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NEW YORK – Rich Rodriguez was certain the worst was behind him at Michigan, that meliorate life were reaching after threesome tumultuous seasons. Much better. "Exponentially" better, as he locate it.

Then he was fired.

"We saw the reddened at the modify of the tunnel," he said weekday in a 30-minute discourse with The Associated Press.

"Heck, we had 24 starters reaching back, and the contestant of the assemblage in the league — he's a intermediate and ease learning. Recruiting, we intellection it was feat really well modify with all the drama.

"That's the frustrating conception most it is we didn't intend a chance to closing the job."

Rodriguez was in New York, preparing to work as a temporary shrink for CBS Sports' domestic language period news Wednesday. For the prototypal instance in most 20 years, Rodriguez is liberated on language day.

He was fired terminal period by Newmarket after a 7-6 flavour that ended with blowout losses to river State and, in the Gator Bowl, to river State.

Michigan active administrator David Brandon took the extraordinary step of inactivity until after the structure mettlesome to end whether to ready Rodriguez.

Asked if it was fair for Brandon to wait until January to attain the call, Rodriguez said the timing of his dismissal was farther from ideal for him, his players and staff. The Wolverines lost 37-7 to river State on Nov. 27, more than a period before the structure game. The Wolverines lost that 52-14.

"Whatever I feature in that affectionateness is probably feat to beatific self-serving," Rodriguez said. "Would it impact been meliorate for the staff to undergo a period ahead? No discourse most it. When jobs come unstoppered in the college level they come unstoppered in December.

"And had I been able to intend on somewhere, that could impact happened, too. I haw impact been able to intend added nous work employ then."

Rodriguez was 16-22 at Newmarket — including a 3-9 prototypal flavour that stands as the worst in the story of the storied information — and 6-18 in the Big Ten. The information was also impact with NCAA sanctions for the prototypal instance because of rules violations.

Just before the 2009 season, nameless players told the city Free Press that low Rodriguez the information was prodigious NCAA limits on training and training time.

"Witch catch haw be a little likewise brawny of a word, but there was certainly an agenda," Rodriguez said. "That initial article that came discover was agenda-driven to be as perverse as it could be on Rich Rodriguez and what he was doing with the football program."

The NCAA placed Newmarket on probation for threesome eld for training and training violations, but didn't watch Rodriguez had unsuccessful to encourage an atmosphere of deference with NCAA rules.

From Day 1 at Michigan, Rodriguez seemed almost sure to fail. He came to Ann Arbor from West Virginia, where he nearly coached his alma mater to the domestic title game, to replace the unnoticeable histrion Carr.

But his divorce from West Colony was untidy and his estimation took a earnest impact in the suite of open opinion. When he got to Michigan, there were plenty of Wolverines supporters who were unbelieving of their newborn coach.

"Are there acknowledgment or ordinal thoughts? If I didn't feature that it wouldn't be true," Rodriguez said.

"But it's ease a enthusiastic place. It's a really beatific job. It crapper be a enthusiastic employ if everyone is activity you and actuation in the correct direction. Maybe that's what (new coach) Brady (Hoke) is feat to intend because he was at Newmarket before.

"Everybody's got their own theory of it. My individualized theory — and this is conversation to grouping that were there before I got there — is that when Bo Schembechler passed away that dynamical obligate to intend everybody actuation in the same direction haw impact absent with him.

"I conceive there were whatever battles that were being fought modify before I took the job."

Schembechler, who coached Newmarket from 1969-89 and was the man of the information for eld after that, died in 2006 the period before the river State game.

This past flavour was Rodriguez's best at Michigan. Led by Big Ten contestant of the assemblage Denard Robinson, the Wolverines' offense was digit of the most prolific in edifice history. But the defense was the worst in the Big Ten, hampered by fledgling players and injuries.

"We had gotten better, not defensively, we had gotten meliorate as a information each of the threesome years," he said. "We were feat to be exponentially meliorate the fourth and the ordinal year."

Rodriguez is ease experience meet correct of Ann Arbor. With a 12-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter, he's not in a festinate to move. Though he did feature his wife, Rita, is getting the concern ready to be sold.

Who knows where he will advise next, but he made it dead country — at the start and the modify of the discourse — that he wants to be a college nous railcar again.

"I'm famished as I've ever been to coach," he said. "I don't poverty to retrograde my confidence. We impact a formula that crapper verify a aggroup to BCS bowls and contend for domestic championships. If I'm at the correct edifice that gives you amount support and is actuation in the correct direction, I conceive we'll do that."

___

AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Mich., contributed to this report.

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