Rich Rodriguez (official thread of last laughs)

[muffler dragon]

But....someone had to take him. Supposing Lazear had all of his scholarship offers rescinded. More than likely he would have tried to walk on somewhere, and more than likely given his talent, he'd have made a team. From the Lazear recruiting thread it would appear that the general consensus among Buckeye fans was that the best path was for the program to cut all ties with Lazear and distance itself completely from the situation. So I gather that you guys would also have been unhappy if Tressel let him walk-on to the team, as there's no mention of a difference between being paid a scholarship to play and simply playing. Seems likely, though, that he'd have played somewhere. Maybe not D-IA or even I-AA, but his talent wouldn't have been overlooked. Since this seems to be the thread for judging character, and since you all are very pleased with OSU for turning him down and down on RR for signing him, should every school and football program in the country hold itself to the standard of wanting absolutely nothing to do with Pat Lazear (or similar situations)?

That's an awful lot of speculation HtM.

No team or school HAD to take Pat Lazear. Even IF the situation had panned out where he just attended a school; then there is no need for said team to take him on. I would posit that there are many athletically gifted asswipes in this world who DON'T get the chance to play college sports simply because they made poor decisions. IMO, RR decided to lessen the effects of Lazear's poor choice, and left the repercussions as quite small. Sometimes a handout is the worst thing that one can do for another human being, because they may never learn for their mistake(s).

Speculation would state that RR did it to serve himself. Ultimately, I don't think that is to be determined. However, I definitely think it was a disservice to Pat Lazear, because he may never understand the full extent of his poor choice.

 

[buckeyes_rock]

Devil's advocate type question on Lazear here. This isn't to be taken as arguing "well someone had to take him, it may as well have been West Virginia."

But....someone had to take him. Supposing Lazear had all of his scholarship offers rescinded. More than likely he would have tried to walk on somewhere, and more than likely given his talent, he'd have made a team. From the Lazear recruiting thread it would appear that the general consensus among Buckeye fans was that the best path was for the program to cut all ties with Lazear and distance itself completely from the situation. So I gather that you guys would also have been unhappy if Tressel let him walk-on to the team, as there's no mention of a difference between being paid a scholarship to play and simply playing. Seems likely, though, that he'd have played somewhere. Maybe not D-IA or even I-AA, but his talent wouldn't have been overlooked. Since this seems to be the thread for judging character, and since you all are very pleased with OSU for turning him down and down on RR for signing him, should every school and football program in the country hold itself to the standard of wanting absolutely nothing to do with Pat Lazear (or similar situations)?

Nobody HAD to take him...that's just the point. Most schools pulled their offers...RR said come on down.

Not trying to be high and mighty. Just as the previous poster said, says something about his character is all.

 

[3074326]

Since this seems to be the thread for judging character, and since you all are very pleased with OSU for turning him down and down on RR for signing him, should every school and football program in the country hold itself to the standard of wanting absolutely nothing to do with Pat Lazear (or similar situations)?

Schools that stress character should not take a player like that. Period. Doesn't matter who it is, what division it is, etc. Too bad it doesn't work that way..

 

[HailToMichigan]

Lemme clarify, I don't mean that there's some invisible force or law that requires Pat Lazear to play football somewhere, so maybe "had to" is a poor choice of words. But I can say this with almost complete certainty: Someone was going to let him play. Maybe not necessarily at the highest levels, but somewhere. You're the coach at Towson University, you're the perennial dregs of I-AA, and Pat Lazear, who has enough talent to have been recruited by Ohio State and Alabama, shows up to tryouts because Towson's an inexpensive state school that's close to his home. No way that coach doesn't stick him in a uniform posthaste and worry about the criminal record later.

So who should worry about his character? The admissions office, who looks at his transcript along with everyone else's, minus the football playing resume because he cost himself that chance, sees 5,000 non-felon applicants and one with armed robbery on his chest, and sends him the small regular sized envelope instead of the big thick one?

 

[NFBuck]

Lemme clarify, I don't mean that there's some invisible force or law that requires Pat Lazear to play football somewhere, so maybe "had to" is a poor choice of words. But I can say this with almost complete certainty: Someone was going to let him play. Maybe not necessarily at the highest levels, but somewhere. You're the coach at Towson University, you're the perennial dregs of I-AA, and Pat Lazear, who has enough talent to have been recruited by Ohio State and Alabama, shows up to tryouts because Towson's an inexpensive state school that's close to his home. No way that coach doesn't stick him in a uniform posthaste and worry about the criminal record later.

So who should worry about his character? The admissions office, who looks at his transcript along with everyone else's, minus the football playing resume because he cost himself that chance, sees 5,000 non-felon applicants and one with armed robbery on his chest, and sends him the small regular sized envelope instead of the big thick one?

I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are you saying that since some 1-AA coach was sure to snatch him up, it was a good move by DickRod to go ahead and grab him? Because, if so, selfishly yes, it was a good move. But what kind of message does it send?

Bottom line is that your new coach has a documented history of bringing in kids that no one else (at WVU's level) would touch, and also coached (arguably) the two biggest thugs in the NFL right now, who (turns out) had problems in Morganstown as well. I understand that you want to defend your new coach to some extent, as any fan will, but surely you can see that the man has a questionable report card as a head coach. For the sake of your program, I hope he doesn't get even worse with the added pressure to succeed in aa.

 

[3074326]

I'm still going to stick with what I said.. if character is stressed, the player should not be taken. No matter what the situation is. It would certainly be difficult for a school not to take a player with that talent. I'll give you that.

But the thing is that this wasn't a D-1AA school that signed him. Schools with the ability to get very talented recruits should turn down players with major character issues. Just my opinion, of course. I do realize that some don't stress character as much.

 

[HailToMichigan]

I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are you saying that since some 1-AA coach was sure to snatch him up, it was a good move by DickRod to go ahead and grab him? Because, if so, selfishly yes, it was a good move. But what kind of message does it send?

Bottom line is that your new coach has a documented history of bringing in kids that no one else (at WVU's level) would touch, and also coached (arguably) the two biggest thugs in the NFL right now, who (turns out) had problems in Morganstown as well. I understand that you want to defend your new coach to some extent, as any fan will, but surely you can see that the man has a questionable report card as a head coach. For the sake of your program, I hope he doesn't get even worse with the added pressure in aa.

I guess where I'm going is this:

1) Where do you draw the line between programs that can afford to turn kids away and ones that can't? I think my example of Towson is definitely one that would jump at the chance to suit up Lazear. I think, say, Kent State would, and maybe even as high as Louisville or maybe even Illinois/Indiana. And where do you draw the line between the kind of character WVU can afford to turn away and ones they can't? Morgantown's a sort of backwater place hidden in the hills, with mediocre facilities and not much to attract big name recruits other than the success they have going right at this minute.

2) Given that there's programs out there that would have taken Lazear if WVU did not, does RR's acceptance of Lazear really set him that far apart in scumbaggery from the rest of the college football world? Hell, is the college football world really that sleazy? West Virginia's the best program that offered him, and he took it, so we'll never know, but how do we know there weren't programs beating down his door that knew they didn't have a chance before when OSU was in the game?

3) I'm as much against thievery as anyone. Probably more even than most - thieves make my blood boil. And on the same token I do demand high standards for the teams I root for. I don't expect my schools to be handing out second chances all Marcus Vick-style. But on the other hand, Lazear had paid/was paying his debt to society for his crime. We're not talking about a repeat offender (yet.) I don't know how much due diligence RR did when offering him the scholarship. Maybe he just said "yippee! OSU and 'Bama backed off, he's mine!" or maybe he sat down and had a heart-to-heart, you'll-walk-the-straight-line-or-you're-gone-are-we-clear talk. Either's pretty likely. I don't know. But neither does anyone here. I tend to judge coaches and players by what they do while wearing the colors of my teams. (As you may have noticed by me being perfectly willing to accept RR as Michigan's head coach.) Sure, they get a tighter leash in my estimation if they have a history, but if Rich Rodriguez represents Michigan well, I'm not particularly inclined to worry about how he represented West Virginia. And if Pat Lazear were to have come to Michigan, I'd worry about a repeat offense, but if he spends four years keeping his nose clean at Michigan, and doesn't thoroughly embarrass himself in the NFL either (Michael Vick, etc.) I can live with that.

 

[Oh8ch]

I agree that is Lazear had been available long enough someone would have taken him -

- in the same way that if you leave your keys in your car every day somebody will eventually drive off with it.

In both cases the act says something about the man who did it.

I genuinely want to be wrong about RR. I really don't want to read a Sampsonesque headline regarding UM in a year or two.

Remember this about Sampson. He only cheated because he felt he had to.

 

[NFBuck]

Remember this about Sampson. He only cheated because he felt he had to.

This is where I'd be concerned about DickRod if I were a scUM fan **shudder**. The man brought in some questionable recruits at WVU where there is some pressure to win. At tsun, that pressure is going to increase exponentially. The man has, at the very least, shown some chinks in the armor of his intergrity. How far will he take it to win in one of the nations premier coaching jobs. I'd at least be a little weary...

 

[muffler dragon]

HtM:

Sincere question: from your knowledge of UM history, how many times has there been a recruit of questionable character been put on the team?

 

[HailToMichigan]

Sincere question: from your knowledge of UM history, how many times has there been a recruit of questionable character been put on the team?

This I don't know. I didn't follow U-M recruiting all that extensively until maybe two years ago. All throughout growing up with Michigan, as far as I knew guys just showed up in a uniform ready to go.

I can speak a bit more intelligently about UVA recruiting because I followed it some once I got to school there. UVA has to recruit a lot of guys that aren't always guaranteed to be academically up to snuff, otherwise we'd be Duke without the basketball legacy, so I'm at least familiar with wondering whether or not a guy will actually be on the field. And sometimes those academic issues stem from character issues. Haven't seen us recruit a guy with a record, though.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

You're the coach at Towson University, you're the perennial dregs of I-AA, and Pat Lazear, who has enough talent to have been recruited by Ohio State and Alabama, shows up to tryouts because Towson's an inexpensive state school that's close to his home. No way that coach doesn't stick him in a uniform posthaste and worry about the criminal record later.

I know many I-AA programs that wouldn't have taken him (Youngstown State, App State, etc.).

 

[sandgk]

I'm waiting to hear the next straw-man, goal-post moving rationalization of Dick Wadriguez.

One of them will be a collector's item.

In truth, the best projection on RR and TSUN is that it is a matter of when, not if, he goes the extra stinking mile to pull in a questionable character onto his roster.

Oh - side note, those nasty West Virginians and their baiting and death threats to the Rodriguez clan - it is now officially under investigation.

AN ASPECT to the Rich Rodriguez-West Virginia divorce that's long bugged me centers on the coach's claims of harassment and death threats. Those aren't issues one takes lightly. Those aren't issues one simply blows off. If your life and/or family are threatened, you get the authorities involved. Now.
Yet there's been no word on formal complaints from Rodriguez.
Until now.
When reached Tuesday, Monongalia County Sheriff Joseph C. Bartolo said his office is indeed investigating the situation.
"We're now checking into it," Bartolo said. "We've had information faxed to us by the [West Virginia] state police and FBI. I'm giving it to my investigative unit.''

So, there must have been some really strong charges to lead to this, right?

Bartolo called the forwarded information "very vague'' but said Lt. Walter Fumich would head an investigation.

OK, but there had to be prior complaints made to the sheriff - surely?

The sheriff said he's not aware of any complaints received by his office from Rodriguez, who lived outside of Morgantown in the Cheat Lake district.

Oh, well good luck with the investigation there. I'm sure the State Police has some credible threat information to offer up though.

State Police officials released this statement: "we have no reports of credible threats to Rich Rodriguez or a member of his family."

Well, there you have it, the threats against Rodriguez and his extended family where flat out incredible!

 

[BUCKYLE]

Well, there you have it, the threats against Rodriguez and his extended family where flat out incredible!

Um, I think you meant uncredible. :p

 

[NFBuck]

Interesting name to his prior residence.