About a week ago, I took to The Feed on Maize n Brew to ask readers who they thought the worst head coach is in Michigan Football history. While it was a pretty tight vote, 43 percent of you chose Rich Rodriguez.
Taking over for Lloyd Carr would have been difficult for any coach, but especially one like Rodriguez that had a completely different view on how to run a college football offense at the time. Ultimately, things never fully clicked and Rodriguez was fired after just three years in Ann Arbor — compiling a 15-22 record and having never beat Ohio State.
Rodriguez — who is coming off his first year back at West Virginia — has spoken about his time at Michigan in the past, like last year when he told Josh Pate that his tenure could have ended differently if he had been given one more year. He reiterated that point in a brand new interview that was released this week, but he also revealed another pretty strong opinion he has — that taking the Michigan job in the first place was a mistake.
“What I kind of learned is that — I probably didn’t evaluate what we had at West Virginia as well,” Rodriguez said on Next Up with Adam Breneman. “Was it a mistake going there? Yeah, it’s easy to say that now. But I also learned a lot from coaching at Michigan. … They’ve got obviously a name brand that is pretty special to coach at. I would never take another job without visiting it, probably, because if I would’ve visited there, I would’ve realized, ‘Gosh we had some better stuff (at West Virginia),’ like in the weight room, whatever, than they had.”
While he said taking the Michigan job was a mistake, he also shared that he learned some things while making that decision, like making “the right hires, choose the right things, you’ve got to still be yourself. … That was just an interesting time in my journey, I should say that.”
Of course, everything always works out at the end of the day — Michigan eventually hit a home run with Jim Harbaugh, and Rodriguez got back to go to West Virginia. While all that took 15 years to take place, it’s safe to say that both parties ended in a much better place.
What do you think of all this? Would things have been different for Rodriguez if he returned for the 2011 season? Do you think it was a mistake for him to take the Michigan job? Let me know what you think down in the comments section below!
