Keeping it all in the Family at Michigan?

No one was surprised when Ryan Mallet left Michigan earlier this year after they hired Coach Rich Rodriguez to replace the retiring Coach Lloyd Carr. Mallet’s offensive skills clashed with Rodriguez’s spread offensive style, so he moved on to greener pastures, and rightfully so, considering that playing a more professional quarterback offense will likely mean a better chance at being drafted.

What people didn’t expect is that some of the team’s most promising players would begin dropping like flies.

On Monday, offensive lineman Justin Boren official left the team. Earlier today, he released a statement saying that he was leaving because the team’s fundamental “family” values had eroded:

“Michigan football was a family, built on mutual respect and support for each other from [former] Coach [Lloyd] Carr on down. We knew it took the entire family, a team effort, and we all worked together. I have great trouble accepting that those family values have eroded in just a few months.”

As a Big Ten fan myself, I know exactly what Boren means. Yes, all teams everywhere get to be a family. That’s the nature of sports, no matter the level. However, the Big Ten is a conference rooted in tradition. When you bring in an outsider, they aren’t a part of that tradition and they don’t understand it unless they make an effort to embrace it.

I haven’t seen the effort from Coach Rod. He’s a great coach, but is he a Big Ten coach?

Couple that with the fact that he’s chancing the offensive style of play COMPLETELY, and you have one unhappy offensive line. Rodriguez has said that he won’t comment on the situation, but he did hint to the fact that there may be other players considering leaving as well.

Its so sad to see a program crumble because the school went with a “big name” instead of what was right for the team.

How will the Michigan program fare? In the end, I think they’ll rebuild as long as Coach Rod is dedicated to staying there long term (that in and of itself is suspect…didn’t he say he was dedicated to West Virginia?). Perhaps we’re seeing an end to the legacies of Big Ten football…after all, Joe Paterno will probably be all but forced to retire after the 2008 season as well.

Is Coach Rod ruining Michigan’s program? What do you think?

Picture by Patstuart at Wikipedia.