Michigan made a great hire, it says here, better than Les Miles would have been. Rich Rodriguez can coach, he can recruit, and he’s a master of the spread-option offense, the simplest and most effective way to play college football right now.
Supposedly Rodriguez was already on the phone to Terrell Pryor, the QB of Pennsylvania Class AA state champ Jeanette, while he was traveling from West Virginia to Michigan to accept the job. Which would mean Pryor knew about it before the public did.
Pryor is the number one recruit in America, and a spread-option QB from Central Casting, the new Vince Young/Tim Tebow. He’s supposedly crossed West Virginia off his list in the wake of the coaching change and put Michigan on, where it joins Ohio State, Florida and Oregon. Penn State’s been crossed off for a while now, reportedly.
Ryan Mallett is Michigan’s presumed starting QB next year, and even started some games (Penn State, for example) this year when Chad Henne was hurt. A 6-6 classic drop-back guy from Texas, Mallett was one of the most-recruited QBs in the country in 2006.
But with Rodriguez bringing his system, and potentially bringing in Pryor…. Well, you’ve got to wondering what’s going on in Mallett’s head right now.
People are equating Rodriguez with Bobby Petrino, by the way, and that’s just absurd. Rodriguez doesn’t have the trail of embarassingly blatant lies in his wake, and he at least had a buyout in his WVU contract, meaning it cost Michigan $4 million to get him out of that deal.
(Observation within an observation: I understand the Atlanta Falcons feeling betrayed and angry with Petrino, but how seriously do you take them questioning anybody’s integrity a few days after they were on the field wearing “Free Mike Vick” t-shirts under their uniforms?)
More fallout: The Harrisburg Patriot-News is reporting that West Virginia has contacted Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley about its head-coach opening, citing an unnamed source “intimate with the situation.”
Bradley seems like a great guy, and he is an excellent recruiter, defensive mind and motivator. He would be badly missed at Penn State, and this news will no doubt up the volume on the chorus that thinks Joe Paterno and Penn State should put in place a “succession plan,” to address who’ll replace him when (if?) he retires.
Bradley seems a long shot at West Virginia, though. Former Auburn coach and current TV guy Terry Bowden grew up in Morgantown while his dad, Bobby Bowden, was the head coach there. Terry has made very public noise about wanting the WVU job.
Another name being mentioned is Jimbo Fisher, the current Florida State offensive coordinator and the guy who’d get the FSU job when Bobby Bowden retires under the succession plan recently announced there. Fisher has a $2.5 million buyout if he leaves Florida State before Jan. 9, 2011.
Why don’t they make these buyouts like $20 million?
