Behind scenes to Rodriguez's Michigan debut
Exclusive access to what life under new coach looks like in Ann Arbor
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updated 10:01 p.m. ET Aug. 30, 2008
As Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez prepared for his debut Saturday as leader of the nation’s winningest football program, he allowed AP Sports Writer Larry Lage exclusive access to the team and coaches. In this story, Lage recounts life for Michigan under its first head coach without ties to Bo Schembechler in four decades as they prepared to open against Utah.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Coach Rich Rodriguez’s first game day at Michigan started with a storm of sights and sounds.
It ended silently.
Before kickoff of his debut — a 25-23 upset loss to Utah — Rodriguez and players had strolled through a crowd of screaming fans in maize and blue. Then, a bit later, they knelt around him.
“You guys can’t wait to get out there, huh? I can’t wait myself,” Rodriguez said Saturday before Michigan took the field. “I’m proud of the way you worked. We’re ready to play a game — every man, every play from the first whistle to the last whistle. They’ll make some plays. We’ll make some plays. We’ll make one more than them, and we’ll sing “The Victors,” afterward.
“Everybody has questions about Michigan football,” he added with the loudest voice he’d unleashed in a week. “What is Michigan football? Where is this program at? We’ve got a bunch of guys in winged helmets, who are going to go down that tunnel and play their (tails) off and will play with pride, passion and intensity on every snap. That’s what Michigan football is!”
Rodriguez left his coaching job and alma mater at West Virginia to replace Lloyd Carr, who announced his retirement last year after 13 seasons leading the nation’s winningest college football program.
Ahead of his first Michigan game, Rodriguez allowed The Associated Press exclusive access to the team and coaches during the last, frenetic week before the 2008 season. This story is what life under Rodriguez looks like at Michigan.
Full team meeting room, 4 p.m. Sunday
Spot the ball. When the time to perform arises, the time to prepare has passed. Win for Michigan. Hold the rope.
In blue paint on white walls, those words stare at players seated in the full-team meeting room.
Rich Rodriguez slips into the room and suddenly, the small talk and jokes end.
“We’re finally in game week,” Rodriguez says.
“Yeah!” the players reply.
Rodriguez’s office, 6:15 p.m.
Four glass candy jars are a step inside Rodriguez’s door, which is propped open by a kickstand doorstop when he’s in the building. That’s about 16 hours a day.
A majestic shot of Michigan Stadium is the lone picture hanging on the gray, wallpapered walls. Framed photos of his wife, Rita, 12-year-old daughter, Raquel, and 10-year-old son, Rhett, line the shelves behind the coach’s desk. Atop the shelves, sit five winged helmets.
Defensive coordinator Scott Shafer steps in as Rodriguez has his feet propped up — between two laptops and just below an HDTV mounted to a wall.
Rodriguez’s staff is filled with coaches who were with him at previous coaching stops, most recently West Virginia. Shafer has no connection to Rodriguez or the Wolverines.
“Because I’m new, what do we call a double-edge pressure?” Rodriguez asks.
“Cats and dogs,” Shafer says.
Parking lot, 6:07 a.m. Monday
A Lexus rolls into the parking lot under a pitch-black sky.
Rodriguez gets out of the SUV sporting dress shoes sans socks, blue athletic shorts and a gray T-shirt. He lugs a bulging leather bag in one hand and the other holds slacks and a shirt on hangers.
A few minutes later, with running shoes on, he steps on a machine labeled “COACH ROD’S STAIRMASTER,” for a 35-minute workout on level 15. The speed is so intense that he logs five miles.
Rodriguez bounces on his toes with each step, quickly working up a sweat. It’s unclear if he or the whirring StairMaster is getting more of a workout. “SportsCenter” is on the TV a few feet away, but he’s oblivious to it — even when his image is shown as ESPN teases an upcoming segment featuring Michigan’s new coach. Rodriguez reads articles about each team on the schedule and, as fatigue sets in, he leans on the equipment so much that his face is a few inches away from the stack of white paper.
Later, Rodriguez hits a speed bag the skill of a seasoned boxer, creating a rhythm that sounded like a rattlesnake.
Behind him, the Wolverine Countdown clock shows there are 5 days, 6 hours, 24 minutes and 52.3 seconds until the Utah game.
Staff meeting room, 8 a.m.
Rodriguez, assistant coaches and members of the support staff are seated at a long, oval conference table. Other members of the staff sit in blue chairs along a wall.
Rodriguez runs the meeting with the same understated voice he always seems to have when he’s not on the practice field. In a businesslike way, he asks for reports from the equipment manager, trainer, an assistant athletic director and the head of strength and conditioning.
“Check their weight later in the week,” Rodriguez says. “I don’t want them blowing up because of all the free time they have.”
The schedule for the day and the rest of the week are among the topics of discussion.
“With all the freshmen we have, we need to be in the stadium on Thursday,” Rodriguez says. “Two or three years from now, we probably won’t need to do that.”
Practice fields, 4:53 p.m.
A two-plus hour practice that is as intense as one can be without full pads is over, but Kurt Wermers can’t leave yet. He’s being disciplined.
The offensive lineman starts his extra work with a bear crawl for 100 yards and 100-yard sprint.
“If you don’t like being punished, don’t be late!” assistant coach Greg Frye shouts. “C’mon Wermers!”
The 6-foot-5, 260-pound freshman is so exhausted on his next bear crawl that knees are dragging and hands are sliding on the artificial turf. After more crawling and sprinting, Wermers tries to outrace Frye from the far corner of the field to the indoor practice facility.
“I was supposed to be at a team meal at 10:30 and I got there at 10:31,” the exhausted Wermers — flat on his back — says to trainer Paul Schmidt.
“Just remember,” Schmidt says. “Early is on time and on time is late.”
Full staff meeting room, 6:15 p.m.
The offensive coaches are debating what plays to run near the goal line.
“We need extra points — not field goals,” offensive coordinator Calvin Magee says with his bare feet propped up on the conference table, left hand on belly, right on a remote control that rewinds, pauses and plays every play from practice several times.
Rodriguez interjects that he wants running back Carlos Brown, who played quarterback in high school, to get a shot to be a signal caller.
After a ball bounces off a receiver’s arm and into the arms of a player on the scout team, Rodriguez tilts his head back, arches his back, puts his palms over his eyes and rubs his face.
Sigh.
“This is giving me a headache,” he says shortly before going home at 10 p.m., when the sky looked a lot like it did 16 hours earlier.
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