On Sunday night, rumors started swirling around Ann Arbor that changes were being made to the defensive coaching staff. Specifically, the rumors suggested that Greg Robinson had resigned as Michigan's defensive coordinator, defensive line coach Bruce Tall was going to take over as the interim defensive coordinator and Gary Moeller -- yes, the one-time Michigan head coach -- was coming back to help with the defense in some form. I will be the first to admit that the rumors seemed ridiculous, but I passed them along on Twitter because there was so much talk about them.
↵Rich Rodriguez was asked about the rumors today, and I think we can file them away in the completely untrue department. Rodriguez laughed off the notion that changes were being made and pondered how these kinds of rumors even get started.
↵↵↵"I just met with the defensive staff the last three hours or so," Rodriguez said just after noon Monday during his weekly news conference. "We all feel like we have to do all we can to have success. Our coaches work very hard."Rodriguez said he has not made any changes to his defensive staff. He said he first heard of the rumors about a half-hour before meeting with the media. [...]
↵"How does this happen?" Rodriguez said of the rumors. "I don't know how these rumors get started. Everybody is frustrated on defense, our staff is frustrated, but it's always a collective effort when you win, and a collective effort when you lose, collective effort when you play well and a collective effort when you play poorly."Rodriguez said Monday he intends to spend more time on defense the next few weeks.
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I wish I could answer Rodriguez's question about how these kinds of rumors get started, but I'm really not sure. They spread like wild fire thanks to the Internet (both on message boards and Twitter) and in my case, I was alerted to them via texts from friends. I'm not sure what the origin of the rumor was or how Gary Moeller of all people was thrown into the mix, but it is pretty amazing how quickly it took off last night despite apparently not being even remotely true.
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