Thursday - December 20, 2007

 Wow: All Nine Assistant Coaches Gone

Rodriguez Fires Michigan Assitant Coaches

That per Angelique Chengelis of the Detroit Free Press. Which ones? All of them. Every one of them. Shocking. Almost everyone assumed 2 or 3 assistants would be retained, with the most likely being longtime UM assistants WR coach Erik Campbell and RB coach Fred Jackson, and possibly QB coach Scot Loeffler. But it looks like Rich Rodriguez has cleaned out the cupboard.

The first question many message board types will ask is "what does this mean to our recruiting class?" To which the obvious answer is "Who cares?" Okay, we all care to some extent; it would be nice to have Sam McGuffie and Boubacar Cissoko and all come to Ann Arbor next year, but the composition of the coaching staff is much more important in the long run than a single recruiting class.

The bigger question to me is "why?" If this is because Rodriguez has some coaches in mind that he thinks are better than Jackson and Campbell and Loeffler, we have to give him that chance. I personally think that Campbell and Loeffler are among the best in the country (Jackson has never impressed me, as we never have multiple backs ready and our backups are always fumble prone), but Rodriguez is the guy getting millions to make these decisions and he's the guy coming off 32 wins in 3 years.

But, if Rodriguez is firing these guys just out of a desire to start fresh or because he wants to keep the guys from WVU he is familiar with, then that is cause for concern. Only time will tell, of course. And time may bring a couple back (don't be *too* surprised if after firing all 9, Rodriguez sits down with 1 or 2 and brings them back).