School in the News: Florida

Will Muschamp was fired as Florida's head coach, even though he has agreed to coach the Gators' final two games of the year. He currently has a 5-4 record with games against Eastern Kentucky and Florida State remaining, plus a potential bowl game. His overall head coaching record stands at 27-20.

The recruiting impact of coaching changes is often minimal, so Michigan should not expect any of the fallout to affect them. The most interesting thing to watch will be whom Florida targets as the next head coach, because Michigan will also likely be looking for a head coach in the near future. Mississippi State's Dan Mullen and Arizona's Rich Rodriguez seem to be the coaches with the most buzz for the Florida job right now. Mullen could also be an option for Michigan; obviously, Rodriguez would not be.

Anyway, here's a look at Florida's current recruiting class and roster, should this development affect the Wolverines at all:

Offered 2015 commits: C Tyler Jordan
Offered players on roster: LB Alex Anzalone, WR Alvin Bailey, DT Jay-nard Bostwick, DT Khairi Clark, CB Vernon Hargreaves III, OT D.J. Humphries, S Marcus Maye, C Tyler Moore, S Brian Poole, LB Matt Rolin, CB Jalen Tabor, and S Quincy Wilson

Of those players, only Alvin Bailey was ever somewhat serious about coming to Michigan.

On a couple side notes, Cincinnati offensive tackle George Brown is committed to Florida; he was never offered by Michigan, but he did garner a lot of recruiting hype and Michigan's lack of interest was somewhat curious.

Also, former Michigan quarterback commit Kevin Sousa's brother, Ryan, is a freshman wideout for the Gators.

Also also, a couple former Michigan residents are on Florida's squad: Canton offensive linemen Cameron Dillard and Madison Heights Madison wide receiver Valdez Showers.

Effects of Coaching Carousel on Michigan

Several coaches from schools around the country have been fired, retired, or resigned recently, and some of those coaching situations may have an impact on Michigan.  Here I'll discuss the ways in which the departures of Urban Meyer (Florida), Randy Shannon (Miami), and Dave Wannstedt (Pitt) might impact the situation in Ann Arbor.  I don't think any of them necessarily signify impending doom for Rich Rodriguez (Urban Meyer isn't coming to Ann Arbor), but they might affect the Michigan program in smaller ways.

RECRUITING
All three schools I'm going to focus on harbor Class of 2011 commits who have Michigan offers.

• Florida: RB Mike Blakely, SR Javares McRoy, LB Ryan Shazier, DB Valdez Showers, WR Ja'juan Story, CB Nick Waisome
• Miami: DE Anthony Chickillo
• Pitt: RB/SR Bill Belton, CB Terrell Chestnut, CB Kyshoen Jarrett, LB Ben Kline

The three players in the above lists who have shown the most interest in Michigan are Showers, Jarrett, and Kline.  Showers is from Michigan, and the other two seemed to be giving the Wolverines a fair look before committing to become Panthers.  Assuming that Florida's head job is filled by someone with Florida roots (Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, Louisville's Charlie Strong), I doubt that many Gator commits will waver.  However, Pittsburgh's open job will likely be filled by an outsider, and that means Jarrett and Kline might be ripe for the picking.  Jarrett has reportedly sent out feelers to other programs, including Michigan, and Kline had Michigan in his top few schools at one point.

GATOR BOWL OPPONENT
Urban Meyer's intentions are to coach the Florida Gators in the Outback Bowl on New Year's Day.  However, just like Michigan did with Rich Rodriguez back in 2007-2008, Meyer's replacement might be hired prior to January 1.  That guy might be Mississippi State's Dan Mullen.  And even though Mullen is familiar with the landscape of Florida and has only been gone from Gainesville for a season, I'm not sure that Florida's athletic director would want to sacrifice several weeks of recruiting right near the end of the cycle.  I would not be surprised to see Meyer's replacement hired within the coming week; if Mullen's the guy, he probably won't be coaching the Bulldogs on January 1.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Mississippi State would be a mess for the bowl game.  Going back to that Michigan/West Virginia situation in 2007-2008, interim head coach Bill Stewart led the Mountainers to a 48-28 victory over #3 Oklahoma.

MICHIGAN'S COACHING STAFF
It's practically a foregone conclusion that, at the very least, defensive coordinator Greg Robinson will be gone before the 2011 season.  If it doesn't happen prior to the bowl game, it will happen soon after.  But with the tenuous status of the entire coaching staff at Michigan, it's not like some coordinator out there is going to accept a job at Michigan this very instant.  For now, Robinson is the guy.

None of Pitt's staff is likely to come to Michigan, but the Miami and Florida staff changes may have an effect. 

Randy Shannon was a very good defensive coordinator for the Hurricanes for six seasons before becoming head coach.  He also has NFL experience with the Miami Dolphins, so heading back to the NFL isn't out of the question.  Shannon seems like a long shot to come to Michigan as a coordinator, especially because Michigan has a tradition of underpaying coordinators.  Athletic director David Brandon might signal a new regime by shelling out some dough for a big-name coordinator, but I have my doubts.

More likely candidates include:

• Vance Bedford.  Bedford was a defensive backs coach at Michigan for five total seasons, most recently in 2007.  He then joined the Florida staff and followed Charlie Strong to Louisville to become defensive coordinator, where he currently has the #12 total defense and the #15 scoring defense in the country.  If Strong becomes head coach at Florida, that might cause a shakeup in his staff, but I don't see a significant reason that Bedford wouldn't follow Strong back to Gainesville except for . . .
• Chuck Heater.  Heater was a running back at Michigan from 1972-1974.  Though he hasn't coached at Michigan, he's still a "Michigan Man."  He succeeded Strong as defensive coordinator at Florida, and has the #9 total defense and #31 scoring defense in 2010.  If Strong were hired, Bedford or Heater would likely head elsewhere for a coordinator position.  Since Bedford seems to be Strong's "guy," this might make Heater a free agent.

The availability of these guys is largely based on speculation and connections to Michigan, so I don't have any inside sources saying that David Brandon is pursuing these guys.  However, they seem like fairly logical choices to replace Greg Robinson at Michigan.  As I said in a prior post about Rodriguez's future in Ann Arbor, I stated that one of the caveats should be that a defensive coordinator should be hired and Rodriguez should be told to keep his hands off the defensive side of the ball.  Shannon, Bedford, and Heater have the experience and credibility to come in and run their systems without too much blowback. 

All of these dominos are unlikely to fall, but they're things to consider as Michigan likely searches for a defensive coordinator and staff this offseason.

Is the Rodriguez offense evolving?

Michigan message boards have been roaring lately about the commitment of Drew Dileo, a lightly recruited slot receiver from Louisiana. Nine months before signing day 2010, Michigan fans are wondering why Rich Rodriguez would offer - let alone accept a commitment from - a player whose next best offers come from Stanford and Northwestern. Fellow Michigan commits Antonio Kinard and Tony Drake still don't have any FBS offers besides Michigan.

Watching these message boards flutter with activity about Dileo, I began to wonder what Rodriguez might have in store for Michigan's offense. My mind took a not-so-huge intellectual leap from Rodriguez's spread offense to those of his good friend Urban Meyer at Florida and Mike Leach at Texas Tech.

Looking at Meyer's roster for 2009, I made an interesting (to me) discovery:

Going into the 2009 season, Florida has only two scholarship running backs (Chris Rainey and Emmanuel Moody) on the roster. Fellow "backfield mates" Jeff Demps and Brandon James are both listed as "athletes" on their official roster, and both are 5'8" or smaller and about 185 lbs. The class of 2009 adds only Mike Gillislee to the running back stable, which means a total of three designated running backs. Meanwhile, Florida has nine scholarship receivers and one incoming (Andre Debose) to give them a total of 10 receivers.

In 2008, Florida threw the ball 329 times (37.7%) and ran the ball 545 times (62.3%).

Meanwhile, Texas Tech has 15 returning scholarship receivers and four freshmen joining the team in 2009 to give them a total of 19 receivers. They threw the ball 465 times (59.5%) and ran the ball 317 times (40.5%).

Both are spread offenses, but they're vastly different.

Michigan currently has eight receivers. Two will graduate after this season, but four are incoming this year and six more will arive in 2010. Hypothetically, this gives Michigan a total of 16 scholarship receivers for three spots on the field in 2010 (assuming no position changes, for sanity's sake):

Cameron Gordon, Je'ron Stokes, Jeremy Gallon, Teric Jones, Drew Dileo, Jeremy Jackson, Ricardo Miller, Jerald Robinson, D.J. Williamson, Tony Drake, Junior Hemingway, Martavious Odoms, Terrance Robinson, Roy Roundtree, James Rogers, Darryl Stonum

With the entrance of Tate Forcier to the fold (a polished passer with a slight build), I think it's safe to say that Rodriguez's offense might be evolving into a pass-first spread. I sincerely doubt it will turn into Texas Tech and their standard of four- and five-wide sets, but I think it's clear that he's trying to develop the depth at the wide receiver position to throw the ball at will. Not only does a bloated number of receivers increase the chances of finding impact players at the position, but it allows the coaches to rotate players in and keep them fresh for running downfield and blocking. I would not be surprised to see more sets with four wide receivers in the next two or three years, but I think three will remain the norm.

I'm excited to see what the Michigan offense will look like in the next couple years. I'm fairly certain that Michigan's offense will not replicate that of West Virginia circa 2005-2008. Forcier and, arguably, 2010 recruit Devin Gardner are better passers than Pat White was coming out of high school. Therefore, It would seem counterintuitive for Rodriguez to bring in an accurate, polished quarterback and 16 receivers to run the ball 60% of the time like Meyer is doing in Florida. Once Rodriguez gets his offense going at Michigan, I would expect that the Wolverines will be throwing the ball 50 to 55% of the time.