How the Urban Meyer Situation Relates to Rich Rodriguez

What a holiday weekend. The biggest name in college football decides to retire due to health and family concerns then goes to practice and decides he can't live with out football and takes a leave of absence. He said, in his gut that he would be back for the first game next year. So what has changed? Is he going to skip a few recruiting trips? Maybe sit out spring practice?

I'm not a big fan of Lou Holtz on ESPN but he did say something that made sense this weekend on the Urban Meyer situation. He said, never make a decision when your tired and under stress. Wait for your season to be finished, get some rest, and then make the right decision. Urban didn't take that advise this weekend and made an admirable decision for his family when he is at the top of his profession and then 24 hours later made a decision that seemed to leave his family behind. He didn't even talk to his family before making this new decision, he went to practice, knew he couldn't live with out football and his family seemed to take a back seat.

Don't get me wrong, the leave of absence was probably the right choice all along but the way it came off this weekend was very puzzling.

How does this situation relate to Rich Rod? We have seen how stress can effect a head coach. Rich Rod left a job that "pissed off" an entire state, he has won 8 games in two years in Ann Arbor, he has lost players from the program who have thrown him under the bus on the way out, he has had to play 3 different freshman QB's, and his program is being investigated by the NCAA due to a newspaper report that Rich maybe over working his players. Do you think that can cause a little stress in one man's life? Rich has mentioned a few times he doesn't get much sleep these days.

Will stress effect Coach Rod's health at some point? It has to. We don't know how Urban and Rich run their programs behind closed doors. Does Rich delegate more then Urban? We really don't know. What I do know, is, if a man who is winning national championships can have major stress that makes him re-think his work life balance, another high profile coach that hasn't made a bowl game in two years in a new job must be feeling even more pressure and stress.

Let's hope Rich Rod is managing his stress, spending time with family, and working hard to turnaround the Michigan Program. Everyone needs the proper work life balance. We can even look into Michigan's past history for an example. Bo Schemblecher had heart health issues while coaching and and probably should have shut it down much earlier then he actually did.

There is always something to do in big time college coaching: game planning, film watching, hiring coaches, dealing with player issues, talking with the media, recruiting, public events, alumni outings, and probably a 100 other things. These guys make a lot of money, but their body doesn't care and neither does their family when "coach" misses a birthday or a soccer game.