“You guys all see my knockdown? I got a knockdown! I want my Payday!”
They laughed. “We’ll check the tape again. Promise.”
“You a little sore today?” Rod Smith asked.
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “I’m sore as hell right now. Ribs. Neck.” He picked up some tapes of UMass.
“Getting hounded by the press yet?” Rodriguez asked.
“I’m getting texts from people I never met. I just ignore ’em.”
“Good. Don’t talk to anyone who doesn’t go through Dave [Ablauf].”
A couple hours later, Ablauf sat down with Rodriguez for Sunday pizza.
“I’m getting pounded,” Ablauf said, referring to the flood of media requests for Denard. “We need to come up with a strategy—now—to deal with all of it.
“That’s easy,” Rodriguez said, munching on a slice. “No change in his routine. No hype for the Heisman.”
“I agree,” Ablauf said. “Of course, they’re going to howl.”
“You can blame it on me,” Rodriguez said. “What’re they gonna do, write a bad story about me? Been there, done that. They can kiss my ass. And they can kiss Denard’s too—if they can catch it.”
While the media showered praise on Robinson, it seemed to regard Michigan’s success as a lucky fluke. Few seemed to remember that Michigan was the only big-name program smart enough to recruit Denard as a quarterback and honest enough to keep their word. People had also forgotten how unprepared Robinson—and his supporting cast—had been just one year earlier. Michigan’s success wasn’t based on just Robinson, or luck. The quarterback and his teammates had been recruited, they had been coached, and they had responded.
Obviously, since Rodriguez had arrived in Ann Arbor, a lot of things had not gone as he had hoped or expected, especially on defense. But if his bosses had reviewed Rodriguez’s progression at Glenville State and West Virginia, and analyzed his first twenty-six games in Ann Arbor, they would recognize a familiar pattern: After struggling to learn his system, the offense takes off, then the defense follows.
As Sports Illustrated’s Austin Murphy had written, “If past is prologue, the Wolverines will grind their offensive gears in Rich Rod’s first season. After that, stand back.”
That appeared in the 2008 college football preview. Everything seemed a year behind schedule, for a variety of reasons, but by mid-September 2010, it looked more like the cycle had merely been delayed, not broken.
* * *
“Any time you get a win, it’s good,” Rodriguez told his team on Monday, September 13. “And any time you get a win over Notre Dame, it’s even better. But when you see the tape, you’ll see that we can play a lot better.
“Now, all of a sudden the cockroaches are hiding because the lights are on. And now the media wants to have all these interviews—with Denard, with me, with all of you.
“Well, where the hell were they two weeks ago?
“Remember, all this attention, all this praise—it’s just like poison: It’s not gonna kill ya unless you swallow it.
“We’re not going to coach any different, we’re not going to play any different, no matter who we’re playing, no matter who’s watching.”
The next six games represented a perfect progression upward: UMass, Bowling Green, Indiana on the road, Michigan State at home, Iowa at home, and Penn State on the road. Each week they would probably have to play better to win, but that seemed a lot easier than the two-game gauntlet they had just survived.
Everyone expected UMass to be easier, but no one expected Rodriguez to let up. When they were winning, he was at his toughest. At the end of a good practice, Rodriguez told his team: “Do not get behind on your schoolwork. How you start your semester has everything to do with how you finish. We have eleven more weeks of unshakable focus ahead of us. Keep the lights on!”
Quarterback coach Rod Smith was more direct when he addressed his four charges: “Don’t you dare take these guys for granted. They’re good!”
The players were done for the day, but not the coaches. On this warm, sunny day, twenty-nine walk-on wannabes showed up to run, pass, catch, and kick in front of the coaches for forty-five minutes.
The group looked like an intramural flag football team—and not a great one, at that. But Rodriguez noticed a tight end with a Division I build who made a great diving catch. On his next route, he strained for another high pass, tipped it, and then gathered it on the way down, with the defender hanging all over him.
“There you go!” Rodriguez said. “Good job catching my eye! Come over here!” Rodriguez wanted some basic information: Mike Kwiatkowski. Macomb, Michigan. A 3.4 GPA, majoring in neuroscience. Bingo.
After Kwiatkowski made another strong catch, I asked Rodriguez, “Did he just make the team with that one?”
“No,” he said, then turned to me. “He made it on the last one.”
Throughout the tryout, Rodriguez roamed among the half dozen stations, with his two children close by. They often attended practice—“If I don’t see ’em then, I might not see ’em all day,” Rodriguez explained—but this was their only chance to walk on the field. They took full advantage, following their father wherever he went, taking turns being sheltered by his big left arm.
Rodriguez’s Wolverines were 2–0, ranked twentieth in the nation, with winnable games on the horizon. The Irish had been vanquished, his patented spread offense was humming along nicely with a Heisman candidate at quarterback, the weather was perfect, he was about to give a walk-on the same chance he’d been given, and his kids were under his wing.
When they’re happy, cats purr. Dogs wag their tails. Coach Rodriguez spins his whistle string on the first two fingers of his right hand, winds it all the way up, then spins it all the way back, unaware he’s even doing it.
Rich Rodriguez was happy.
Back at his desk, he was writing notes on each player he’d just watched. He decided to keep two kickers and the tight end.
Was this the best part of coaching?
“If it’s not my favorite day, it’s one of ’em,” he said, writing away, then looked up. “I love it. I love it.”
* * *
If you want to get the pulse of the average Michigan football fan, you need to close your laptop, leave the campus cafés, and walk down State Street toward Ferry Field. If you stop halfway down the slope, between Hill and Packard, you’ll see such Ann Arbor institutions as Pizza Bob’s, Mr. Spots, Big Ten Burrito (though the conference made it change its name to BTB Burrito, everyone still calls it by its original name), and two barbershops: Coach & Four and the State Street Barbershop.
They have a history. Jerry Erickson came down from a little town in the Upper Peninsula called Stambaugh, near the Wisconsin border, and opened Coach & Four in 1972. He hired fellow Stambaugh native Bill Stolberg, whom everyone still calls “Red” even though his hair turned white long ago. Four years later, Stolberg took over the State Street Barbershop, and it’s been that way ever since.
Both barbershops cut hair—sixteen bucks, no appointment needed—and serve as mini-museums to Michigan Men, with signed game jerseys and photos covering every flat surface, from legends like Anthony Carter, Jamie Morris, and Jim Harbaugh. Erickson’s place features a stuffed bear on the wall wearing a Michigan hockey jersey from 1973, and a photo of Bo Schembechler, who wrote, “To Jerry, the worst barber in Ann Arbor.” That didn’t stop him from walking up the street for decades. He got his last haircut just two days before he passed away. “I think,” Erickson said, “he was saying good-bye.”
Both barbershops serve as gossip centers for all things Michigan athletics. The proprietors are cousins, to boot, but that doesn’t mean they agree very often.
On Friday afternoon, Erickson was busy shooting the bull with his customers, selling tickets, and watching his barbers cut hair. “Oh, everyone’s real happy, everyone’s real excited,” he said about the team. “They’re fun to watch. Keep it up for a few more, and I think the ol’ b
oy is safe.”
Red Stolberg was holding court down the street. “The consensus is,” he said, while cutting a local businessman’s hair, “someone should have sat Rich Rod down when he came to Michigan, and told him what Michigan is all about, the tradition, and the Big Ten. And he should be more visible on campus. You never see him, except for some big pep rally once a year. He needs to come up here! Lloyd was always walking up and down State Street saying hello to people.
“Hard to like someone you don’t know.
“Sixty percent of my customers say, if he doesn’t come through this year, he’s got to go. Other folks are saying it’s his third year, and you need to give him more time.”
* * *
Of course, to Rodriguez, the idea that the danger had passed was, well, dangerous.
On Friday night, September 17, in the team meeting at the Campus Inn, Rodriguez reviewed the keys to success. The previous two seasons, he offered five points each for offense, defense, and the team, but this year he’d reduced that to just one key for each, which he then beat into their heads so often that they could yell them back. It mirrored the coaches’ decision to simplify both the offensive and defensive schemes in the hopes of sacrificing complexity for execution and aggressiveness. It was the start of his third season in Ann Arbor, and he was still evolving as a coach.
“On offense?”
“Attack, whack, don’t hold back!”
“That’s right. And BSA?”
“Ball security always.”
“Good. Defense?”
“Strain, contain, and CAUSE SOME PAIN.”
“Yeah, you got it! And our team keys?”
“Stay hungry. Don’t swallow the poison!”
“I don’t think you have swallowed the poison, from what I’ve seen. You’ve been humble. Practice has been good.” Then he showed a tape that had popped up that day on the UMass website. During their walk-through that day, someone asked one of their players about the Big House. “Well, it’s not that big,” he said. “It should be called the Little House on the Prairie.”
It was just like Dierdorf had warned: They weren’t scared anymore.
Rodriguez looked at his players, held up the printout, then said with perfect comic timing, “I can’t make this shit up!
“I don’t care where you grew up. I don’t care how big your house is. You take pride in your family, in your home. You guys play in the biggest house in the country—and I’ve never heard any of you guys disrespect any other team or stadium. Ever.
“There was a time, when Michigan ran down that tunnel with that winged helmet, that was worth 14 points. Now we’ve got UMass calling it the ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ So somewhere along the line we lost that. But we can get that back.
“And it starts with us.
“They are gonna feel the full brunt of our program. Then I want to see if they still got this shit on their website at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
* * *
The next afternoon, the players seemed ready, but apparently the Minutemen were, too, jumping out to a 17–7 lead.
Michigan basketball coach John Beilein, sitting in his usual perch in the front row, felt their frustration. “People don’t realize it, but UMass isn’t bad. You beat Notre Dame on NBC, then come back and play these guys?” He shook his head. “These are nightmare games.”
When Michigan got the ball back with just 1:17 left in the half, Robinson hit Stonum on the first play for a 64-yard touchdown. On the Minutemen’s kickoff return, Kovacs ripped the ball loose and recovered it. Four plays and 29 seconds later, Robinson took the snap from the 9-yard line, rolled right, and found Stonum again in the right flat; he walked into the end zone, untouched.
Michigan 21, Massachussetts 17.
Denard Robinson returned to the bench. For the first time all day, he smiled.
But the Minutemen weren’t giving up. When they walked back down the tunnel to start the second half, one player yelled, “Let’s go shock the world!” while another added, “We’re gonna win this one!”—and they both sounded like they meant it.
The Michigan mystique was no longer worth 14 points.
The question to be answered was simple: Was Michigan a weak team, or just a young team? The former needed to be fixed, the latter needed nurturing. The seesaw second half provided evidence for both theories. Michigan’s program didn’t need to be rebuilt. No school had a deeper, stronger foundation than Michigan. But even if Rodriguez’s critics didn’t want to admit it, the team did.
The Minutemen came back from a 35–17 deficit to cut Michigan’s lead to 42–37. But their two-point conversion failed, setting up an onside kick with 2:05 left.
A fan behind the bench gasped in horror, “Ohhhh, my god!” She had probably been in that same seat for the games against Appalachian State and Toledo.
And another: “We want Ron English!” The ghosts were far from gone.
But Michigan got the ball back, and Robinson took a knee. Disaster averted.
* * *
The next day, when Greg Robinson nominated Mike Martin and Jordan Kovacs for Codefensive Players of the Week, Rodriguez said, “We gave up thirty-seven points to a I-AA team. No one’s getting an award for that.
“Did we have any three-and-outs?” Rodriguez asked, as if he hadn’t already watched the film three times.
“No,” Tony Gibson said.
“None?” Rodriguez said. “Not one? Hmm.”
From this meeting, you’d be surprised to discover that Michigan was ranked twentieth in the country, one of six Big Ten teams in the top twenty-three—seven if you count Nebraska, which would join the Big Ten in 2011—making up almost a third of the nation’s top teams. None of that mattered on Sunday.
40 LIFE’S NOT SO BAD
Rodriguez had wisely stayed calm during the UMass game, to avoid disaster. But that didn’t mean he was going to let that performance slide.
Instead of the usual Monday routine, in which each coach meets with his position group in their breakout rooms, Rodriguez met with the entire defense in the team room. Once Rodriguez made the announcement, the defensive players knew that they were in for something they called “Movie Night with Coach Rod.” For this premiere, however, there would be no popcorn, jumbo Cokes, or Milk Duds.
“Everyone gets their ass ripped,” Van Bergen explained afterward. “The worst thing you can do is tell him something that sounds like an excuse.”
“That’s what they’re waiting for,” Mike Martin said. “One ‘But!’”
“Or, ‘I thought,’” Van Bergen added. “‘You thought?!’”
Martin laughed. “Oh, yeah. They’re waiting for that one.”
“What you do,” defensive end Steve Watson said, “is just shut up and take it.”
“That was our first Movie Night after a win,” Van Bergen said. “I guess that tells you something. He expects more. This summer, Coach Rod’s big message was: I’m not going to be soft and sensitive about criticizing you anymore. I’m going to get in your face, and if you can’t take it, we’ll get someone else.
“On Monday, we needed that. None of us objected to what he said. And this week we had more mental focus. We went hard on Tuesday. You’re not supposed to tackle them—but there were a lot of tackles!”
“No way we have another game like that this week,” Martin said. “No way.”
* * *
At Coach & Four, Jerry Erickson provides tickets, free beer out of the mini-fridge in the corner, and stacks of Playboys on the trunk that serves as a coffee table. It is the man cave of man caves. A woman might have walked in at one point, but I can’t remember it.
“There are lot more people out there who like him than don’t,” Erickson said of Rodriguez, working next to the big window. “The fans like him. Some of the old players don’t. There is only a handful of guys who are stirring all the crap up. The thing is, you gotta give the guy a chance. And I think Brandon is going to stick with this guy.”
&nbs
p; Pressed for a prediction, Erickson had no trouble saying, “They’ll go 8–4 easy. And we’re gonna win a bowl game. But don’t ask me to put a million bucks on it.”
He stopped his scissors to make his next point. “Beating Michigan State will save his job. But losing to Michigan State? Hooo boy. Not gonna be good!”
Just a few doors down, Red Stolberg was, as usual, taking the other side. “At the start of the season, I said he’d go 5–7, but I might have to bend a little. Now I’m saying they might pick up six. But I think he’s got to get at least seven to save his job. And win a decent bowl game, not the Motor City Bowl.”
Would Rodriguez survive the season?
“Hard to say. But,” he said, pointing his razor, “if they can beat [Michigan] State, that’s going to be the big one this year. I think right now State is more important than Ohio State, even though that’s The Game.
“But if they lose three straight to State—hooo boy,” he said, unwittingly quoting his cousin. “Not gonna be good. Not gonna be good!”
* * *
Michigan football players get very little free time, but what they get, they savor.
Friday afternoon is one of those times. After a walk-through, they have about forty-five minutes to hang out in the locker room or the players’ lounge watching TV, playing Ping-Pong or pool, or sitting upstairs on the square of couches, where one kind soul leaves three big aluminum trays of his wife’s famous supersize cookies. They evaporate quickly.
But before the players do any of those things, they stand in line at the equipment manager’s window to get the gear they deem most important. It’s not the $257 helmets or $330 shoulder pads or even the $150 jerseys.
Nope. It’s the $4 socks. But not just any socks. Twin City socks—the thickest you can find.
David Molk, at the front of the line, handed me a pair. They are so dense, you could wear them as slippers around the home—or fill them with water.
“Best part of being a Michigan football player,” Molk said, holding up a pair, “is these socks.” Every one of his teammates—and I mean every one—agreed with that assessment.
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