It's mailbag time again everyone! I solicited questions on the MGoBoard and on twitter last week and selected my favorite questions, trying to cover as many different topics as possible while also picking the most interesting ones. It was evident that the mind of the Michigan fanbase is still fully on football, as about 80% of the questions I received dealt with that subject. The mailbag is heavy on them as a result, but I made sure to pick one basketball and hockey question to include. I also noticed that it is apparently not Silly Season yet, as I got far few satirical questions than in June- don't worry, I still picked a couple anyway. 

 

How much stronger can we expect the BIG West to be in 2023, versus its abysmal 2022? Will the conference experience a positive bump as a result of coaching changes and the portal, and how significant will it be? (-Bohannon)

I also got a version of this question from @MGoBronxBlue on Twitter, so it seems like there is some interest in hearing about the B1G West and its new coaches. Let me start by saying I was a fan of the changes in the B1G West. Ryan Walters is a top young football coach and when you're a program like Purdue, what do you have to lose taking a swing on him? I also am a fan of them keeping the Air Raid going on offense. I liked Matt Rhule to Nebraska, though his lack of a single ranked win at Baylor is making me hold off from coronating Rhule yet. And Luke Fickell to Wisconsin is fascinating mostly for what it implicates for the program, a departure from three decades of the Barry Alvarez lineage, especially by moving to a pass-heavy offense. Fickell didn't do well his first time in the B1G but it was one season where the NCAA sabotaged him. It's hard to criticize what he did at Cincy, so I like that hire. 

However, if we step out and take the bird's eye view, I'm not sure how much the needle has been changed on the B1G West in 2023, which is also functionally the last year it will exist before expansion blows things up. All three of those new coaches are going to be in Year Zero situations, which are easier to navigate in modern CFB with the transfer portal, but still not easy. Purdue is losing its veteran QB, star WR, and star TE, Wisconsin is doing a wholesale change in personnel on offense and bringing in a new defensive coordinator, and Nebraska will be turning over a huge amount of the roster, like every offseason. Then you consider Northwestern is digging out of a Chicxulub Crater sized hole and to me the true contenders for the division are Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. I haven't yet gone through the West's offseason changes (coming next week) to see exactly the movement that's been going on there, but at least with Iowa, we have first-hand experience about some of those changes.  

I expect all three of those teams to field good defenses, even with Illinois losing Walters, and it just comes down to which teams have a pulse on offense. So... same ole B1G West? The Twitter question here asked about whether the new coaches can meaningfully raise the ceiling of the programs, and I don't really think so. The reality of the B1G West is these programs are pretty disadvantaged in terms of fundamentals. Only Illinois has a claim to really being on fertile recruiting ground, and yet the Chicago area doesn't produce the amount of players that they do in basketball. Nebraska was a juggernaut in an era where they had much easier access to players form Oklahoma and Texas playing in the Big 8/XII. If forced to recruit the plains, they're in trouble. I just don't think any of these teams can ever be true CFP contenders and in some ways, I think we ought to talk more about the fundamentals as reasons for the B1G West's lack of competitiveness with the East as opposed to coaching incompetence. They've had some bad and funny coaches but also are you ever competing for a national title at IOWA even with a better offense? Very good chance the answer is "no" because elite talent isn't coming to Iowa City. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More questions]

 

[Bill Rapai]

What are your expectations for the second half of UM’s hockey season?  Will Naurato’s teams continue the second half surges we have come to expect from Mel’s teams? Are PSU and OSU for real or will they fade in the second half? Why does Naurato still have the interim tag? (-BlueNE)

I got three hockey questions and I'm consolidating them into one answer for today. User "drjaws" sent one in about making the tournament and I got one from Hoover Street Rag on Twitter about Naurato's interim tag so let's tackle them step by step. My expectation for the second half of the season is that the team plays better and makes the tournament. They probably need to only tread water in the B1G in the second half, so long as they take care of Wisconsin at home, since they are currently #8 in PWR and the B1G is very good. After playing OSU this weekend, 10 of Michigan's final 12 games in the regular season are against teams in the top 18 of the formula. Holding your own is probably enough to get you in, and that's my expectation (so far, so good). That is, provided that the team plays better. They're a young team and I want to see them play better in the second half of the season, playing a more consistent 60 minutes start to finish, and having more consistent weekends where they play well both nights. 

I think that should happen personally, because they went through a lot of weirdness in the first half, the RSV outbreak, losing Fantilli against MSU because of the Team Canada WJC camp, they just need a full roster. Whether or not they ever get Nazar back this year, getting a consistent roster together will help them in the second half. As for OSU and PSU, I came into last week thinking the Buckeyes are overrated, but they looked sharp against Michigan. I have been impressed by PSU, so wouldn't be surprised if they keep it up, though of course, if Michigan gets hotter in the second half, they've got the talent to outplay both of those teams by a considerable margin. What PSU has on Michigan and basically everyone in the league is experience, rolling a nearly complete team over from last year and I think that's what helped them out of the gate. That competitive advantage will decline some as Michigan's freshmen and the likes of Logan Cooley and Jimmy Snuggerud get even more experienced for Minnesota. 

Finally, on the topic of the Naurato interim tag, I can't say why Warde hasn't moved on it. I am not Warde Manuel and unfortunately the most honest answer may just be that Warde is content to move slowly on these things and also may be (somewhat?) incompetent. That said, if I'm following my own belief, I'd let the year play out and then make a decision. Michigan is an elite hockey program that is one of the two easiest jobs in the sport. There is no reason to tie yourself down to a coach after only 20 games (that includes no postseason games). I want to see Naurato coach a full season and A) if the team improves in the second half and B) they make the tournament, then I think I'm comfortable taking the tag off. Waiting until the end of the year to make him the permanent coach is actually very sensible. If only I could believe Warde is waiting out of a shared belief and not because he's been asleep for the past three months. 

 

What is an ideal non-conference schedule after B1G expansion and the 12-team playoff? (-91 Sideliner)

I thought this was a fun one. I have become this site's notorious proponent of an easy non-conference schedule because I have long argued that the four team playoff structure greatly disincentivizes playing tough opponents in the non-conference if you're Michigan. I think this belief was justified considering Michigan played bad teams in their three non-con games in both 2021 and 2022 and still got the #2 overall seed anyway. If Michigan had say, a road game against Oklahoma on the schedule in 2021 instead of a home game against 4-8 Washington, and they lose that game, would they still have made the playoff despite beating OSU? Would've been much tighter than it needed to be! 

But in a 12 team playoff world? Bring back the hard non-con! The BCS system was lowkey great because it incentivized hard non-conference games. You needed the hardest possible schedule to ensure you'd be top two. That gave us games like Ohio State playing Texas and USC in home-and-homes in the mid-2000s, back when those were true top five matchups. With a 12 team playoff, you suddenly have a real incentive to take risks in the non-conference again. A 10-2 Michigan team is likely making the 12 team playoff, so you can risk losing a non-conference game in exchange for the benefit of boosting your odds of getting that top four bye into the semifinals by ramping up your strength of schedule. So, in a 12 team playoff world, let's say there should be one marquee top ten game on there each year, one lower-level P5 team on there, and then one cupcake. Imagining if 2023 were a 12 team playoff year, I'd say a game against top ten Oregon, a game against Syracuse, and then we'll keep Bowling Green on the schedule.   

 

[David Wilcomes]

Now that you’re a grizzled FFFF veteran, what was the most fun team to scout last year? Which team deserved to be punished for crimes against football? Relatedly, which teams are you most excited to scout in 2023? Which scouting assignment gives you nightmares? (-VintageRandy)

This was a good one. The most fun team to scout one is an interesting question, because there are many more bad teams and units than good ones. I really thought Indiana's offense was fun to scout because they moved at such a crazy breakneck pace and did stuff that other teams didn't do, like their endless barrage of screen passes to the running backs. At least they kept me on my heels. The crimes against football one is pretty obvious but the list is not short, some combination of Hawaii's defense + Iowa's offense + Rutgers' offense + Nebraska's defense. There were some grim ones this year. 

The team I'm most excited to scout in 2023 is probably either Bowling Green or UNLV, simply because I know nothing about them? They aren't good. In fact, they're pretty bad. But at least they're bad teams I don't know much about and haven't seen before? Of teams on the schedule in B1G play, I'd probably go with Minnesota for a similar reason, I haven't done them yet so at least that's different. Maybe Nebraska with a new coach. As for the nightmares, probably the Rutgers offense since they were in the crimes against football category, but maybe a new OC and a more experienced Wimsatt changes that. At least Iowa is off the schedule. 

 

Let's say the Peach Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and National Title games were each played 10 times, to get a more accurate portrait of each team, how do you think it plays out? (-ImRightYouKnow)

We got several about bowl games, so that's what these next two questions will be about. I love this question in particular because it shows how much of sports is the spur of the moment, the fact that a given game is only played once. Here's my answer: I think that Michigan wins the Fiesta Bowl seven times out of ten if it's played over? They lost by five and gave the opposition fourteen points directly off turnovers and had the fumble on the goal line which was another ~six point swing. I believed Michigan to be a considerable favorite coming in and am mostly sticking to that with how it played out. If it were a ten game series, I might jack that up to eight because I think Michigan would have been much better set up to make adjustments for games 2-10. If we assume that these games are played out in isolation with no connection to the preceding outcomes, then I'd stick with seven times. Across the full season, Michigan was definitely the better team and TCU needed a lot of ultra high-leverage plays going in their favor to win and repeating that game ten times would bear that out. 

As for the Peach Bowl, I think Georgia wins six or seven times? Ohio State was in that position because CJ Stroud played the game of his life. Is scrambling and dodging pressure a new feature of his game or was it a one-off? Good luck figuring that out, NFL teams in the top ten of this draft! If Stroud is suddenly now that sort of QB, then OSU might actually win five or six of the ten. But if we assume that was a one-off performance for Stroud because the previous 20+ games of his college career say it was, then I think Georgia wins more times than not. Also, similarly to the Fiesta Bowl answer, if the games are a ten game series, Georgia would be in better position to adjust because they'd not have played man coverage as much in a rematch. Oh and the national title game? Georgia wins nine or ten times out of ten. They were so much better in the trenches that I don't think it matters all that much. 

 

[Patrick Barron]

Why is Michigan historically bad in bowl games? (-thelomasbrowns)

I talked to older Michigan football fans last night about this one for the Bo answer, because I am far from a Michigan Football historian and was not alive in the 1970s (surprise!). What I heard was two things, that Bo considered winning the B1G and beating OSU to be paramount and didn't care as much about bowls, and also that Bo mostly played in Rose Bowls. 10 of the 17 bowl games that Bo coached Michigan in were Rose Bowls, and he went 2-8 in those games, while going 3-4 in other bowls. Furthermore, Michigan played USC or UCLA in six of the Rose Bowls, opponents playing a de facto home game, while Michigan was traveling out there. Winning on the road in CFB is hard, let alone against very good teams. From that angle, it make more sense. 

As for the Carr and Harbaugh era? Carr lost four bowl games near the tail end of his tenure and part of that in my mind is the fact the B1G was not great in that era relative to the rest of college football. Ohio State lost by multiple scores both times they played in the BCS title game in the mid-2000s, PSU and Illinois got hammered by USC in their Rose Bowl appearances, so it's not really surprising to me that Michigan didn't beat USC in their Rose Bowl cracks, or Texas in 2004 (though there's a strong case they should've won that one). The teams they played were generally better than them. 

And Harbaugh? The Fiesta Bowl we can gripe about, but the rosters of Georgia and Alabama in the 2019-20 Citrus and 2021 Orange were way, way better than Michigan's. Michigan also had limited motivation in the bowl games following the 2016-18 regular seasons coming off devastating losses in The Game in all three. Bowl games in the modern CFB (outside of the playoff) are really all about which team actually cares about the game and wants to win. When you're told your season rests on beating Ohio State and then you don't beat Ohio State, it makes you far less interested in getting up for an Outback Bowl against South Carolina in rainy/muddy Tampa, Florida. Especially when you had OSU on the ropes and didn't pull it off. At least that's always been my theory. 

 

Should Warde just be fired, or fired from a cannon? (-The Mad Hatter)

I just want to say that I shared this in MGoSlack and BiSB responded with "is 'trebuchet' off the table?" so I think we're going with that answer. Mr. The Mad Hatter, you can comment below if that is an option.  

 

What is up with Mike Hart's recruiting? He seems like a very good developer of talent, both corum and edwards have become more complete players under his watch, but those were jaybaugh recruits. A lot of the fliers being brought in don't seem to have much upside, and idk if Cabana will be a 3 down back. (-CJW3) 

I wanted to get one recruiting question in here, and I thought this was a good one. Hart is definitely one of the most disappointing, if not the most disappointing, recruiters on staff right now. Various recruiting insiders have been starting to complain about Hart's recruiting, so I think that people around the program are a bit frustrated. I'm not a recruiting insider, so I don't know why it's the case, but it's very curious considering that RBs should be clamoring to play for Michigan. Not to mention the fact that during Jay Harbaugh's time coaching RBs, he recruited extremely well, reeling in Zach Charbonnet, Blake Corum, and Donovan Edwards as high 4* to 5* level prospects. So it does seem to be a Hart-specific thing, at least if you adjust for the slowness on NIL that is affecting the whole staff.

Cabana was a nice get and a guy I like a lot. The issue this cycle was taking Benjamin Hall as early as they did. Not that Hall can't grow into a good player, but there was no reason to settle that early (they took him in the spring!!). One theory I've had is that Hart hasn't been able to adjust to the fact he's not at Indiana and can actually chase top tier talent now. I also think he's someone that trusts his own development ability and believes if he can just find a ball of clay who looks good on tape to fit the mold, he can make that guy into a star, talent be damned. The problem with the thinking, of course, is that we've now seen what happens when Hart takes a guy with tons of raw talent and then coaches him up: the player becomes a superstar, Heisman caliber player. 2024 will be a big cycle to see if Hart can turn it around.  

 

[Bryan Fuller]

Should we actually expect Michigan's offense to air it out a bit more with JJ in his 2nd year as a starter in 2023 or is that just some wishcasting?

— Alex Bean (@ABeanTweeting) January 13, 2023

I got a number of versions of this question, especially being tied to Corum returning and fears that Michigan will over-rely on running yet again. If Jim Harbaugh is still the head coach, I expect they will want to run the football as much as possible because that is Harbaugh's DNA. I also think that Harbaugh believes strongly in limiting turnovers (especially interceptions), and part of the desire to run it as much as they have the last two years has been the fact they've had a first time starter at QB each of the last two seasons. 2023 will be the first season that Michigan has a returning starter at QB who is set to play out a whole year without fear of competition since 2019. If Harbaugh has faith in JJ and JJ makes continued strides, I do expect Michigan to throw it more, because Harbaugh will trust him more to limit turnovers. Will it be as much as we want? Probably not. Will there still be plenty of grumbling about it? Likely. But I do think it will be more than 2021 or 2022 and that may well benefit them by getting JJ enough reps to avoid potential pick sixes in a future CFP game. 

 

What will it take to get Michigan basketball of the mediocrity treadmill?

— Thelonious Funk (@theonemanzone) January 12, 2023

I got two basketball questions, a very good one about PG recruiting that unfortunately I can't answer because I don't cover basketball recruiting enough to have that in my domain. I will send it along to Matt D and other smarter basketball people than me, though. As for this one, I think it's a pretty fair question to ask when Michigan is now 10-7 overall and 50th in KenPom, which is the epitome of mediocrity. For me the obvious answer is two elements, 1) when they figure out the PG dilemma that the recruiting question was getting at, and 2) when Michigan can get players to stick around for multiple years to mature. 

Michigan has turned over a lot of its roster in consecutive offseasons and when you look at this current team, you see the youth and inexperience. Last week against Iowa they melted down in crunch time (with a nice assist by the referees late). Look at the players who played the highest minutes in that one: Tarris Reed Jr. (freshman), Hunter Dickinson (junior), Kobe Bufkin (sophomore), Jett Howard (freshman), and Dug McDaniel (freshman). So three freshmen and one player in Bufkin who averaged less than 11 minutes per game last year. Terrance Williams II is another junior starter, but he is also in his first year starting. The starting lineup against Northwestern yesterday had 4/5 players who were first-year starters and two of the three players with significant roles off the bench were either freshmen (Reed) or are seeing the floor for the first time in their NCAA career (Tschetter). They are a very young team and we saw the ups-and-downs of that last week against Iowa and NU. The biggest thing for Michigan is getting these guys to stick around and grow. Maybe Hunter comes back for year #4, maybe Juwan can lock Jett in the basement where NBA scouts can't get to him, both would be useful because the more players they can roll over to next year, the better. [For reference, the former is vastly more likely than the latter]. 

The way I see it is that college basketball is changing significantly. When Juwan was hired at Michigan, a popular team-building strategy still revolved around the one-and-dones, turning over your whole roster and starting lineup every offseason because you were loaded with 5*s. Kentucky did it and Duke was still doing it the year Juwan was hired. That 2018-19 season Duke had a team that included Zion Williamson (1st overall), RJ Barrett (3rd overall), and Cam Reddish (10th overall), all as freshmen. But what happened a year later? The G-League Ignite popped up. Year after that, Overtime Elite popped up. There are still good players in college basketball, but a number of top tier NBA Draft prospects that allowed that team-building strategy to be successful have the option to go other routes.

Juwan leaned in to trying the one-and-done route, getting burned a bit in 2020 (remember Josh Christopher and Isaiah Todd?) but then succeeded in 2021 by snatching a top three recruiting class via the rankings. Unfortunately it's variable and if the caliber of player is not as high as 5 or 10 years ago (the Scoot Hendersons are not coming through CBB), I think you might be better off trying to recruit multi-year players with less NBA upside, growing them, and building a team with stability like it's the 1970s all over again. Getting this roster some stability, not swapping out seven players in the offseason as has happened two straight summers, and focusing on growing a core of Kobe, Dug, and Tarris, even guys like Tschetter or Barnes, is the first step. Then you pair it with coaching staff shakeup (new assistants to coach defense better?) and targeted transfers and that's probably the best path to get back in national title contention, rather than chasing one-and-dones because the Moussa and Houstan experiment didn't bring Michigan as much as we'd hoped. And of course, fixing the transfer PG carousel is a big part. If Dug McDaniel can grow into being a quality B1G PG, that solves a lot of problems. Searching for a transfer PG or leaning on a freshman is not a sustainable path to being a perennial top four seed in the NCAAs. 

 

[Patrick Barron]

If you could match any football coach with the University of Michigan football program as it stands right now, who would you pick and why? Is it Harbaugh or is there someone out there who could do more with this team than him? If it’s not Harbaugh, what are the odds Michigan could hire the coach if Harbaugh leaves? (-UMVAFAN) 

This one is pretty easy to me. As it stands right now, Jim Harbaugh is the best football coach for the University of Michigan. There are two guys that I think are better than him for sure and their names are Nick Saban and Kirby Smart and neither are a fit for this program and more importantly, this university. To replicate their success, you have to export the whole Bama and Georgia football apparatus, the program and university culture, the money, the boosters, the transfer rules, the willingness to play big time pay-for-play. None of that fits Michigan and the university culture/ethos. So of that next tier of coaches, I think Harbaugh right now is probably the best coach and also is the only one I'm confident can thrive under the circumstances that Michigan imposes on its coaches. 

I don't want to get too into the Anson/Harbaugh messaging and the contract negotiation drama, but I do think there's some truth to what Anson has said about how it's not easy being Michigan's coach. The way the administration has, whoever's fault it is, been way too slow to get going on NIL, would chase many coaches away. A huge amount of CFB coaches aren't even going to go to a school that won't do pay-for-play. Then you add in the academic standards, transfer hoops to jump through, and you're really talking about comparable programs being Stanford and Northwestern types. Neither of them have coaches I'd even think about over Harbaugh. The Upper Midwest also isn't the most fertile football recruiting ground either. Point being, it's not easy to coach Michigan despite it being Michigan™, the fundamentals aren't as strong as you might think for the Winningest Program In History and we get in our own way a lot (thanks, bureaucracy). Considering all that, Jim Harbaugh is the best fit for this program, hands down, because he is both a terrific football coach who has won 25 of his last 28 games and also he loves Michigan wholeheartedly and will put up with a lot that Kirby and Saban never would. 

 

What's the most surprising thing that we don't know about each of the MGoBlog staff? (-Swayze Howell Sheen)

My real answers need to be censored for personal reasons but I actually have one about myself and one that is genuinely shocking about an MGo-adjacent figure. I learned recently that Craig Ross has never seen any of The Godfather films, something that flabbergasted me considering his age and knowledge of movies generally. I've had hour-long conversations with Craig about Hitchcock, film noir, and classic cinema yet somehow he's never seen THE GODFATHER? A man who was 24 years old in 1972 and watches movies didn't see THE GODFATHER????? Don't worry, I told him we will have to fix this in the coming months. 

As for my answer, I'll give my go-to fun fact about myself: I am from a family of four (me, one sibling, two parents) and am somehow the only right-handed person in the family. Make of that what you will.  

 

Rival Analysis: What is Ryan Day's reasoning for giving up play calling and is it a good decision? (-willirwin1778)

Two people asked about Ryan Day giving up play calling duties, which we got more info on recently when it was confirmed that Brian Hartline will be taking over as OC and thus play caller. I'm not exactly sure what is fueling this, but there are a few different threads. For one, it was unusual that a HC at a program like OSU was calling plays in the first place, so it could be a move to bring Day in alignment with most other head coaches. A conception in football these days is that when the HC is calling plays, they are less able to focus on other aspects of the game (in-game coaching, player management, decision making) and the last item mentioned in that parentheses, decision making, is probably the kicker. Day has been harangued for poor choices on 4th down situations, and Ohio State may want him to devote more attention to those situations and less to calling plays down-to-down. Brian also floated the idea in UV on Friday that it could be to give Hartline something to do so he doesn't leave to coach a MAC team, which seems plausible. 

Is it a good idea? Eh, I think it will have a marginal impact. You can argue that it's good for Michigan because OSU has had a hyper-successful offense since Day started calling plays and anything to disrupt that even a little bit will be a net positive for teams playing OSU. On the other hand, it's likely going to be the same scheme, so I would expect very little change in terms of the overall baseline. OSU fans will argue it could be a positive development for Ohio State if Day becomes a better in-game coach. Tough to know, but I don't think it will be a big deal in the long run.