The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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about, that you come to Michigan to play for Michigan, came into play," Skene said. "You heard the old say- ing that no coach, no player is more important than the team. "When he resigned, that was the message. 'My time is up here, but Michigan is bigger than me and big- ger than you.' When Coach Moeller took over, there were no changes to that staff, to the secretaries, to the equipment managers, to the medical staff, the strength and conditioning staff … except the head coach. "That was a pretty seamless tran- sition. Although Bo wasn't around, and his personality wasn't around, everything remained consistent. That made things easy." Skene's offensive line coaches — Les Miles and Jerry Hanlon — re- mained the same. When Carr took over for Moeller, it was similar, de- spite the more difficult circumstance. Contrast those switches to the shock that set in when Rodriguez arrived. Both Ray and Skene are of the mind that it was simply too much change, after so much Michigan suc- cess in the same lineage. Ray wondered aloud if the move to Rodriguez wasn't a play toward reducing the power Schembechler and his successors wielded over the course of four decades. No longer would the football coach at Michi- gan be "calling all the shots around here." It wasn't long before the head coach found himself absorbing plenty of shots. Rodriguez cleaned house on the coaching staff, bringing his own crew from West Virginia and retaining only running backs coach Fred Jackson from the previous staff. Most new coaches act in a simi- lar fashion. Schembechler did. But Schembechler won immediately, in- cluding the iconic 1969 upset of the No. 1 Buckeyes, rather than going 3-9. "When you do that at a place like Michigan, when you make whole- sale changes and you bring in a guy who is not part of that tradition, now you're starting over," Ray said. "I think the last administration thought you could just bring in a coach and keep this Michigan train rolling. "They soon found out, this place isn't set up for just anybody to come and win. I don't care what type of success you've had before you came and after you left. This place, the way it was built for 40-some years, was done one way — the Michigan way. "If you don't know it, you can't do it. People can't build upon or teach what they don't know. They have to learn it." Rodriguez made an earnest at- tempt to learn traditions important to Michigan — singing "The Victors," the Rose Bowl, hailing the most vic- tories in college football history, etc. But he clearly was not interested in winning the way it had been done in the past. He figured to gear up and go with an offense that couldn't be stopped, and a high-tempo pace that would leave opponents gasping for air. To this day, he believes it all would have succeeded, had he been given more time. "Not only do you have the person-