The Lloyd Carr fork in the road
People notice Jim is glum of late relative to the last couple of years. I'll propose it is because he is a smart enough to acknowledge over-abundant evidence that come year end he will face a Lloyd Carr fork in the road, having to choose between loyalty and extended mediocrity on offense, and making a change at OC.
Drevno and Harbaugh have worked together a long time. Quick research (maybe a mistake or two):
| OC | OL Coach | DC | |||
| 2004 | San Diego | 7–4 | Drevno | Drevno | Adolph |
| 2005 | San Diego | 11–1 | Drevno | Drevno | Adolph |
| 2006 | San Diego | 11–1 | Shaw | Drevno | Adolph |
| 2007 | Stanford | 4–8 | Shaw | Dalman | Shafer |
| 2008 | Stanford | 5–7 | Shaw | Dalman | Buh/Lynn |
| 2009 | Stanford | 8–5 | Shaw | Drevno | Buh/Lynn |
| 2010 | Stanford | 12–1 | Shaw | Drevno | Fangio |
| 2015 | Michigan | 10–3 | Drevno | Drevno | Durkin |
| 2016 | Michigan | 10–3 | Drevno | Drevno | Brown |
| 2017 | Michigan | 4–1 | Drevno | Drevno | Brown |
One can espouse that while Jim has lifted Michigan especially with the Brown hire, Drevno increasingly smells of Hoke, where there was magic early, but the wheels eventually came off.
There is still time to right the ship and we'll all be rooting for Tim to get the offense going. But at the current trajectory, the most important decision that may separate us from a decade of championships or one of mediocrity will come this off season.
October 10th, 2017 at 8:45 AM ^
How's that? PSU's offense didn't exactly light it up last year and this year's D is just as good.
October 9th, 2017 at 11:44 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 12:12 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 8:48 PM ^
Ahem... I have a solution.
Maybe we should change our blocking scheme for the 34th time since 2004. Just like all those other times switching to zone (or from zone? fuckit I can keep it all straight)- That'll fix things for sure!
October 9th, 2017 at 9:02 PM ^
"There is still time to right the ship"
after one loss?
cumong, man
October 9th, 2017 at 11:02 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 9:08 PM ^
As mentioned above, in 2006, Shaw was the PGC and WR coach at USD, while Drevno coached the OL and was OC.
In 2007, at Stanford, Shaw became OC, Dalman was brought in as an OL coach, and Drevno was moved to coach TE. After two years, Dalman was let go, and Drevno moved to OL coach.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:35 PM ^
Since you brought up Lloyd, while he was slow to pull the trigger on Hermann and was too loyal to his guys etc, he did demote Fred Jackson from OC after 1996. And Parrish was pushed out to the NFL for Malone after 2001's mess. Not sure about Malone joining the Saints after 2005 and how voluntary or not that was as I've heard different things. And Hermann was eventually pushed out the door to the NFL too to make way for English. In fact, after every 4 loss season (except the interim year and last year obviously) he discreetly fired a coordinator aka told them to find another job. Definitely his coaching tree is not impressive and he picked some guys who might not have been the best choices in the first place, but he did pull the rip cord on them after some meh seasons. He just was tactful about firings.
Except for Jim Boccher in 2003, lol, that was not discreet and deservedly so. They should have left him at the airport like Kiffen after Oregon (or Iowa).
October 9th, 2017 at 9:42 PM ^
I don't like being critical of Michigan players, but I don't understand some of these criticisms of the coaching staff. The offensive line, quarterbacks, running backs, and recievers have all been playing poorly. Where is the magic playbook that turns that mess into offensive production?
October 9th, 2017 at 11:08 PM ^
"It's the players' fault!"
The buck stops with the coaches. Period. Michigan has the 82nd ranked offense in the country in a year where they returned their QB, all RBs, and most of the OL. They are 10th in the Big Ten, in front of only Rutgers and, get this... Michigan State.
Great coaches find a way to make it work and get the most out of their players. You'll never hear Saban bitching about having bad players.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:49 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 9:52 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 9:55 PM ^
Hold the milk.
October 9th, 2017 at 11:23 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 12:02 AM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 11:49 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 7:43 AM ^
This is so clearly against the great weight of any objective evidence that it borders on funny.
Without commenting on Lloyd (who I also have some issues with, and I would prefer to forget), the Harbaugh comment is just flat out wrong.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:53 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 10:28 PM ^
Through 6 games this year, his FCS Montana team has scored fewer than 39 points only once -- in a loss against FBS No. 7 Washington. (Stitt happens!) (Stitt's happening!)
October 9th, 2017 at 10:35 PM ^
and anger come from the fact that we had TWO weeks to prepare for this game and we couldnt even come up with 2 TDs...10 points...WTF were we doing for 2 weeks?
October 9th, 2017 at 11:08 PM ^
In case you have not noticed, Jim Harbaugh is a moody guy.
He can seem checked out, angry, giddy, and estatic . . . all in the same day.
October 9th, 2017 at 11:29 PM ^
Listening to the podcast and reading the comments I feel like everyone is brushing aside the fact that this offense is on track to be worse than literally all of the Hoke+Borges offenses. They are ranked 82nd. If it's an issue of not having the right players then it's probably not going to get much better next year either. The depth chart at OL and RB isn't exactly star studded and the 2018 recruiting class isn't exactly loaded. When is it going to start turning around?
Of course, the idea that it's the players' fault is ridiculous to begin with. Dabo and Franklin both had to make personnel changes before their breakout years and Harbaugh probably will too. I don't see how Brian & co. are so confident Harbaugh will just send Drevno packing to an FCS school. The guy has a 5 year $5 million contract and he's been with Harbaugh his entire career. Perhaps there is another solution but right now I don't know what it is.
October 9th, 2017 at 11:51 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 12:07 AM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 5:26 AM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 6:03 AM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 6:21 AM ^
harbaugh deserves the same level of criticism that the previous 2 coaches received after every single loss. 5-4 in the last 9 games is a fact. coaching away 2 home games vs msu is a fact. a 3rd straight loss (2 at home) to osu looks like it's going to be a fact. having a coach that is touted as a qb guru and offensive genius field an offense this bad is deserving of criticism.
October 10th, 2017 at 7:01 AM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 8:53 AM ^
1-7 against main rivals, something has to change.
October 10th, 2017 at 9:15 AM ^
So it is the coaches fault that we lost a game because we have a dearth of experienced Olinemen and we have a grad transfer. We should thank our lucky stars Martin did not screw up and hire Harbaugh in 08 else we would have talked about what a crummy coach Harbaugh was. We fell a long way. This was going to be a four year program. We still have a shot at ten wins which would be pretty darn good in my book.
October 10th, 2017 at 9:37 AM ^
Harbaugh will be fine. Drevno, OTOH, may be encouraged to take a mid-major HC job soon.