Rich Rodriguez, newly annointed savior & coach of the Maize & Blue Michigan Wolverines, late of the West Virginia Mountaineers is the newest inductee into the Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute Hall-of-Shame.  He is the first Hispanic to win the award.

Unbelievably, Rodriguez left his alma mater to take on the task of bringing Michigan back to respectability in the Big 10 conference and in the national rankings. 

According to Coach Rodriguez, "It was a very difficult decision to leave a place where I grew up.....It was going to take a very special opportunity and a very special place and I think that's what this is.....Unless you're a Hatfield or McCoy, Michigan is defintely a better place to be than West Virginia."

Let's hope that there are no home games scheduled against Division 1AA teams in the "Big House" in the foreseeable future.

Apparently Rodriguez was Michigan's third choice after both Les Miles (LSU) and Greg Schiano (Rutgers) turned down the Maize & Blue's attempt to replace the retiring Lloyd Carr.  I guess the third time's a charm!  Hopefully he won't end up like Ty Willingham at Notre Dame.

"[I] might have been my wife's third choice, too," Rodriguez quipped.

Rodriguez met five of the seven criterions needed for induction into the Male Prostitute Hall-of-Shame notably:

1) Accepting coaching positions that either moves them from Division 1AA or a lesser Division 1A program to successively bigger Division 1A programs, culminating in a job at a traditional BCS power.

2) Significantly improves his financial compensation package.

3) Taking his next job (Michigan) after his former team (West Virginia) made it to a bowl game, but before the bowl game is actually played.  

4) State that the school he was at (WVU) was his dream job, or deny rumors that he is looking at other opportunities.  

According to West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, Rodriguez, is a native West Virginian  "whose only wish was to play football at WVU" and as "a young man whose only wish was to coach at WVU!"  So much for loyalty in this day and age!

5) Generate controversy.  Rodriguez barely skates in under this criterion, as his only controversy involves the handling of the buyout clause in his West Virginia contract and whether or not he will coach the Mountaineers in the upcoming Fiesta Bowl. 

Rodriguez is no stranger to success, having served as Tommy Bowden's offensive coordinator at Tulane, where the Green Wave went 12-0 in 1998 with quarterback Shaun King (who?) running his spread offense.  After following Bowden to Clemson, Rodriguez was selected to lead the West Virginia Mountaineers out of obscurity and into the upper echelon of the Big East conference. 

His penultimate accomplishment of the 2007 season was leading his then #2 ranked West Virginia team to a devastating & demoralizing loss against an underdog Pittsburgh Panther team (led by a crippled coach) in the backyard brawl.  The loss eliminated any possibility that the Mountaineers would play in the national championship game.

Good luck at Michigan Rich!  Let's see if you can do any better than Lloyd Carr against Ohio State!

To tell you the truth, I only watch ESPN's College Gameday to reinforce my belief that the East Coast media bias really exists.  I won't get into discussing all of Gameday's flaws here (that's the subject of a future post), but thought it was pertinent to discuss all the chatter this week about poor 'ole Kirk Herbstreit! 

 You can read a couple of good blog posts at:

http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/goblue37/
2007/12/05/Fire_Kirk_Herbstreit

http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/dashman6
8/2007/12/07/Dont_go_away_madjust_go_away 

And a slightly different perspective:

 http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/GoPurpl
e6933/2007/12/08/Time_to_cut_Herbstreit_some_slack

After reading all of them, I couldn't stop thinking that Herbie's gotta go!  Hmmmmm!  That tune sounds familiar!  Oh yeah, Aerosmith!  By putting two and two together, here's my humble attempt at writing a parody worthy enough for Weird Al Yankovic. 

To the tune of Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun", we have "Herbie's Gotta Go!". 

NOTE:  If you don't like (Lee) CORSO, MARK MAY, (Desmond) HOWARD, (Lou) HOLTZ's, (Chris) FOWLER, or even (Jesse) PALMER or (Reece) DAVIS, substitute the appropriate name in bold and make up your own lyrics! 

Herbie's Gotta Go

Dumb, dumb, dumb, Herbie you’ve sunk so low
Dumb, dumb, dumb we know that you’re a schmo.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, Herbie when will you go?
Dumb, dumb, dumb it's the sound

Herbie’s gotta go
Herbie’s gotta go
His mouth is full of blow
A rumor from some 'ole Joe
What did Kirk Herbie do?
Miles won’t be Maize and Blue!
They said when Herbie’s soul recanted
they found him underneath a desk
But man, he has it comin' So now Herbie's gotta go
didn’t OSU just hire this pest?

Herbie’s gotta go
Herbie’s gotta go
His dog day's just begun
Now everyone’s in on the fun
Tell me now it's untrue.
What did ‘ole Kirk Herbstreit do?
He smacked a little bitty rumor
This man is full of buckeye pooh
They say the spell that he was under the lightning and the thunder knew that Herbie sabotaged the Blue

Go away, go away go away from our pain yeah, yeah yeah yeah
Go away go away from our pain yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Go away, go away, go, go away

Herbie’s gotta go
Herbie’s gotta go
His dog day's come you know
Now everybody wants him to go
Why help out LSU?
’Cause he’s got a low I.Q.
He tried to take Les down easy to keep from rakin’ in the dough
He said 'cause nobody believes me. This man is such a sleeze.
Herbie’s always gonna be a schmo.

Go away, Go away from our pain yeah, yeah
yeah yeah yeah
Go away go away from our pain yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Go away, go away, go, go away

Herbie’s gotta go
Herbie’s gotta go
Herbie’s gotta go
Everybody is in the know

Herbie's gotta go
His hair’s a poor man’s fro
Now ‘ole Captain Kirk must make it so
Because Herbie's gotta go
Herbie’s gotta go
His replay ends the show
’Cause everybody wants him to go
Herbie’s gotta go