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Justin Boren
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Posted 8 months ago Ok everybody here a VERY good article to go with Justin Boren leaving Michigan earlier this week. I really loved this. **Yes, Wolverines: you’ll be working really hard** By Matt Hayes - SportingNews
I don’t like to take college players to task for one basic reason: They’re not paid. For me, it doesn’t get beyond “played poorly” or “struggled” or “blew an assignment” because frankly, it’s not appropriate. Besides, coaches are an easy target. They get paid to run the team and get paid to take the criticism. Only now, I must take exception with Michigan offensive lineman Justin Boren. Earlier this week, Boren said he was leaving Michigan because “family values” he had grown accustomed to had “eroded in just a few months” under new coach Rich Rodriguez. Before we go further, let’s get a few undeniable things out of the way: • Some players don’t like new coaches; some bitch and moan about them. • Some players persevere, others walk away. • And some—the few—take their ball and whine all the way home. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is where we find Boren. Coaching changes aren’t easy on anyone—not the coach leaving, the coach hired and most certainly not the players recruited by the previous coach. It is, as much as anything, the first real life experience for college kids. In the real world, we call this turnover. We have a job, we love our job and now all of a sudden we have a new boss. And the new boss is different. Not all bosses motivate the same. Some motivate with positive reinforcement, others with fear and still others with goal-oriented benchmarks. Some use a combination of all three. Now here’s what’s important: Nearly every new boss is not like the old boss. Boren’s comfort zone that felt so easy and so right is now gone. Of course, that comfort zone included losses to rival Ohio State in six of the last seven years. Rodriguez was hired to win football games; it’s just that simple. He was hired to beat Ohio State—not placate 18-, 19- and 20-year-old kids who don’t like change. Every new coach goes through this; just like every new boss goes through it. It’s a process: Weeding out those who don’t fit. Some don’t like to work hard, some are malcontents. The big buzz in the first few spring practices at Michigan was offensive linemen adjusting to the no-huddle approach in Rodriguez’s scheme. Translation: You’re running your ass off. Those who fall behind will be pushed harder and longer, mentally and physically. That’s coaching, people. Any dime store psychologist will say you can’t motivate through fear. Well, a guy named John Wooden—who won a few championships in his career—says a coach’s best friend is the bench. In other words, play hard or sit. “I’m not going out there and running people off,” Rodriguez told the Detroit News. “I’ve been running these kinds of practices for 20 years.” Those are the same practices he ran at West Virginia, where his first team in 2001 won three games while working through the transition. Those players were used to Don Nehlen, a Lloyd Carr clone if there ever was one. Both Nehlen and Carr are good men and good coaches, but they lost their ability to motivate players to maximize their abilities. Listen people, Rodriguez won 32 games over the last three years. You don’t do that by coddling your players. And anyone who watched the Fiesta Bowl three months ago knows that West Virginia team—when healthy—would beat any in college football. If you’re Michigan, that’s what you hold onto. Not the words of a departing player who took his ball and whined all the way home. **So what are your thoughts on this one?? I say good riddens and go cry on somebody elses shoulder.** |
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| Posted 8 months ago He'll probably end up playing for Ohio State. I say good riddance also. |
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| Posted 8 months ago What I like best about this article is this, **Listen people, Rodriguez won 32 games over the last three years. You don’t do that by coddling your players.** I thought this was football, not tiddly winks. |
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| Posted 8 months ago Hey now what is wrong with Ohio state. Just because Michigan cant beat them, don't hate the winners!!!! |
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| Posted 8 months ago Players leave under new coaching, always been that way. Some quit and never play ball again and others go to another program. No big deal, let him take his ball and whine somewhere else. The fact is that Boren did not fit what Rodriguez likes in his O linemen. Boren was slow and lazy off the ball and Rodriguez wants his up front guys quick off the ball and in the best shape possible. No overweight Newton type guys, his guys at WV were all lighter but faster then everyone else. And as everyone knows, technique and execution are the keys. Over the next few years the typical Michigan O Line will be much lighter but fast and quick. And smackdown, I dont hate winners, But I will always hate OSU if they win or not. Remember I am a true Michigan fan and all true Michigan fans will hate OSU until the day we die. |
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| Posted 8 months ago Good riddens! Last year OSU's fate was in Michigan's hands it wasn't all that easy for OSU! Hey Buckeyes fan's to bad you got beat in the big game loser's! OSU Choke Artist!! P.S. The HORSESHOE doesn't compare to the BIG HOUSE to much history............ |
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| Posted 8 months ago Justin Boren sounds like a spoiled crybaby to me. Let him go too. Maybe he'll go to OSUcks with Terrell. |