erik bakich

The Wolverines made some news this Independence Day weekend, inking a new head coach in Tracy Smith: 

Tracy Smith Announced as Michigan Baseball Coachhttps://t.co/e1JRl6liwV #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/CHP0OMyw2k

— Michigan Baseball (@umichbaseball) July 3, 2022

This was a bit of a curveball, as Smith's name wasn't mentioned much at all during the search until the end. Rumors popped up that he had been interviewed, and within a day or so, he was the favorite. It wasn't long after that Smith was hired. 

In contrast to many of the coaches Michigan interviewed, Tracy Smith is older and grizzled. At age 56, he's seen his fair share of glories and failures, and the number of NCAA games coached by Smith dwarfed that of any other coach interviewed. Smith played college baseball at Miami (OH) in the mid-80s, then spent a few years in minor league baseball, before going into coaching. He returned to Miami to shadow for a couple seasons, then was an assistant at Indiana under Bob Morgan, before heading back to Miami to take the top job. Smith coached the RedHawks for nine seasons from 1997-2005, finishing every year with a winning conference record (and a winning record overall in all but one). Smith made the NCAA Tournament twice at Miami, in 2000 and 2005 after winning the MAC Tournament.

Following his stellar 2005 campaign (45-18), Smith was hired to return to Bloomington and coach the Hoosiers, after Bob Morgan's retirement. Indiana had trailed off in Morgan's later years, going 65-112 in the B1G over the final six years of his tenure. Smith was in charge of rebuilding the program and after a rough first few seasons, he built Indiana into a squad that generally was among the best in the conference. Smith's Hoosiers finished top five in the conference in five of his last six years at Indiana, including a 2nd, 1st, and 1st place finish in his final three seasons. He won two B1G regular season titles and two B1G Tournament titles in his nine seasons in Bloomington, the last two being particular highs. In 2013, he took Indiana to the College World Series, the first B1G team to do so since 1984, and in 2014 the Hoosiers were so good that they managed to be the #4 national seed (although they were heartbreakingly upset in the regional). 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More on Smith and some thoughts]

Michigan Baseball has been without a coach since since mid-June, when Erik Bakich was poached by Clemson. We covered that at the time and threw out a couple possible replacement candidates, but the search is now in full force and may be nearing a conclusion any day now. Some candidates have been interviewed but then pulled their names out of the hunt, while others are still vying for the gig. In this piece I'm going to run through the various names that have come up in reports (mostly those from Rivals' Brandon Justice) and evaluate their candidacy. 

The Top Dogs 

These are the names who have come up most often and seem to be the foremost contenders in the eyes of the decision makers, mainly Warde Manuel: 

Jordan Bischel, Central Michigan Head Coach. Bischel was a name I mentioned in my mailbag column right from the start because it seemed so obvious. In college sports, everyone is looking to hire 2005 Urban Meyer, the young, energetic coach who has won everywhere he's been and is ready to make the jump to a bigger program. Bischel fits that mold perfectly. He's just 41 years old (younger than Bakich) and won conference regular season/tournament titles at both NAIA Midland and D2 Northwood before moving up to CMU.

The Chips hadn't been to the NCAA Tourney since 1995 and had only won MAC regular season crowns intermittently before Bischel arrived. Since then, Bischel has transformed CMU into the class of the MAC, winning the regular season crown in 2019 and 2021, before finishing 2nd this year. He won the MAC Tournament in both 2019 and 2022 to qualify for the NCAAs, while earning an at-large bid in 2021. Thus, Bischel has made the NCAAs in every full season he has coached, and has compiled a 143-57 record at CMU (82-21 in the MAC). 

Bischel's track record speaks for itself, and Michigan should be familiar with him; it was Bischel's Chips who eliminated Bakich's Wolverines from the NCAA Tournament last year in the South Bend regional. Bischel is also attractive because he's a Midwestern coach. He's from Green Bay, attended college at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and has been a head coach exclusively in Michigan. Obviously there are questions about Bischel's ability to recruit nationally the way that Bakich could, but the fact is that most of Michigan's best players under Bakich have been from the Midwest. In hiring Bischel, you'd have a coach prepared to navigate the realities of the Michigan Baseball program, and also someone with local roots to suggest he could be more keepable than Bakich, should he succeed. 

Bischel interviewed with both Ohio State and Kansas ($), but those schools went different directions. Right now, he seems to be the top candidate on Michigan's board, and he would be on my board as well. However, the fact that Michigan continues to interview other candidates leads me to think that the administration may not be completely sold on him. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: lots of assistant coaches]

With little going on in Michigan athletics, I felt that now was a decent time to do a mailbag to see what our fine readers are curious about. I solicited questions Monday on the MGoBoard and on Twitter, and picked the ones I felt were most interesting to answer. I tried to select questions that were most frequently asked, and that covered the bases, giving different sports representation rather than just focusing on football. I also threw in a few silly questions and one on pro sports. 

[NOTE: I did not answer any NIL questions, despite there being many, because they would best be answered in a post dedicated to that topic. I am hoping that either I or Seth can get to that at some point soon]

Which non-conference game or series would you like to see for football, basketball, and hockey this upcoming season if you could schedule any opponent, and why? (-UMinCincy)

We'll start with a fun one, my favorite among the serious questions that I was asked. Here are my answers for each sport: 

- Football: non-conference games come with a pretty high risk when you play in a premier conference that regularly places teams in the playoff (like say, the B1G), so I'd want to schedule a game with some amount of upside, but one that limits the risk of losing and thus sinking your resume. In looking for a matchup that would be fun, likely to win, but still give you something to gain, I picked a home game against Miami. The 'Canes should be a solid team this year (hovering around 20th in early preseason polls), but don't represent the same threat that a Notre Dame would, especially if it's at the Big House and early in the year. This fulfills the goal of finding a team that would add to the resume but would not represent a titanic challenge. And in terms of the fun, there would be storylines galore given the messiness of the Gattis exit back in February, not to mention a new coach at The U in Mario Cristobal and two historic programs going at it. Sign me up. 

- Basketball: I'm all in favor of scheduling a slate of tough non-conference opponents in college hoops to bolster your tournament resume, so I looked for an opponent that would be tough and add intrigue. I rambled through different ideas and the best I could come up with was Gonzaga. They're a perennially great opponent, are always looking to schedule a tough non-conference, and Michigan and the Zags have surprisingly little history. They have met (1) time in history, and that was at the 2019 Battle 4 Atlantis. I'm always in favor of branching out and trying to play more marquee teams beyond the typical Duke/Carolina types, and getting a little more familiarity with Gonzaga could be good for the program, plus it would provide the chance for a resume-boosting win. 

- Hockey: The B1G is a good conference, but not typically a great one, so scheduling a big dog has a lot of upside. Putting teams like Minnesota State on the schedule last year is what helped get the #1 overall seed, after all. With that in mind, I'd like to see a re-match with Denver. Both teams are coming off a bit of turnover following their Frozen Four appearances, but there should still be plenty of talent on both sides. We learned during the run up to the Frozen Four that there is surprisingly little history between these two legendary programs, but thanks to what happened in Boston, now there is a little bit of it. Why not make some more and try to build a rivalry of sorts, while having a chance to get a quality win in the process? 

Alex, if Jim Harbaugh could turn himself into any animal in the animal kingdom what animal would he choose and why? (-Darker Blue)

I thought about this one for all of a couple minutes and came to what I felt was an easy answer: a cow. We know Jim Harbaugh loves beef football, and all the meaty boys who get it done, the Zak Zinters and Ben Masons. We know that he doesn't like white meat (chicken), so we have to assume he likes beef. We also know he absolutely loves milk. What animal produces milk and beef? A cow. Easy answer. It channels his tastes and football ethos, building a team that doesn't budge and can trample you, with the collective weight on the lines of many cows. 

[Bryan Fuller]

Specifically, we have so much talent at the WR position, can we realistically expect to keep them intact through the summer? (-othernel) 

This question was about the "play now" mindset of recruits and how to avoid attrition, and I was interested in the second half here. The Wolverines have a ton of hungry mouths at the WR position, even with Mike Sainristil's move to defense. The list includes Ronnie Bell, Roman Wilson, Cornelius Johnson, AJ Henning, Andrel Anthony, Christian Dixon, and then the three freshmen, with Darrius Clemons likely ready for playing time.

Just speaking honestly, it's hard for me to see this whole group making it through the season intact. The advent of the portal has made it very hard to keep positional groups together, but the WR position I don't even think is too affected by the portal. This would be a tough group to keep together even if we were under old portal rules and that's a good thing. You'd always rather have too many good players than not enough. With Michigan looking to take in 2-3 receivers in the 2023 class, there is going to be some attrition. The question is just who and when. 

I wouldn't expect a ton of attrition in the summer, to be honest. It's an inconvenient time to bail because it's too late to join a team in time for the season. I suppose if someone realizes at the end of fall camp that there's no chance they will play (Dixon?) that they may say it makes no difference and leave then. But I would expect that most of this group goes into the season and then at the end of it there will be a good bit of attrition either from NFL declarations, running out of eligibility, or transfers. But the fact Michigan got through the spring (which is the optimal time to bail) with this group makes it seem to me that they will be together for at least the bulk of the 2022 season before splintering after.  

This might be hyper-niche but if M is looking to replace Hutch and/or Bakich, do you have any names you think they should look at?

— Alex Garbarino (he/him) (@DrGarbs) June 13, 2022

Well this one is pretty topical now that there are reports that Bakich is leaving for Clemson. On the softball end of things, I discussed this in my post-season column. Bonnie Tholl will be the in-house, odds on favorite, but my top candidate is Duke's Marissa Young. Young is a former player under Hutch who has coached in southeast Michigan at EMU/Concordia and has built Duke from the ground up into a quality program. She's also only 40 years old and would be the perfect coach to lead Michigan for decades. 

As for baseball, with Bakich likely out of the picture, I'll throw out a couple names but more will be in a coaching search piece. Chris Fetter is the first that comes to mind and apparently it's on Michigan's mind. It's hard to imagine he moves back from the MLB to the NCAA, but if there was one job that could make that happen, getting to be the head coach at his alma mater might be it. Fetter was a phenomenal NCAA pitching coach and has been stellar in the MLB as well, evidenced by the Tigers having one of the MLB's best bullpens despite it consisting of a bunch of relievers no one has ever heard of (who the hell is Will Vest? I don't even think his own family members have heard of Will Vest). Fetter is also only 36. 

In terms of more realistic options, Central Michigan's Jordan Bischel seems like an obvious name of interest. He was a highly successful coach at Northwood University in Midland, before coming to CMU in 2019. Since arriving in Mount Pleasant, Bischel has been named MAC Coach of the Year twice, and has taken the Chips to three straight NCAA Baseball Tournaments, with two MAC regular season titles and two MAC Tournament titles on the way. He's 41 years old, a native of the Midwest and familiar recruiting in this state and region, and would be a stellar hire.

This is where I'll leave the answer but will have more on it in the future. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Harbaugh... to the LAKERS??]