Illinois LB Dele’ Harding tackles Michigan State’s R.J. Shelton (image via News & Observer)
Former CB commit Gareon Conley: Conley made 1 tackle and 1 pass breakup in Ohio State’s 62-3 win over Nebraska.
Former defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin: In case you weren’t paying attention, the new Maryland coach suffered a 59-3 defeat at the hands of the Michigan Wolverines. Maryland is 5-4 with games remaining against Ohio State, Nebraska, and then Rutgers. It looks like it will come down to that final week to see if Maryland will be bowl eligible.
Former RB Derrick Green: Green made 5 carries for 33 yards in TCU’s awesome 62-22 win over a Baylor team that wore black uniforms to protest the firing of Art Briles, who turned a blind eye toward all the disgusting shenanigans that took place in Waco. I typically don’t care about Baylor or TCU, but I sure am glad Baylor got their butts handed to them.
Hit the jump for several more updates on former Wolverines players, coaches, and commits.
Former LB commit Dele’ Harding: Harding made a career-high 7 tackles and .5 tackles for loss in Illinois’ WIN over MICHIGAN STATE. Michigan State is 2-7 now.
Former RB commit Damien Harris: Harris had 12 carries for 53 yards and 1 catch for -2 yards in Alabama’s tight 10-0 win over LSU.
Former head coach Brady Hoke: Hoke and the Oregon Ducks went back to their losing ways with a 45-20 loss to USC. They gave up 309 passing yards and 270 rushing yards (579 total). The Ducks are #127 in total defense and #125 in scoring defense.
Former LB commit Antonio Kinard: Kinard made 4 tackles in Cincinnati’s 20-3 loss to BYU. He’s second on the Bearcats’ in tackles with 65 total.
Former LB commit Darrin Kirkland, Jr.: Kirkland made 1 tackle and 1 tackle for loss in Tennessee’s 55-0 win over Tennessee Tech.
Former DT Ondre Pipkins: Pipkins made 5 tackles, 1 pass breakup, and 1 fumble recovery for 23 yards in Texas Tech’s 45-37 loss to Texas.
Former FB/LB commit David Reese II: Reese made 6 tackles in Florida’s 31-10 loss to Arkansas.
Former CB Terry Richardson: Richardson made 1 tackle in Marshall’s 38-14 loss to Old Dominion.
Former LB Kaleb Ringer: Ringer made 1 tackle in Georgia State’s 31-16 loss to Arkansas State.
Former head coach Rich Rodriguez: Arizona suffered a crushing 69-7 defeat to Washington State. That drops Arizona to 2-7 on the season, so they’re not automatically bowl eligible. They allowed 474 yards passing in the loss.
Former DE commit Darian Roseboro: Roseboro made 1 tackle in North Carolina State’s 24-20 loss to Florida State.
Former RB commit Mike Weber: Weber had 11 carries for 72 yards and 1 touchdown, along with 1 catch for 15 yards, in Ohio State’s 62-3 win over Nebraska.
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This post starts me thinking about potential coaching-carousel later this year.
Baylor, LSU and Purdue are known openings.
Strong at Texas and Holgorsen at WVU may have stabilized their positions.
Helfrich at Oregon (and with him, Hoke as DC) is a big question mark. I can’t imagine they are at all happy with the current situation, nor do they think it’s just a matter of a “little more time” to fix things. I suspect this HC job will open up.
Given the performance this year, combined with the lackluster performance last year, I would think Rodriguez at Arizona is in some trouble. But I doubt the university will initiate a separation. There’s little reason to believe anyone else is going to do much better. What I wonder is whether Rodriguez himself wants to move to greener pastures — literally, as in somewhere other than the desert. Last year’s opportunities at Virginia Tech and South Carolina are (for the moment) closed.
I doubt a program like LSU would take Rodriguez at this point, and I doubt Rodriguez himself would want to go to a program like Purdue. Baylor? Maybe … it has a tradition of spread-formation football, and it’s in talent-rich Texas. It would put him back in the same conference as WVU, which would prove *really* interesting when Baylor visited Morgantown. (The natives here are generally still pissed at Rodriguez for his departure for Michigan in 2007.)
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The Pac12 is so tough right now with excellent coaching across the board. When guys like Rich Rodriguez, Mark Helfrich, and Gary Anderson are coaching last place teams you know things aren’t easy. Colorado and Washington being resurgent and Mike Leach turning WSU around… There’s no Rutgers or Purdue to feast on in that conference.
I expect Rodriguez to get fired. Maybe they can’t do better but they have to try. I’m not sure what excuses Rodriguez has this many years in (injuries have hit him every year but that’s not a viable long-term defense). It wouldn’t surprise me to see him back at WVU soon if Holgersen gets snatched up by say Notre Dame. Nothing a few wins can’t repair.
Helfrich will likely have to fire Hoke but he’ll stick too, IMO. Starting that Freshman QB is a PR stunt designed to get people focused on the future. It’ll probably work. The school’s identify is that offensive system and I’m not sure there’s any obvious candidates to take over. One bad year isn’t enough to fire a guy and deal with a ton of turnover. If Scott Frost wins next year at UCF and Helfrich has another down year then I could see a change being made.
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It’s a bit of a fluke year in the Pac-12. Normally there’s a team or two to feast on (WSU, Colorado, Cal, etc.).
I think Rich Rodriguez might get one more year to clean things up. This has been his worst year for injuries, and it’s been an uncharacteristically strong year from some other Pac-12 schools.
I don’t think Holgorsen is a cultural fit at Notre Dame. It would be like Rodriguez at Michigan.
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Brian Kelly doesn’t seem like a fit at ND either. Holgerson is an edgy guy but would transition pretty smoothly with Kelly’s personnel. You’re probably right though – perhaps they learned a lesson. I do still kind of wonder if ND won’t make a play for Chip Kelly after he is fired. You’d think he’d have interest in going there and wouldn’t want to crawl back to Eugene with his tail between his legs.
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In the Pac12 this year Arizona and Oregon are the teams you can feast on. I’m not sure it’s a fluke so much as evolution. There’s nothing that precludes Colorado or Washington from being powers that they have been in times past. If that happens it will come at the expense of other schools. Somebody has to lose and right now things look very 1990s in the Pac12. Not a total shock as Colorado and Washington were looking a lot better last year while Oregon showed a lot of weaknesses and USC went through a coaching change.
Oregon’s glory years are behind them IMO, unless they can get Kelly back. Stanford’s hung on to what Harbaugh built for a while now too, but I expect them to fall back to the pack too. Meanwhile, UM keeps bumping up against UW in recruiting “pro style” west coast players. In my eyes that’s a tribute to their recruiting eye and an indicator that they are going to be a force for the foreseeable future.
I don’t think it’s going to get any easier in the Pac12 because the quality of coaches is so high across the board. I’m not quite sure what Gary Anderson was thinking because the school that seems least likely to rise up in that conference is Oregon State.
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I’m not sure I see Dana Holgorsen’s stock being at the level a school like Notre Dame would settle for. He’s okay, I guess, but I don’t think of him as a top-10 coach.
My prediction — Urban Meyer to ND. 🙂
(Actually, if memory serves, Meyer’s contract has an opt-out for the ND job. I think I read somewhere that ND is Meyer’s ultimate dream job. I can’t quite see him walking away from OSU for ND, but who knows … stranger things have happened.)
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Speaking of former coaches and players, what would our record be this season with Brady Hoke as the head coach?
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I don’t know…5-4 maybe? Losses to Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and probably one surprise (Illinois, Maryland, UCF, Penn State, etc.).
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Are you serious? I would be more on the side of two losses…Colorado and WI, and maybe Penn State.
I love the quote in one of the fish-wraps, that “Michigan seems to have all of the answers to the test every week.”
Is Jim Harbaugh some type of football savant? As evidenced by almost every first half of every game (minus WI), we score at will.
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I don’t know why you would have confidence in Hoke’s abilities to beat all those other teams. The direction of the program was clearly headed south. We were 5-7 in his last year. I think 5-4 is possibly optimistic.
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Assuming that under Hoke’s guidance the starting QB is Shane Morris, Derrick Green leads the charge at RB, and the OL has 2 walk-ons starting I think we’d be 2-7.
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The most impressive thing to me this season has been our preparation for each team. The two point conversion against Rutgers epitomized it. The staff had obviouslt studied the film of their extra point team, identified a tendency and schemed against it successfully. That speaks to a level of film review, attention to detail and work ethic that I cannot believe is commonplace in College Football.
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