A brief summary of what I am thinking.

There are two things that surprise me about this whole RR thing. The first is how vehement the RR supporters are. I understand vehemence in the anti-RR crew. Firing is an aggressive thing to do and being aggressive in discussing it is not unusual. But, those who are supporting RR are just as aggressive and insulting to the other side, etc. It is amazing.

The second thing is that I really want him gone. I don't know if I want him fired, or as you said are hoping for minimal punishment, but enough to have to let him go, or what, but I really don't want him at M anymore. I don't know when I started not liking him, but I know it was prior to the first game last year. I think what disappoints me most about my feelings about it is NOT that I am not supporting M by not supporting the coach (as many people say), but I can't say for sure that I would feel the same way if he was finishing his second 9-3 season. Hopefully, I would.

But, of course, he isn't 18-6. He is 8-15. And I am not convinced he is ever going to bring this program to the promised land of challenging for BCS Championships every year. But as Sam and Ira say, we don't know where it is going from here, RR stay or go. WHICH IS ANOTHER THING about him. Why can we not know this? If nearly anyone else had been hired, we would likely know this. I'm not saying things would be a lot better, but I do think they would be better. And I think the reason why is simple. RR is stubborn.

There was an MGoBlog paragraph mentioning another blog or something (I think) talking about how you have to buy in 100% to the spread system or you just have a bad offense running some bad spread option plays. I know that is one of the excuses pro RR people use to account for last year. You have to buy into it 100%, can't use a hybrid system, etc. etc. For argument purposes, I will assume that the spread is that kind of offense (though I don't know if I buy it). If that really is the case, unless RR or any other coach was a 100% lock, we should have avoided this kind of spread coach (from what I understand, the Brian Kelly spread is more straight forward running rather than the option game). If it was going to be such a specialist type of system, why would we do it? We know we can get talent. We just need a coach to take advantage of it (the big criticism of Lloyd). Why would we need to have a coach that needs to be doing something DIFFERENT, too? (we wouldn't have tried a triple option offense, would we?) Maybe the answer there is that they COULDN'T get anyone else. Martin may have really messed up on that one.

I heard from more than one place (and one source had it come from a college coach) that it is an easier transition from spread to pro-style than the other way. So, the growing pains into RR should have been seen. Also, that should alleviate some of the growing pains back the other way if someone, say Harbaugh, would come over.

Speaking of a transition like that, I know that there isn't a typical pro-style QB on the roster (well, a good one), but if a Harbaugh (for example) came next year, he would find a way to use the QBs. I think he would use his imagination to do things with other players, etc. He might even run some wildcat. Why didn't RR use his imagination? It really was "let's run the spread' all the time. Even the trickiest trick plays for RR seem less tricky than something Lloyd would do. I don't get it.

Even though I am saying all of this, I know that it is safer to NOT fire him. Even though I don't think he is going to improve significantly during his time at M, if you fire him and the firing is wrong, it is much worse than if you keep him and that is wrong. We are a near .500 team. The wrong replacement may go down from there.

And, if Karsch is right, and I think that he is, if Harbaugh were hired, or Miles or maybe a few other coaches with M connections that coach would get a longer time to turn things around than RR, mainly because he would be an M man.

And going back to the transition, I think the transition would be smoother with any M man because there would be some return to the M traditions. Most importantly, I think yearlong captains need to come back. Enough said on that or I'll be accused of being an old fuddy-duddy.

I heard someone say that M fans don't have the patience to be a Nat Champ contender. That made me say to myself, "we shouldn't have to...". We weren't that far from a Nat Champ. 9-4, with a couple close games is only a couple games and a couple plays away. 3-9 is a little farther. Really how long DO we have to wait for RR to bring M to a BCS bowl? Can the RR supporters guarantee in his 5th year? That is the soonest I see it now. And I don't expect it then.

I understand RR has had some personnel issues on this team. I'll give him some slack for last year, but the D is so bad this season, there had to be a way to fix that. He has had two recruiting classes and there was an entire offseason to make moves of O players to D if that is what was necessary (he thinks it is now). I just don't think that the team's talent level is worse than Indiana (almost lost at home), Illinois and PU. I may be wrong, of course, but that is how I see it.

Also, I am tired of the excuse of 3 D coordinators in 3 years. SO? All DCs teach that players should do fundamentals. Maybe the 4th one should emphasize it more.

The latest report on the self-reporting issue was interesting in that there is a lot of interpretation of what it means. Mistakenly, I listened to Sam and Ira and they (surprise) think it shows that someone from the inside leaked that report to the Freep which led to the big Freep story before the season. Though this may be true, why didn't the Uni say something about it the day the Freep story came out. "We know about the allegations. We did our own report on portions of what the Free Press story mentions." etc. And if that report was out there and RR still had his crying press conference, something seems a little insincere.

I believe that there could have been someone from inside leaking something. One thing M has been fortunate about in the past million years is that the insiders (the athletic dept staff, former players with influence, rich alums) have generally been on the same page on the football coach. Even when there were some Lloyd haters out there, I never heard anything about an insider wanting him to be fired. But, with RR, that has changed. From before he was hired, there was a split (remember the Les Miles fiasco) and since his hire and especially since the bad record there is a canyon. In the long run, how can you consider keeping him. That split will always be there. It will be very difficult to be successful when you don't have everyone on the same page.

I like to listen to Karsch and Anderson when it comes to M stuff. It appears that Karsch likes RR, which is understandable, he does a lot of work with him, but he isn't so blind as to think RR will last past this season, even if there is no NCAA punishment.

My ultimate hope at this time would be for M to be putting out feelers right now. Harbaugh would be my first choice. I don't know why other than I think he is a Michigan man, he has shown he can win, and I would hope that watching him coach would bring that feeling I used to get when I watched him play. If they get a bite, then I say cut the losses on RR, and start over. I don't care what it costs (they'll pay what they need, anyhow). I don't care how many of RR's WRs leave. I only care about caring. About M football. And feeling excited about Saturday, not because I'm going to go to Fleetwood Diner, but because there is a good football game.

This Saturday there is not. And RR is the main one to blame (I think I wrote something similar last year)

I will cheer for his teams as long as he is here. I hope that isn't too long.