Recent Comments

I'm not on the "Say No to Rich Rod" campaign, but I do agree there are better candidates for Virginia Tech out there. WVU fans are willing to accept Rich Rod again with open arms, despite giving him and his family several death threats at the end of the 2007 season, and he is from WV. If Dana Holgerson is fired, I think we will see Rich Rod back at WVU and he won't even be a concern of ours.

The reason I'm not a part of the anti-Rich Rod campaign, though, is because his track record isn't as atrocious as it's made out to be. Don Nehlen ran WVU into the ground in his final years. When Rich Rod took over WVU in 2001, he took very little time to be successful. He took them from 3-8 in 2001 to 9-4 and ranked in 2002 (includes a win over us on the road). Then in 2003, WVU nearly beat Miami, hammered us when we were ranked #3, and ended up sharing the Big East title with Miami. In 2004, they once again shared the Big East title, and in 2005 they won it outright, losing 1 game all year (to us) and winning the Sugar Bowl. That was followed up in 2006 with an 11-2 season, and then his final year where a win over Pitt would have put them in the National Championship.

At Michigan, he recruited well, better than we are right now. This could be correlated with the higher level of talent to recruit close by, contrary to WV. Unfortunately, that talent never translated to wins, and I'm not exactly convinced his staff helped him.

When he got hired to coach Arizona, it was a below .500 program. They have finished above .500 every season since he got there, upsetting someone every year. Recruiting is a concern, but Arizona, being a basketball school, having to recruit against the likes of USC and UCLA in the So. Cal. talent pool is an uphill battle. Bottom line, he recruited well when he had the talent pool at Michigan, and managed to turn around WVU and Arizona despite the recruiting handicaps.

Where Rich Rod does not appeal to me, though, is that stupid 3-3-5 scheme. He would have to let Bud do what Bud has done since 2004 for him to be hired, in my opinion. If Rich Rod is dumb enough to take control away from one of the best defensive coordinators in college football, that's terrible. He also hasn't created the family atmosphere at Michigan or Arizona that he seemed to create at WVU, and if he is hired, Whit will certainly make it a point to him that he has to create a family atmosphere.

One of the more appealing things about Rich Rod, though, is his offense. Contrasting French's opinion on this website probably isn't the best move, but I think his offense is exactly what Tech needs. After watching the team's success over the years, all of those were done with potent running games. Football has changed, though, and the power running game isn't as prominent. Rich Rod runs a run-based spread. At West Virginia, where he was most successful, his teams ran the ball at least 70% of the time in 5 of the seven seasons, which includes 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007, his four most successful seasons. Rich Rod will no doubt run the football, but it will be more modern. Getting a quarterback like Marquise Williams might have happened under Rich Rod, and recruiting running backs will not be a problem. The zone blocking scheme, like French said, might create issues, but zone blocking is something Loeffler has implemented anyway since he got here and Searels has done a good job recruiting offensive linemen, so it's not impossible.

While I probably just came off as the biggest Rich Rod advocate on this website, he is still not my favorite candidate. I worry that he will try to override Bud, maybe getting rid of him altogether, and he will struggle to create the family atmosphere. Those are two huge "ifs" that I don't see Whit taking the risk on. With that being said, I support Tom Herman or Justin Fuente. Two up and coming coaches with high energy and a proven track record, similar to Frank when he came in.