Larry Brown Sports

Rich Rodriguez has enjoyed a very good start to his career as the head coach at Arizona. His Wildcats are already 3-0 on the year, including a convincing 59-38 win over then-ranked Oklahoma State. The secret? Stepping up the Popsicle game.

Rodriguez recently told USA TODAY Sports that one part of the Arizona culture he changed when taking over had to do with the type of Popsicles that are given to the team.

“I don’t want to give out average Popsicles,” he said. “We give out them bomb Popsicles. You know, the ones as a kid you love to have?”

The Popsicles he was referring to are one of the most patriotic frozen treats you can buy. If you never had a red, white and blue rocket pop as a kid, you either had some sort of bizarre food allergy, had parents that wouldn’t allow you to eat sugar or simply had a twisted, twisted childhood.

“These things are the mac daddy of Popsicles,” Rodriguez continued. “We’re giving out BCS-level, playoff-bound rocket Popsicles. And if they come out with a better one, we’re going to get a better Popsicle. But the rockets are pretty good.”

The rocket pops have been timeless for who knows how long, so I doubt they’re going to come out with a better one while Rich Rod is the coach as Arizona. What they could do is get Popsicles with their logo branded into them like Sonic did with these burgers. Then the Wildcats would really be cooking.

H/T Dr. Saturday

This story comes to you straight from the Department of “Duh” files. University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman told members of the Rotary Club of Flint on Friday that the school made a mistake by hiring Rich Rodriguez as their head football coach in December 2007.

Coleman told the crowd that the school was being criticized for employing Lloyd Carr and his supposed old fashioned, out of date offense, and that’s why they went for Rodriguez.

“We though, OK, well let’s go hire the guy who invented the spread offense,” Coleman said, per MLive.com. “He was a hot, young coach with a different approach.”

If by different, she means “doesn’t care about defense,” then yes, she’s absolutely correct. Rodriguez was a bad fit from the start. He completely changed the entire program, targeted a different type of recruit, and he got in trouble for extra practice and workout violations. It was just a disaster that they luckily turned around pretty quickly.

As for Brady Hoke, who went 11-2 in his first year as head coach after replacing Rodriguez, Coleman is happy with him.

“(Hoke) has more of the kind of Midwestern ethos,” Coleman said.

In other words, he’s not the king of college football scum.

Helmet knock to College Football Talk
Photo Credit: Greg Bartram-US PRESSWIRE

Rich Rodriguez reportedly is returning to coaching after taking the year off.

CBS college football reporter Bruce Feldman tweeted Monday that we should “Expect Rich Rodriguez to be named the next Arizona head coach in the next 48 hours according to sources.”

Bruce Feldman is a credible reporter who generally has accurate information. His report is even more credible because Rodriguez has been an analyst for CBS Sports, suggesting he has inside information.

Rodriguez was once considered one of the best coaches in America after having six straight good seasons at West Virginia. He went 57-18 from 2002-2007, including a 32-5 record his final three years. But Rodriguez left Morgantown for Michigan and became a complete disaster.

Not only were Rich Rod’s defenses brutal, but his spread offense preference led to Ryan Mallett transferring to Arkansas. Rodriguez also got into trouble for breaking practice rules.

Rodriguez will have considerable more leeway at Arizona to break rules, and their academic restrictions are much more lenient. Additionally, the expectations from the fan base and administration is much less compared to Michigan. All around, this would be a much better fit for Rodriguez than Ann Arbor. We’ll see if the report comes true.

LBS interviewed former Michigan cornerback and current Steelers cornerback Donovan Warren at the premiere for 4th and Forever. 4th and Forever is a TV show that will debut Thursday at 9PM Eastern on Current TV, and the show chronicles last year’s football season at Long Beach Poly High School. Poly, where Warren attended high school, was named the “Sports School of the Century” by Sports Illustrated.

In our interview, we talk about Warren’s time at Long Beach Poly and Michigan. He explained why he chose Michigan over USC, and he shared his thoughts on the coaching switch at Michigan from Rich Rodriguez to Brady Hoke. Here’s our interview:

Rich Rodriguez was recently fired as head coach at Michigan, a move that was long overdue. After flirting with Les Miles, Jim Harbaugh, and possibly other coaches, the Wolverines finally settled on Brady Hoke to fill the vacancy. Hoke didn’t have much time to put together a recruiting class for the upcoming season, but he and his staff managed to do fine. He was even invited to join CBS College Sports for an interview during their Signing Day show and a potentially awkward five minutes arose because Rodriguez was sitting in as an analyst, as I learned via Kegs ‘n Eggs:

CBS’ Bryan Fischer says Rodriguez was asked if he wanted to skip the interview, but he decided to hang in there. That’s pretty professional on Rich Rod’s part, and the interview surprisingly did not seem awkward at all. Hoke loves everything about Michigan and was cordial towards Rodriguez, even lending some praise. Rodriguez for his part asked questions someone knowledgeable about the program would — whether the current players and new facilities helped the recruiting process.This could have been disastrous, but it turned out to be nothing.

Hard to believe after the way I ripped Rich Rodriguez that I had to root for him to win on Saturday, but that was the case. People are saying the game was an instant classic and it surely was a good one, but was it as good as the Bush Push game? Not quite that good. Anyway, Charlie Weis is taking a ton of heat for throwing two passes at the end of the game while the Irish were trying to nurse a 34-31 lead.

They had the ball 2nd and 9 at their 30 when they threw two straight incompletions taking just 20 seconds off the clock, leaving 2:19 for the Wolverines who got the ball at their 43. Weis said he was just trying to win the game, “They loaded up the box and made it clear that they weren’t going to let us do that, so we had to throw the ball. On third down, we could have run and made them use a timeout, but we were trying to win the game.”

Forcier said that saving the timeouts for their final drive was key and there’s no doubt it was. By making Michigan burn their timeouts, the Wolverines would have had a much tougher time moving the ball in the final drive and they might have had to settle for a field goal. You telling me Weis wouldn’t have taken his chances in overtime? No doubt that was a tactical error and it was extremely costly. The only question is whether or not this leads to a tailspin and a new head coach for Notre Dame. I guess it was just another lesson in Weis’ coaching internship.

What else can we add to the resume of Rich Rodriguez? Recruiting and playing badboys Pacman Jones and Chris Henry — check. Recruiting a known drug dealer to play quarterback — check. Breaking NCAA practice rules? Check.

Players on the 2008 and 2009 teams described training and practice sessions that far exceeded limits set by the NCAA, which governs college athletics.
…
The players say they routinely are required to work out or practice many more hours throughout the year than the NCAA allows. They also say members of Rodriguez’s staff have broken rules by monitoring off-season scrimmages.

Hmm, how was it that Rich Rodriguez had a leg up on the competition when he was at West Virginia? Pretty easy if you’re spending about two-three times the amount of time with the team than the NCAA allows, especially if most programs are coming closer to the limit (I’m guessing most push and surpass the limit, but not by this amount). Actually the veteran players say the team followed the rules under Lloyd Carr. Student-athlete my butt — Rich Rod’s there for one reason — to run the football team at professional standards. Michigan sold its soul to the Rod and now they’ll likely pay the punishment price.