Michigan Friday: Drawing Comparisons between Randy Shannon and Rich Rodriguez in their first 3 years

Your first reaction might be how can you compare the two?  Randy was the DC at Miami and a first time head coach.  Rich was an accomplished head coach at West Virgina before coming to Michigan.  

Your right on both facts.  But I think there are some similarities here and not because both schools are abbreviated U of M.

Let's look at Randy's record first three years as head coach of Miami:

Year 1: 5-7
Year 2: 7-6
Year 3: 9-4

RR's first two;

Year 1: 3-9
Year 2: 5-7
Year 3: ?

Now let's start drawing some other comparisons between Randy and Rich at Miami and Michigan.

First year 1 Big Win:  Miami beats #20 Texas AM in the third game of the year.  Michigan beats a top 10 Wisconsin team at home in September.  Both teams went on to losing records.

Transfers:  We all know Michigan's long list of transfers: Mallett, Threet, McGuffie to name a few.  Miami had it's own transfer party:  Robert Marve, Jermaine McKenzie, Shawnbrey McNeal, Cannon Smith and Taylor Cook.

Coaching Turnover:  Rich Rod's biggest hiring mistake was defensive coordinator Scott Shafer who was fired after 1 year on RR's staff at Michigan.  He was the former DC at Western Michigan and Stanford and now is the DC at Syracuse.  Miami:  Shannon fired both Patrick Nix his OC (who wanted to run the spread, ironically) and his DC Tim Walton.  As you know, Michigan hired former Syracuse headman and former NFL DC Greg Robinson to run the defense.  Miami hired Mark Whipple as OC from the NFL (asst. with the Eagles and Steelers).  Miami lost it's DC again when Bill Young went to Oklahoma State and replaced him with John Lovett.


Conclusion:  Randy showed big improvement in year 3 of his tenure at Miami.  Both teams had losing records in year 1.  In Year 2, both hovered around .500.   In Year 3, Miami goes 9-4 with a loss to Wisconsin in the Champs Bowl.   What will year 3 bring to RR and Michigan? 

Transfers and Coaching Changes happen a lot under a new head coach.  It's clearly a work in progress for the first 2-3 years.  Both coaches also went to guys with deep NFL experience when they fired key coordinators on their staff.

Randy Shannon was rated as the worst BCS coach by the Sporting News in 2008.  In 2009, Rich Rodriguez was ranked the second best coach in the Big Ten only behind Iowa's Kirk Ferentz. (ahead of JoPa and The Sweater Vest).

Both men have also shown to be top notch recruiters, mostly in the State of Florida. 

I know Michigan isn't used to losing but when you make a massive change like they did, it takes time to work things out.  Miami is a good example.  Randy was just awarded a new contract extension.   Year 3 was a make or break year for him.  He finished 9-4 and got extended. 

Year 3 is the same for RR and staff.  It will be exciting to see what happens. 

I am all in for a Champs Bowl game against Miami.  Can we schedule it now?