[NU Sports] Fitz tells Michigan he's not interested!

[Beamsley, Jeff]

I'm happy that Fitz is staying, but I am sad at how this is playing out for what had been a premiere college football program.  
 
Michigan is supposed to be a "dream" job virtually any coach in the country would jump at.  Iinstead it is becoming another tawdry side show where the rest of the sporting world gets to watch as a whole series of coaches tell Michigan that they aren't interested.  
 
The ham handed way that Martin handled the Rodriguez hiring damaged Michigan's image as a top tier organization.  It only got worse from there.  The bitter political in-fighting after the hire pretty much doomed the Rodriguez era before it started.  He clearly didn't help his own case with an insensitive house cleaning that sent a lot of kids out the door to places like OSU and Arkansas.  Sloppy record keeping led to Michigan's first NCAA investigation and self-imposed penalties.  Ultimately, poor performance on the field sealed the deal. 
 
Even in the face of all of that, my impression is that Martin's replacement, Brandon, was looking for something, anything to justify keeping Rodriguez for another season.  By all rights, Rodriguez should have been fired at the end of the regular season.  As others in the press have pointed out, he probably could have hired Harbaugh at that point because there weren't all of the other opportunities he is looking at now on the table.  In any case, it's clear now that Brandon didn't have a plan other than the hope that Michigan would have a good enough bowl game to earn Rodriguez another season.  That didn't happen and how Brandon has to wander the countryside hat in hand looking for someone who is willing to take on what now looks like a dangerous job - rebuilding the Michigan program with a deeply divided and very unhappy set of alums and boosters debating every move.
 
Jeff

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From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com on behalf of Jonathan Hodges
Sent: Fri 1/7/2011 1:00 AM
To: Mike Nolan
Cc: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Fitz tells Michigan he's not interested!



Unlike rumors in previous years (i.e. last year with ND) I believe Michigan
seriously wanted to interview Fitz and this report came from multiple media
sources (Joe Schad, Teddy Greenstein).  He fit a lot of what they were
looking for (his personality, his defensive-mindedness, and following the
rules both on and off the field).  While it wasn't a job offer it would
definitely have put him on the short list.

Fortunately for us, he has things pretty much set here in Evanston as Teddy
explains here:

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2011/01/greenstein-nus-fitzgerald-not-headed-to-michigan.html

I believe Fitz when he talks about his connection with NU, and although
he'll likely keep his options open down the road I think he'll stay around
here as long as he can because he does have it pretty good here and gets a
lot of extra things like his family and extended family.

Jonathan

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Mike Nolan <nolan at romaine.tssi.com> wrote:

> > Don't know whether Michigan actually offered Fitz their head coaching
> job, but they at least talked with him about it. Who do they think they are?
> - Notre Dame may have gotten Ara back in '64, but Fitz bleeds purple.
>
> Sounds like:
>
> A.  Someone's pipe dream
> B.  Informed sources who aren't
> C.  Michigan is really desperate
>
> Of course those are not mutually exclusive.
> --
> Mike Nolan
>
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