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AFM Magazine


Michigan\'s Rich Rodriguez

by: Mike Kuchar
Senior Writer, American Football Monthly
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There is no doubt that Rich Rodriguez has continued to establish himself as one of the premier coaches in college football. Known as the modern grandfather of the spread offense, Rodriguez has continued to establish quick strike offenses while developing even more explosive players to lead it. Now after taking the West Virginia program to new heights by making them a perennial national title contender, Rodriguez has his biggest challenge in front of him – as the new head coach of Michigan.

The interview with Rodriguez is the first in a series of in-depth Q&A sessions hosted by senior writer Mike Kuchar with the intent of addressing all aspects relative of football – from scheme to philosophy – with the game's most innovative and well-respected minds.

Q: This is the second time that you’ve taken over a program that has some sort of football tradition established. How is that different than taking over a program like you did at Glenville State where you had to start at the bottom?

A: No matter the transition the first thing you have to do is find what the strengths of the players that you have at each position. Find out what you do well and that’s what spring practice is for. Then you need to figure out what part of your system matches that. Eventually, you recruit the guys specifically to do what you want to do and find those guys that can’t. A large part of our spring this season at Michigan was evaluating whom we have and what they do well and try to build our offensive package around that.

Q: What if you don’t have the guys you need to fit your scheme right away? For example, what if you don’t find that QB that you need in order to run a spread offense?

A: A lot of people have said that but having done this scheme for 17 years, we have enough versatility in it that we can feature different things in our offense based on the skills of our offensive skill players. This is especially true at QB. When we had Shaun King at Tulane we were throwing it over 50 percent of the time because that’s what he can do – he was such an accurate thrower. Then we’ve had the great runners like Woody Danzler, Rasheed Marshall and Pat White where we featured more of the run game. Find out what they do well and we can feature our scheme around that. But the base of our offense is still the same. Our philosophy is to spread people out and run out of different tempos. We have three different tempos that dictate the speed of our offense. That alone puts a ton of stress on a defense.

Q: You mentioned problems that the spread will encounter. What are some of the things that defenses will try to do over the last few years to try and stop what you do?

A: Traditionally, defensive coaches will design a defense to stop where the point of attack is in a play; that is, where the front side of a play is going to be. They will spend a ton of time showing their kids how they will fit certain gaps to get the ball carrier stopped. Now, with the zone read, teams are defending the front side and the back side in so many different ways. You get the front side fit several different ways but now you need to be concerned about how they are fitting the back side of a play. When you take our zone read a lot of teams now can play the QB in different ways. Sometimes they’ll put the end on him, sometimes they’ll put the LB on him and sometimes they’ll bring a guy out of the secondary like a safety to defend the QB. So you get more variety out of teams on how to defend the back side rather than the front side.

Q: What makes your scheme the best scheme in football?

A: It’s the best for us because we know it’s the best. I think that’s the biggest thing. There are a lot of great schemes but it’s about what you know best as a coach and it’s all about execution than X’s and O’s. But I also think it needs to be a scheme that your entire offensive staff understands. You will always face problems as an offense; the key is knowing how to fix them without just aborting your system. Find out where to go to next when things get shut down. Above all else you still have to have great players.

Q: The last few years the spread offense has just evolved so tremendously and you have to expect that it’s going to continue to do so. What would you say to an offensive coach, and there are plenty out there, who are trying to implement your system for the first time?

A: What you have to have is enough answers to all the problems you’re going to encounter. Yes, the spread is the new trend, but it’s also been around long enough that defenses are learning how to start to get a beat on it. Just going in it partly will be a little bit of a mistake because you’re not going to know the ins and outs of it. It took us a long time to figure out everything about this offense and we still don’t know it all. We learn from different staffs all the time. If you’re going to commit to it, you need to do it fully and be prepared to encounter all of those problems that may arise and then what you can do offensively to try and counter that. Preach the fundamentals and the execution first and foremost.

Q: So, what are some of the things you will do to combat that in terms of getting an offensive advantage?

A:You have to have enough variety in what you do offensively, whether it’s formation or plays You do that so it’s not just simply a zone read option. That’s the thing that we’ve changed the most over the last three or four years is having a few more wrinkles that give you an advantage in creating speed and getting the ball to the perimeter. You have your run adjustments if they’re packing the box like the bubble screen and you have your triple option game. What I really think has helped us is our play action schemes in the spread. We have gotten a lot of big plays in the play action lately.

Q: What is the best play in your offensive package?

A: Without question the zone read. But more than that is what you can do with it out of different or multiple formations. To be able to run it out of multiple formations is the base of what you want to structure the spread offense around.

Q: What is your favorite formation to run it out of? Why?

A: The one back stuff is real effective because of the angles you create on a defense. But in the last couple of years we’ve gone to more 20 personnel sets with two backs and no tight end. For us, it was more prominent because we had a guy like Owen Schmidt who was a fullback for us but ran like a tailback. He can run it and he was a great lead blocker. People assume that a spread offense doesn’t include a fullback but they’re wrong. It entails whatever talent you have. We talk a lot among ourselves about getting your best players on the field then trying to find out what formation will allow us to do that.

Q: Other than QB, what is the most important position to develop in the spread scheme?

A: Besides the QB, I would probably say the center because what he recognizes up front and leading the way with those guys up front and the multiple schemes that it entails in terms of blocking. But it’s nowhere in comparison to the importance of a good QB. In a true spread offense, the QB makes a lot of decisions in the run game as well as the pass game. In a traditional offense the QB only has to make decisions as far as whether to change a play or not or if it’s a pass play where to throw the ball. In a spread offense, the QB makes a lot of decisions post snap in terms of run or pass and he has to make them quickly – especially when you have those wide technique ends coming down hill right now in a shotgun set. What we tell our guys is that the QB must be a good point guard; one that both sees the whole field and fires from there.

Q: Take me through the process this spring with developing a QB that not only hasn’t operated in the spread scheme but hasn’t had an official snap as a signal caller?

A: You really don’t know until you put them in a fire. I think being a leader will come when he knows exactly what he’s doing. We spend more time with teaching the fundamentals of first being a QB and then teaching the fundamentals of the offense until he is comfortable with leading the rest of the guys. There’s a lot on the plate there but with 15 spring practices we’re kind of right on track with that.

Q: You once told me the story about this offense originating when you were at Glenville State and the center kept snapping the ball over the QB’s head, forcing him to make a play. Did you ever think that several years later it would be the most innovative scheme of the last decade?

A:What’s funny is that when we did it the first seven years at Glenville State and at West Virginia we were having great success. But I think that as we became a little more confident you always want to work it at the higher level where the players are a little bit faster and you have more coaches to work with. It kind of affirmed to us at Tulane when we had Shawn King and we figured we had something special here but at the same time we knew that more and more people were going to use it. So we always tried to come up with another answer because those defensive guys are getting pretty smart. One thing that I love about the spread is that it’s kind of neat to watch everyone’s version of it to see how it relates to ours. You may see two different spreads but two different modes of attack on any given Saturday. Some teams spread you out to run it, while some spread you out to chuck it.

Q: Just as an aside, how were you able to stay focused on being a coach during this past off-season despite recent distractions and the resentment of some since your departure from West Virginia and arrival in Ann Arbor?

A: I think when you’re dealing with any adversity as a coach, you have to compartmentalize things and focus on your major task at hand and for me that was building the University of Michigan football program. That’s been my focus since day one. Unfortunately, some of those things that have probably taken away some of the enjoyment that you would have in the great position that I’ve got but it still hasn’t cost me any focus in doing my job. My family has done a great job. Also, my staff have done a great job and the people that support our program at Michigan has helped me as well.






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