Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez is known for being a good X & O man when it comes to offensive football. Evidently, his reputation and skills for being the CEO of a big-time football operation is not as strong. It appears Rodriguez is more concerned with just football, not the total well-being of his program.
The Wolverines have been the subject of a huge internal investigation prompted by complaints to the NCAA by football players under Rodriguez’s watch. Setting the scene here--way back in the early 1990’s the NCAA instituted strict laws whereby athletic programs were limited in how many hours of “mandatory” or “required” hours of activity athletes could partake. During the traditional fall football season players could not be required to participate in more than 20 hours per week, hence the “20 hour rule.” I was very familiar with that rule because as assistant head coach for Bill Snyder at Kansas State one of my duties was to monitor our time, note it, and relay it on to the head coach so we could appropriately report it to the athletic department, conference office, etc. Again, this was around 1992, give or take a year.
In this 20 hour time frame coaches had to jam their on-field practice time, pre/post practice meetings with players, as well as weight-lifting. The actual game day counted as just 3 hours. In effect, with those hours allotted for the game, there is only 17 hours with which to have required sport activity throughout the rest of the week. Also mandated was that student-athletes must have one day off per week with no required activity.
Shortly before that time the NCAA reduced the number of graduate assistant (GA) football coaches from a maximum of five to just two. These were entry-level jobs, “go-fer” types of jobs manned by prospective young coaches, that were important in the sense that they alleviated some of the tasks and grunt work that would have been left to the full-time assistant coaches. These GAs were allowed to be on the field and assist just like any other coach while handling a myriad of lesser duties off the field. When they reduced the number of GAs, coaches had to get creative to find a way to handle some of the minor administrative and go-fer work. Creative they got, introducing such positions as video assistants, player development assistants, program assistants, quality control assistants, interns—all of these positions were essentially done to get extra bodies in and around the football program. The fundamental problem was that, by rule, only the head coach, his nine full-time assistants, the full-time strength/conditioning staff, and the two designated football GAs were the only ones legally able to work with the players. In almost all cases those camouflaged in these other positions end up finding their way onto the field. Illegal, boys.
The following excerpts are from an AP story outlining Michigan’s situation. It’s clear that any coach with the experience of Rodriguez, as well as his administration, should know exactly what has been standard procedure and NCAA law for about two decades. Please read with special attention the quotes attributed to Rodriguez. He sounds like the “Teflon Don”, John Gotti—who, me? Nothing can stick to me…it wasn’t my fault. Hmmm.
(AP) The University of Michigan admitted Tuesday to a series of violations in its storied football program and insisted the problems related to practice time and the activities of graduate assistants were not enough to warrant major punishment from the NCAA.
The violations came to light last fall during a second straight losing season for Rodriguez, who will return for his third season at Michigan this fall. Anonymous players told the Detroit Free Press that they were exceeding NCAA limits on practice and training time, prompting school and NCAA investigations. The NCAA has outlined five potentially major rules violations, all related to practices and workouts. It accused Rodriguez of failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance in his program -- a charge Michigan vehemently denied even as it acknowledged an overall failure by the athletic department.
The school said two main problems -- too many people acting as coaches and too many hours being put into football by the players -- occurred in part because of "inattention by the football staff."
After his hire from West Virginia, Rodriguez filled all five quality control positions in the program -- essentially assistants to assistants who were paid $17 per hour to "run errands for the coaches, check on student-athlete class attendance and academic issues, and chart plays." The school said the staff "crossed the line in specific situations and engaged in 'coaching activities" as defined by the NCAA.
Rodriguez also told school investigators he didn't know about forms used at Michigan to track athletes' activities until last summer, 18 months after he was hired, and he said no one ever told him those forms were not being filed with compliance officials by his program.
Rodriguez's response was submitted by his attorney, Scott Tompsett. He said the coach was "very disappointed that his administrators failed to provide the job descriptions on multiple occasions and he is disappointed that the compliance staff never brought their failure to his attention. Rodriguez has always had an open-door policy for anyone to bring matters to his attention."
Rodriguez regretted that he didn't adequately monitor certain aspects of his program, but added in his response that following NCAA bylaws was not a "one-man job."
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press
EDITOR's NOTE--No, Coach. Sorry. You can’t get away with that lame, weak excuse and response. There’s more to running a program than just drawing up plays.
Iowa senior quarterback Ricky Stanzi is the consensus leader of the Hawkeye football team. As Stanzi goes, so do the Hawks. Prognosticators have Iowa ranked somewhere between #13 -#15 in the nation, but also talented enough to make a legitimate run at unseating Ohio State from their six-year Big Ten Conference championship reign and factoring into the national title picture. 
