Kenny Greer/The LanternMichigan coach Rich Rodriguez congratulates Ohio State players following Saturday’s game.The Wolverines (3-9, 2-6) had made it to a bowl game every year since 1975, which was the longest active streak in college football.
“It’s disappointing,” coach Rich Rodriguez said. “Any time you don’t have a successful record and you lose as many games as we did, you’re going to be disappointed. I don’t want to panic because it’s the first year and we have a lot of things that we have to overcome.”
Michigan recorded more losses in 2008, with nine, than the team ever has in school history. In 1962 they went 2-7, 1-6 in the Big Ten conference.
“Hopefully, it’ll be remembered as a blip on the screen, a one-time happening,” Rodriguez said of the team’s 2008 record. “That’s the hope.”
The current five-game losing streak to OSU is the longest losing streak for the Wolverines in the 105-year old rivalry. The next longest losing streak was four games and occurred on two occasions, the last time being from 1960-1963.
Fifth-year senior defensive lineman Tim Jamison will leave Michigan without beating Ohio State but was optimistic about what the future holds for the players who are returning..
“It hurts being in the program and never beating them once,” he said. “Next year’s team is going to be the major turnaround. This off season, they’re going to work even harder. It’s going to sit in everybody’s stomachs.”
For Rodriguez, however, the losing streak is only one game long.
“I’ve been here for one of them,” Rodriguez said. “That’s the only one I can comment on. They’ve got one in a row on us from what I see.”
Rodriguez brought a drastically different system with him from West Virginia compared to what former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr had in place previously.
Junior running back Brandon Minor blames the players for the team’s troubles.
“You can’t really blame Rich [Rodriguez] because everybody on the team didn’t buy in like they were supposed to,” Minor said. “We’ve got a couple guys not going hard. But we’ll correct that, most definitely. It’s not happening on my watch as a senior next year.
“I’m going to prepare myself so that this doesn’t happen again. I’m going to bust my tail and hope that others follow. I promise it won’t be like this next year.”
Rodriguez made headlines last week for a comment in which he told fans to “get a life.” That along with other incidents over the course of the season has taught the coach a hard lesson in humility.
“I got to be careful of what I say because every time I say something, it’s blown or taken our of context,” Rodriguez said. “That’s one thing I learned, being quieter is being better. Coach Tressel and I talked about that before the game. I said, ‘You know, Tres’, the quieter I am, the less drama I have to deal with.'”
Will Toman can be reached at [email protected].
