverine football team.

Sources have told ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit that barring any unforeseen circumstances, Michigan will announce early next week it has reached an agreement with LSU coach Les Miles to be its next head football coach.

Herbstreit is also reporting that Miles will make Georgia Tech defensive coordinator and interim head coach Jon Tenuta part of his staff at Michigan.

While the ESPN report seems solid, I'm siding with M-Go-Blog on this one, which is which reported yesterday that while Miles is indeed the front-runner, and in all likelihood will get the job, it's not as done of a deal as people believe (and the Detroit Free Press essentially reported the same thing this morning that while the job may be "Miles' to lose" it's not a sure thing, yet). I don't want to get my hopes up too prematurely.

The news about Jon Tenuta is new, and while I'll be honest, I didn't know much about him before this morning, I like what I've found out. Herbstreit called him one of the best defensive coordinators in the country, and he knows Ohio State backwards and forwards (he's from Columbus and coached defensive backs for the Buckeyes according to M-Go-Blog. Tenuta could be the first new hire in a new direction and new chapter in Michigan football, one far removed from the Lloyd Carr era, and one which, fortune or failure, you have to give Bill Martin and company credit for going with.

In many ways, Miles is not the "safe" choice, in so far as despite his impressive pedigree and ties to the Michigan program, he is in many ways the "anti-Lloyd Carr" and he doesn't have Carr's support for the job. The safe thing for Michigan to do would be to continue to hire coaches like Lloyd (which is why Iowa's Kirk Ferentz was mentioned so much in the early going -- He's a younger Lloyd Carr) and decide that Miles was too expensive, too much of a wild card, to fit with Michigan. Instead, it looks like Bill Martin and company are taking the plunge with one of the best coaches in college football and somebody who has admittedly coveted the Michigan job for decades. It's the right move, and it's the move Michigan needs to make in order to return their program to elite status. Let's just hope, for Michigan's sake, there are no hiccups in the next week, and Miles, Tenuta, and the rest of what already appears to be an incredible coaching staff, are coming to Ann Arbor.

Hail, Hail to Lloyd Carr

Lloyd Carr, as expected, and as leaked to the media yesterday (and originally reported by M-Go-Blog over a week ago), will announce his retirement today, ending a 13-year-run which will likely be much more fondly remembered a decade from now than it is today. While many Michigan fans are happy to see Lloyd ride off into the sunset, and while a fresh start and new blood will likely be good for the Michigan program, I am not celebrating today. Lloyd Carr never asked to be the head coach of Michigan, it was a job he took only after former head coach Gary Moeller was fired after a drunken escapade at a metro-Detroit restaurant, and he did something even Bo Schembechler never did, won a National Championship. He ran a completely above-board program, one that made Michigan proud, and he was great in the community. On the field, he was frustrating at times with his conservatism, but he was without a doubt successful, winning numerous Big Ten Titles and taking his teams to 3 of the last 5 Rose Bowls. And while many will focus on his 1-6 record against Ohio State in the past seven seasons (and his similarly futile Bowl record), I’ll choose to remember his 5-1 start against the Buckeyes, including the victory in 1997 which helped catapult Charles Woodson to the Heisman Trophy and Michigan to the National Championship.

These last seven years, despite the trips to Pasadena, Michigan fans have been on edge, in part because of the continuing losses to Ohio State. Carr, though, has remain steadfast, despite having to continually play true freshman quarterbacks before they were ready for action. First it was Drew Henson’s broken foot in 1999 which ushered in the John Navarre era before he was ready, and then Henson bolted for the New York Yankees, leaving sophomore Navarre to take the reigns a year earlier than expected. Then, when Carr groomed Matt Gutierrez to replace Navarre, Gutierrez blew out his elbow and forced Carr to audible and play true freshman Chad Henne instead. Now this season, when true freshman Ryan Mallett was supposed to have a year of absorbing the offense, learning from senior leader Henne, and preparing himself to take over in 2008, he too was forced into action early with Mallett’s continuing shoulder and knee problems. Now, injuries are part of football, but Carr never had a chance to develop and groom his quarterbacks the past half-decade like he would have liked. And despite that, Michigan remained a top national program and had chances (although they never capitalized on those chances) to win another National Championship.

Now of course, before Carr’s press conference is even over, the question will turn to Carr’s replacement. Surely LSU’s Les Miles (a former player and assistant under Bo) will be the leading candidate, but his tension with Lloyd Carr may prevent Michigan fans’ dreams from coming true. There are other numerous top candidates to consider as well, including Cincinnati’s Brian Kelly, West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez, and even Jon Gruden and Bill Cower of NFL fame (though, admittedly, both of the last two are probably pipe dreams). Michigan needs a fresh start, so hiring assistants Mike DeBord or Ron English would be an enormous mistake. Especially DeBord, who was a disaster at Central Michigan (as opposed to Kelly, who turned CMU around after DeBord’s tenure).

There will be plenty of time for speculation though. Today should be about Carr and all that he brought to the Michigan program. He is a better coach than his 1-6 record against Ohio State the last seven years indicates, and a better coach than he likely will be initially remembered as. He has done a lot for Michigan, and once time heels some of the wounds of Michigan fans, he’ll be remembered and revered as such. And deservedly so.