jim harbaugh
dear diary
jim harbaugh watch

Dear Diary: Harbaugh? Comment Count

Seth

FV0RuY6

Harbaugh?

Harbaugh Madness. The Harbaugh above, the Harbaugh of Moonlight Graham, placed Michigan a four seed. Many NFL types were Harbaughing that Michigan would be left out of the Harbaugh. He then predicted a Michigan-Miami finals. Since then Michigan Harbaugh'd the 49ers, but the Fins were dispatched by Oakland, who will now take on Michigan for all the Harbaughs.

Harbaugh? This Harbaugh the Harbaughs were hard for Harbaugh Harbaughs. To get a better Harbaugh for the Harbaugh of Harbaugh, alum96 looked into the 2010 Stanford Harbaugh. The Harbaugh Hars will Harbaugh this:

The commonly held belief that Stanford offense was all Andrew Luck is just wrong.  Luck had a great 2010 and 2011 (post Harbaugh) and a decent 2009.  But the Stanford offense of 2009 and 2010 was centered on the run - which did include Luck to a significant degree.

Accoring to jbbiza, Harbaugh Harbaughed to Harbaugh with Harbaugh, certainly, but also with some Harbaugh recruiting and development. A Harbaugh metric that Harbaughed Harbaugh back into Michigan Harbaughs was the number of Harbaugh-fers that turned up around recruits Michigan (and many Harbaugh schools) wanted.

Not Harbaugh. A timeline, from Three & Out, of how Michigan was well into screwing up the 2007 coaching fiasco before a blue chip fell right in their lap (and they proceeded to screw even that up). At that point Harbaugh was one 4-8 season into his Stanford career, so he wasn't really considered.

Filling out your bowl bracket. Years ago I put out a bowl picking and watchability chart based on Football Outsiders' stats, and club_med has been keeping that tradition alive.

Harbaugh of the Harbaugh

WTKA SAID BRIAN IS IN SAN FRANCISCO

Gameboy took it from there.

say_anything_brian

FELDMAN SAYS THE MONEY'S WRONG

The widely reported $49 million/6 years was refuted by Bruce Feldman, and Bacon chimed in to confirm that.

I wish I could help here; I'm confident that a contract was written because we got that from multiple sources. I personally don't have any sources or even know who put the $8+ million/year number out there, except Sam Webb suggested six years as a plausible term, and I figured that was getting echo chambered into an e-fact he never meant it as.

MORE HARBAUGH STORIES WE CAN'T CONFIRM

The thread took awhile to pan out but this call for Jim tales yielded a few fun things, like Harbaugh drumming at 3 a.m., doing the macarena, having a posse.

MICHIGAN LEGISLATORS ARE ALL OHIO STATE FANS APPARENTLY

They passed the superfluous bill that would ban student athletes at state universities from unionizing (superfluous because they would be classified as state employees and therefore not subject to the same laws that govern a private institution like Northwestern). Ultimate effect will be to give Urban Meyer one more thing he can tell recruits about why Michigan and MSU don't like their players (Ohio legislators tried but have yet to pass the same thing).

The "no politics" rules are suspended for things that directly affect Michigan sports, though the mods are watching these threads closely because—there's no way around this—in this case one party is absolutely the problem: it was a strict party line vote in the House and off by three of that in the Senate. My biases: I've never done anything more political than write stuff or vote (split ticket), but I've joined the people trying to undo the gerrymandering that led to the supermajority (despite the other guys getting 51% of those votes) that's creating this stuff.

ETC. Open Harbaugh thread. Rehashing that old thing. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh if no Harbaugh? Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Hokebaugh? Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh staff. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh. Harbaugh.

Your Moment of Zen:

Yeesh.

Comments

DPUblue

December 19th, 2014 at 11:30 AM ^

harbaugh harrrrbaww hrrrbrrrr hirbir horbourgh hahhahhhahhaaruguah

 

harbaugh. 

 

I'm losing my damn mind this has to end soon i can't take it hold me sometimes to have to move back to go forward samurai build with shovel pwwwaaaaa. 

Joined: 01/09/2009

MGoPoints: 1011

Jacoby

December 19th, 2014 at 11:36 AM ^

The MGoBlog community has elevated Harbaugh to Messiah status. It is taken as a given that he will immediately restore the program to the head of the pack. But we have learned nothing from the last two messiahs we hired, and who we ran out of town. Those two were very good football coaches, and even good football coaches have bad seasons. Harbaugh isn't God. He could start off going 4-8 for all we know. Am I the only one around here who is skeptical that Harbaugh will instantly work a massive turnaround of the program?



Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

Joined: 11/25/2011

MGoPoints: 947

aplatypus

December 19th, 2014 at 11:40 AM ^

I highly doubt a lot of people expect "that Harbaugh will instantly work a massive turnaround of the program" like you're suggesting. 

People just realize that Harbaugh is easily the best overall candidate for the job, by a long distance, and that's not even factorin in the program fits and everything. He's just the best coach possibly to go after. 

Joined: 11/02/2013

MGoPoints: 1735

alum96

December 19th, 2014 at 12:12 PM ^

First Hoke was never seen as a Messiah.  He was seen as a guy who would not sniff this job if he was the DL coach at Nebraska in the 90s rather than UM.

Second, personally I don't have that high expectations for 2015 even with Vince Lombardi coaching.  There is no established QB and unlike other years when you don't have one, the glimpses we have had of the returning ones range from (bad adjective) to (horrid adjective).  Of course the hope is Harbaugh can rescue Morris and/or Speight is adequate at least.   But as happens every year the people who say 8-4 in April will get to 10-2 by late August once the full annual hype train is on track and this year even more if its Harbaugh.

That said, despite the 2 tough road games in 2016 I expect Harbaugh's team to be contending for a Big 10 title that year.  That doesn't mean win it, but if we are losing to cupcakes like Rutgers and are non competitive with MSU in 2016 I will be severely disappointed with all the supposed talent on the roster.  This is not an "empty cupboard/transition" situation like RR had, or "transition" situation like Hoke had - the players Hoke recruited are supposed to fit Harbagh like a glove.  If you put a non turnover machine at QB on last yearr's team even with all the doofus coaching we saw it was probably a 7-5 or 8-4 team.  So a jump to 10-2 in 2016 (not 2015) is not out of the question.

Also it is critical the DC is legit.  If its a guy like DJ Durkin we have the question of was he a product of Muschamp or is he legit on his own.  It its Vic Fangio I'll go bonkers with joy.

But to your point yes people are getting a bit overboard.  Guy is a very good coach but this is a 2 year turnaround especially with the massive hole at QB.  If you had a JT Barrett come out of nowhere next year it would obviously help.  

Main thing that would ease my mind next year is I know soft players would be on the back of the bus - or off the team, as happened in Texas this year.   And Bo's first year.  I don't mind losing but getting blown off the lines, getting physically mauled as we've seen at times the past 4-5 years really bugs the hell out of me.  Along with all the stupid little in game coaching shit that happened underr Hoke.  Even when MSU sucked, 9 out of 10 non Bobby Williams years they'd punch you in the mouth all game (in between their normal stupidness).

Joined: 04/28/2012

MGoPoints: 82266

Coastal Elite

December 19th, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^

The "last two messiahs that we hired"? This seems like historical revisionism in the extreme. RichRod, while a hot coaching commodity at the time, was emphatically not the consensus first choice in 2007 -- that was clearly Les Miles. And virtually nobody wanted Hoke to be hired, crowned him as a messiah when he was announced, or even thought (on the basis of his career losing record) that he was a "very good football coach."

I agree with the general sentiment that even a head coach is limited in the velocity with which he can effect change in a program. But pointing to two arguably botched coaching searches during which we whiffed on our top choices does not add any evidentiary support to that argument.

Joined: 07/05/2011

MGoPoints: 944

Chitown Kev

December 19th, 2014 at 11:47 AM ^

were thought of as "messiahs"

 

Well...RR, maybe, from the standpoint  of what he was able to do with the spread offense at WVU...

 

Hell, even Nick Saban lost to Louisiana-Monroe, I think, in his first year at Alabama so we know that it may take time (although with the recruits somewhat in place and with a really good returning defense, things won't get THAT bad.)

Joined: 10/01/2011

MGoPoints: 4970

Jacoby

December 19th, 2014 at 11:36 AM ^

The MGoBlog community has elevated Harbaugh to Messiah status. It is taken as a given that he will immediately restore the program to the head of the pack. But we have learned nothing from the last two messiahs we hired, and who we ran out of town. Those two were very good football coaches, and even good football coaches have bad seasons. Harbaugh isn't God. He could start off going 4-8 for all we know. Am I the only one around here who is skeptical that Harbaugh will instantly work a massive turnaround of the program?



Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

Joined: 11/25/2011

MGoPoints: 947

123blue

December 19th, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^

Each time your car is damaged by a pothole this winter, remember that one party holds a massive majority is seats in Lansing due to that party's gerrymandering of districts in order to control all political decisions.  When you pay that repair bill, remember that the party who rigged the game in order to hold a massive majority has decided that repairing roads is not a function of government.

Forbidding student athletes from looking into collective bargaining rights?  That's a function of government!  Forbidding certain people from getting married?  That's a function of government!  Denying cancer patients the medicine they need to get through the fucking day?  That's a function of government!  Making sure that sick people can lose their insurance for the crime of being sick?  That's a function of government!

Fixing the shitty roads?  Nah...The people can vote on that...in May...once the snow has melted.  That's not a function of government.

This is not a political rant.  It's a car repair rant.  I hate the assholes who would make me pay massive repair bills each winter because they, after rigging the entire game, are too cowardly to do their fucking jobs.

 

Joined: 10/02/2014

MGoPoints: 3380

Seth

December 19th, 2014 at 12:06 PM ^

This is what I was trying to avoid. I posted my political involvement because it's public (there are going to be articles with my byline and a bottom bio that says I work here) and can affect how people read what I write.

In fairness to the issue you bring up, I could point out that the other side, when it had the governor's seat, kept choosing to patch or replace with cheap stuff instead of springing for the expensive good stuff that our neighbors use, and that decision appeared to be influenced by wanting to keep road repair crews working. So on that issue having an operative republic may only return the fixing of roads into a pit of corruption.

Joined: 10/14/2008

MGoPoints: 149035

123blue

December 19th, 2014 at 12:21 PM ^

I hear you, but the current state of affairs never existed before.  We've never seen a situation where the electorate leans (let's call it "slightly") toward one party, yet seats in the State Congress are a landslide in the other direction.

If you rig the game so as to control everything, then just do your job.  Potholes don't care about political affiliation.  I wish folks on both sides of the aisle had great long-term vision, but we're now dealing with willful blindness.  If road repair were a pit of corruption, that would be greatly preferable to a complete absence of road repair.  There have been bad decisions across the political sprectrum from the beginning of political time, but for the party that rules all to (again) take a pass at fixing roads that affect almost everyone in the State...it's remarkable in its negligence.

Joined: 10/02/2014

MGoPoints: 3380

bigbrother

December 19th, 2014 at 9:49 PM ^

How can you be filled with seething rage in your first comment regarding having to pay for something, yet propose a solution wherein you have to pay for something? The point is you already paid for it for the last 20 years. These roads didn't happen overnight. You could handle a 2% increase in spending if it were your household. You could prioritize and find a way. Government exists to pretend that it cannot find a way. They need you to beg to pay them.

Edit: Also, truck weights. The assholes refuse to do the obvious.

 

Joined: 12/08/2013

MGoPoints: 288

pappawolv

December 19th, 2014 at 12:39 PM ^

If I read the sentance right.  I can see where graduated/nfl alumn see/think this.  The players are not getting any inside news other than what their nervous nelly parents are saying that they read.

Joined: 04/14/2014

MGoPoints: 521