The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/402034
with the athletic administration gar- nering protests from students and fans. It's a state, he says, he's never seen in Michigan football, and he's been around it since 1994. On the field, Ray pointed out, the Wolverines aren't scaring anyone these days. "They don't have any identity," Ray asserted. "They have a name that nobody is buying anymore. No- body is buying the fact that Michigan can win a Big Ten championship, or Michigan can just show up and win, or that they're going to get all the best players, have the biggest sta- dium, sell out and be Michigan. "To get back to that is going to take some time. We live in a right-now world. Everything is a send button. We live in a remote control world, and you want to change the channel right now." Skene calls it "reestablishment." He points out how dramatically col- lege football has changed over the past decade and wonders aloud if Michigan, and for that matter the Big Ten, kept up as well as required. "You remember when the cliché was, Michigan doesn't know how to stop a dual-threat quarterback, starting with [Syracuse quarterback] Donovan McNabb?" Skene mused. "That was many, many years ago. There is probably some truth to that. "It probably did take us longer than some other schools and some other conferences, if you look at the Big Ten, to say, hey, maybe we need to change. The last 10 years, you throw in some coaching changes, and we're still trying to get back to what we were, but in the modern version." Throw in the whipsaw coaching changes — from Rodriguez's spread, with smaller, faster performers, back to Hoke's pined-for power game, with the reinstitution of the tight end, fullback, etc. — and the issues be- come obvious, Skene indicated. Further, inject some acrimony re- garding Rodriguez's tenure and add in the natural toxin losing produces, and it's a dangerous mix. "The switch to the spread changed the roster significantly," Skene in- sisted. "That's aside from all the be- hind-the-scenes personality issues that he ran into when he became coach, both inside the building and outside the building. Kids transferring, public letters of condemnation toward him when [offensive lineman Justin] Boren left to go to Ohio State … "Those things all make the job more difficult. Coach Rodriguez did what he did, and [Michigan athletics director] Dave Brandon decided to make a change. "We've had too much change go- ing on at once and entirely different philosophical approaches to what Michigan football should be, from what Lloyd was, what Coach Rodri- guez wanted to be and now what Coach Hoke wants to become again." It takes time to recover, both in- sisted. Skene played for the New England Patriots after leaving Michi- gan, and kept a copy of the final ros- ter on which he appeared. Two years later, he checked back, and precisely six players remained Patriots from the time he'd departed. That, he emphasized, reveals how