With the recent firing of University of Michigan Head Coach Rich Rodriguez, much has been made about the Michigan football program and whether or not it will ever get back to the days of Bo Schembechler and Lloyd Carr, along with the importance of hiring a "Michigan man" for the head coaching position.
Programs like University of Michigan, University of Tennessee, University of California, Los Angeles and even Penn State to an extent have declined over the past decade and have experienced numerous setbacks and losing seasons over the past 10 years.
Each of these programs at one point or another were considered an elite program in college football, but now are nothing more than an afterthought.
The question still remains: are traditional powerhouse programs still as prestigious as their athletic directors and alumni would like to believe?
With the recent success of non-automatic qualifying schools and the setbacks that even schools like Ohio State, which traditionally has dominated the college football polls, have seen, it seems to suggest that there is a shift occurring in the college football landscape.
Plus, given the fact that the Michigan Wolverines not only were not able to get former Stanford University Head Coach and Michigan alumnus Jim Harbaugh to bring the program back from the grave, but also could not sway "Michigan man" Les Miles away from Louisiana State University suggests the allure of traditional powerhouses like Michigan simply are not there anymore.
Nothing illustrates this more than the recent hiring of San Diego State UniversityHead Coach Brady Hoke. Although he coached at University of Michigan under Lloyd Carr, the alumni at Michigan can't help but say "Who?"
There was no hotter coach on the market than Rich Rodriguez when the Wolverines hired him in 2008, but he wasn't a "Michigan man," and many reports have suggested that the marriage between Rodriguez and Michigan was doomed from the beginning.
I can't help but wonder how long the marriage will last between Hoke and the Wolverines given that he graduated from Ball State University, not from Michigan.
Not only is Michigan one of the toughest jobs in all of college football given the dramatic turnaround that will be needed to bring this program back to glory, but also the ridiculous amount of pressure Hoke faces.
Although Hoke did a good job both at Ball State and at San Diego State universities, the level of competition he faced at both of those schools will be nowhere near what the University of Michigan will face week in and week out.
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Now, I do not want Hoke to fail (even though I am a Michigan State fan), but I just cannot see how this new marriage can last given that Michigan might have one of the angriest fan bases in all of college football right now. Their patience level is about the same as that of New York Yankees fans even after their team wins three straight World Series titles.
While Hoke tries to sort out the mess that is the Michigan football program, Jim Tressel is continuing to dominate the "team up north" with such ease that he could probably skip out on this year's game and Ohio State would still win by two touchdowns.
Good luck getting back to the glory days with one of the most impatient alumni bases in all of college football, Brady Hoke. You are going to need it.
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