MGoPodcast 12.17: The Doom Face
2 hours and 4 minutes
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1. Harbaugh Extension and Football Program Outlook
starts at 1:00
Ba ba ba ba ba basketball, gimme the ball cuz I’m gonna dunk it. Oh right, that. Octonauts!
The rest of the writeup and the player after The Jump]
2. Hoops vs Minnesota
starts at 28:09
That. It must be miserable to play against Michigan. Eli loses a tooth so we get more Brown, like more Brown. Also like everything that Johns does except that he wont’ do more of it. Dickinson, oh Dickinson. Smith staying in front of Carr means he’s legit okay at defense now? Finding nits to pick in lieu of the canceled game against the picking Nits.
3. Big Ten Hoops
starts at 51:10
This segment is not entirely making fun of Michigan State, but there’s a lot of making of Tom Izzo’s insane roster management. Indiana is making everything out of one guy, often late in the clock. Illinois opponents found out how to slow down Ayo, and Kofi’s not getting the ball enough. Minnesota churning out disaster factory candidates. Iowa gonna Iowa. Ohio State again gets a Rutgers game with Myles Johnson in early foul trouble—nice to see something go that athletic department’s way for once. Wisconsin is interesting but beatable.
4. Hot Takes, WBB, and Hockey
starts at 1:44:40
With everybody out for COVID we have the Naz game. Might be putting too much on Dilk. Hailey Brown has been stepping up in Leigha Brown’s absence but the ceiling on this team is much lower without key parts of their roster. In hockey, an 11-3 weekend went almost as badly as it could, with the hockey gods awarding MSU goals on their first, penultimate, and last shots in a game Michigan otherwise dominated. Blech.
MUSIC:
- “Static Buzz"—Snail Mail
- “Science vs. Romance”—Rilo Kiley
- “Porridge Radio”—Give / Take
- “Across 110th Street”
THE USUAL LINKS:
I think the MF doom is definitely the way to go.
January 12th, 2021 at 8:53 AM ^
I don't want to linger too long on football, but I think Seth's point about 2016 is a little deeper than it was given credit. Not only would recruiting have gotten better, but perhaps some of the coaching turnover would've slowed. The media would've been off the programs back a little bit. I feel like the ripple effects of that game were felt for a while.
I also feel like you could point a game earlier to the loss at Iowa. That feels like when the fork in road happened. Speight getting injured, the beginning of late season woes, a lot started then. It feels like that three game stretch (Iowa-FSU) is when the program destabilized.
January 12th, 2021 at 9:38 AM ^
Earlier then Iowa? Speight was injured in that game I am pretty sure.
January 12th, 2021 at 2:10 PM ^
Yes, sorry that was not clear because I forgot about IU. I meant earlier than The Game and pointed back to the Iowa game where the Speight injury happened.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:23 PM ^
I chalk up Iowa to Kinnick Stadium doing what it does. Speight was injured but ALSO that holding call! It was frustrating but we kept breathing and did snow angels next week for #chaosteam (Indiana). That stretch (no matter where you think something broke) was the closest this program has gotten to breaking through and looking like something non flukey in 20 years.
January 12th, 2021 at 2:14 PM ^
I think we might be saying the same thing. It's like they had their moment where the breakthrough was going to happen and not being able to seize on it left collateral damage beyond the losses.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:54 PM ^
Harbaugh's entire blueprint for Michigan was to copy what Urban had done nationalizing Ohio State's recruiting and ignoring the old Ohio HS that weren't producing enough talent for Ohio State to compete with the SEC in favor of raiding Florida/Texas/Atlanta/California for top talent.
To do that, he had to immediately start beating Ohio State and putting Michigan in the playoff discussion. He came 1 foot away from doing it that year, and it would have been the proof of concept for elite recruits. Instead, they came up short and the rest was history.
January 12th, 2021 at 9:01 AM ^
Wow. If you guys (Brian, Seth, Ace) go back and listen to this and focus on your voices and tone during the Harbaugh contract segment you'd think someone just died - or you three had transformed into Eeyore.
January 12th, 2021 at 9:10 AM ^
Well, the program just died a little more... The age old question - is hanging on to life in a coma via life support machinery really living?
January 12th, 2021 at 11:17 AM ^
Agreed. I heard it as hoping Michigan gets blown out by OSU next year so Michigan can fire Harbaugh. I hope Harbaugh gets whatever he had in 2015 back, hires a project manager to keep things organized, and turns this around. Hoping that Michigan does poorly instead of improving is a bridge too far for me.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:16 PM ^
Yeah, and the fact that the refrain was "it's great that Matt Campbell is still available next year" strikes me as a bit of optimistic hoping. Maybe Iowa St. really has turned the corner and Campbell gets them to compete for a conference title next year; it's just as likely that OU keeps chugging along and Texas comes back a bit and he's #3/4 in the conference and people are looking to scrub their twitter feeds and posting history because we're contemplating replacing Jim Harbaugh with a guy who's chugging along. Like, he went 4-2 in 1-score games this year after going a game under .500 in 1-score games the past couple fo years. Flip that number to 2-4 or even 3-3 and we're having a different discussion. I remember when Michigan was looking to replace Beilein and the Iowa St. basketball coach's name came up around these parts as a really good option because of recent success (seemingly fueled by some CC transfers and the remnants of Fred Hoiberg's recruiting); since then Iowa St has gone 14-27 and have been Kenpom's 90th-ranked team over that span. Things change and thinking the past is reproducible in sports isn't a given.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:33 PM ^
Agreed. Campbell may end up being a home run hire, but it is a big jump to go from winning with a "5 star culture with 3 star players" to being expected to bring in the actual 5 star players and beat all of the other teams with the 5 stars. Some people can make that jump (Urban Meyer) but there are plenty of examples of those that can't.
January 12th, 2021 at 1:00 PM ^
Iowa State is bringing back almost every key player from this year and Texas hired a drunk failure. He's gonna win 10-12 games next year at Iowa State again.
January 12th, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^
Well, ISU barely beat this mediocre Texas team being coached by a lame-duck HC of sorts. Campbell may well build on his success from this season next year OR the advantages he enjoyed during a pandemic-shortened season with a number of the better teams in the conference suffering from a raft of issues may not exist next year and he goes back to the 7-8 wins he's been averaging. Which, again, is a good deal for ISU but I'd be shocked gets people excited here.
January 12th, 2021 at 2:59 PM ^
I would say that's a good prediction for 2022 when everyone on this team is due to graduate. But there's no reason to think this team with everything they've got coming back will win less than 10 games next year, especially considering Texas downgraded their coaching situation.
January 12th, 2021 at 10:04 PM ^
Michigan had easily their worst season since 2008, which was their worst season since like the 40s or something. It was bad. I don't get why some people are so surprised about the negativity around one of the lowest points in program history.
January 12th, 2021 at 9:39 AM ^
Why is JH so bad at making assistant coaching hiring decisions?
January 12th, 2021 at 11:54 AM ^
Is he that bad though? Sure he's had some misses, but he's also had his fair share of hits, only for most of them to get poached.
HITS: Don Brown (consistently put together top 5 defenses his first few years, just held on a year or 2 too long), Fisch (poached), Partridge (poached), Warriner, Sherrone Moore, Zordich (great coach, average recruiter), Mattison (poached), Washington (poached), Wheatley, as well as some analysts that were poached as well.
MISSES: Pep, Drevno, Gattis (so far IMO), Schoop (seemed out of Harbaugh's control, but don't know the story), Nua (so far), McDaniels
I'm sure I'm missing some in each category, but I would say Harbaugh's hit rate is certainly above 50% in assistant hires. I think the bigger issue are more administrative/organization/recruiting, and the turnover of coaches, which, if you hire well you're going to have.
January 12th, 2021 at 1:00 PM ^
Fisch wasn't poached, he left for a lateral job, which is a mighty common thing with Harbaugh.
January 12th, 2021 at 1:19 PM ^
He was "Passing Game Coordinator" at Michigan and left to become sole OC/QB at UCLA. It was not a lateral move. It has become a common theme to say all these guys left Harbaugh for lateral moves, but it's simply not true -- certainly not "common".
I have gripes with Harbaugh -- this is not one of them.
January 12th, 2021 at 2:57 PM ^
He left Michigan to become a lame duck offensive coordinator on a team where the head coach was on the hot seat before he was ever hired. Nobody does that unless their current job is going to fire them or they're miserable.
January 12th, 2021 at 4:35 PM ^
It's pretty well-known that Jedd Fisch is one to bounce around from job-to-job FREQUENTLY, and he would do so in hopes that the next job would get him closer to being a head coach. This is why his name would always pop up for coaching positions, but never get hired -- his agent is fishing for him.
Even if we want to call Fisch a lateral move, one instance is still not a "common" theme.
January 12th, 2021 at 2:12 PM ^
Who do you think was responsible for making the offensive line hella better than anything Hoke had? Remember that Drevno immediately improved the OL in 2015, and it was outstanding in 2016. The 2017 OL was a feature of RR and Hoke recruiting misses (and Newsome's blown leg) - there was nobody left. He was promoted to OC in 2018, and that's really when the OL play deteriorated (in tandem with Greg Frey). I wouldn't say that he was a miss, but I will say that he was Peter Principled with the OC title.
January 12th, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
That 2016 offensive line underperformed once Newsome went down. Who can forget the failure to get into the end zone early in the FSU game after the turnover at about the one yard line
January 12th, 2021 at 4:31 PM ^
I'll agree with you for the most part. And, honestly, Drevno seemed like a home-run hire initially because of his success at Stanford and with the 49ers. But promoting him to OC (and, in turn, picking him over Fisch) was what I would call a "miss" and a "bad hire". Drevno is a perfectly capable OL coach, but also failed on the recruiting trail.
January 12th, 2021 at 5:08 PM ^
Appreciate all the chimes in on this discussion. The more you look around the more you find the common theme with the troubles is JH. Look at Bama for example. Saban has all sorts of retreads from other programs in their assistant coaches that perform at Bama and then fail to perform again at their next landing spot. I just have to believe that it's Saban and his system and organizational structure that makes these guys successful when they are at Bama. And to the contrary, it's JH's system and lack of organizational structure that enables them to struggle at UM. JH just does not seem to have the organizational structure and system in place for people to be successful. They have the freedom to be successful if they have the ability, ala early-Brown. But, they don't have the support to if they aren't ready for that level of freedom without help from the HC.
January 12th, 2021 at 9:45 AM ^
Ace: dénouement is a French word, not pronounced like an English word.
(It's roughly "day-noo-mah".)
January 12th, 2021 at 11:54 AM ^
I’m not going to go back and listen again, but I think Brian also mispronounced, “contretemps.” Good efforts by both, though. I doubt denouement and contretemps show up in your standard Sparty or Buckeye podcast.
January 12th, 2021 at 10:07 PM ^
Eh. There are a shit ton of French words in English and only a tiny fraction of them are pronounced as they are in French, especially words like that which contain a very common suffix "-ment" that is never pronounced as "mah".
January 12th, 2021 at 9:56 AM ^
If Harbaugh had half the leadership characteristics as Captain Barnacles right now, we'd be in good shape.
January 12th, 2021 at 11:29 AM ^
Just a simple request but can we keep the basketball segments in front of the football ones like it has been lately.
It's just a bit easier to navigate when you don't have to skip over the first half hour.
January 12th, 2021 at 11:36 AM ^
I think the contract Harbaugh signs is more a contract where it saves the AD money this year and gives both sides a chance for more options next year when everyone has a better idea about the finances involved. For the AD they'll know what a post-pandemic budget looks like and for Harbaugh he'll either be out the door or have enough success that he can re-negotiate. It's basically a one-year contract that just looks longer for optics.
I'd also like to point out that Auburn's and Texas's ADs have far fewer sports to support - Texas has 18 varsity sports and Auburn has 20; Michigan's got 29 last I checked. So while we all scoff at the idea they may have money issues, it's not unreasonable that they're suffering through tens of millions of dollars in shortfall this year and any savings they can enjoy are welcome.
January 12th, 2021 at 11:45 AM ^
This is a good point. I don't know the finances at those schools, and Michigan's many sports might mean they were hit particularly hard this year.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:00 PM ^
Yeah, it's not that I think UM couldn't pay Harbaugh if they needed to, but even if you assume that these non-revenue sports have seen salaries and expenses cut somewhat, that's probably still a couple million dollars that UM has to budget for that Texas and Auburn doesn't.
January 12th, 2021 at 1:52 PM ^
Plus, it's not just staff salaries that can be renegotiated or deferred or CARES Act reimbursed in some instances. Remember the investment that Brandon put into all those non-revenue sports facilities... all those things were built on low interest loans that weren't a problem to pay when football was generating oodles of revenue. Debt service still has to be paid so getting a $4M savings can go a long way to freeing up cash to pay debt bills for a little while.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:05 PM ^
Bronxblue's point is key RE: JH, if we assume that Warde will have the desire / stones to fire Jim after a poor 2021 if that happens.
Yep, financially and practically this makes sense, if you make the assumption above. Though many people are, I'm not ready to make that assumption. Warde was quick to say he was "leaving it up to Jim" and, barring a catastrophic season (i.e. 3-9 / 4-8), I think Jim gets to coach here for a while and that it really is "up to him".
It just feels like the Lions with Quinntricia. Michigan is in one of the toughest divisions in the country, with many of the other teams (MSU, Indiana, even Rutgers) ascending. The defense is pretty awful, the head coach is an odd duck who should know what he's doing but rubs players the wrong way, the position coaches don't seem great, and the team doesn't seem motivated to play hard at times.
So, I kind of have a Lions outlook, even though I care about Michigan much more. I know we're really not going anywhere in 2021, and I'll watch, but mostly to take whatever good I can from it. We might finish 8-4 or whatever, but the program is essentially moribund while Jim is our head coach.
What a bummer.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:25 PM ^
I have bad news for the fellas. There is nothing short of some sort of scandal being uncovered at OSU that is going to make UM competitive with them for at least 4 years. New coach or no. So, they really need to learn how to cover the team without making it sound like they want to slit their wrists and shit all over the team every week.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:32 PM ^
Also, Harbaugh did amazing things developing both Rudock and Speight. Both of them played way above their talent level in 2015 and 2016. The QB problems in 2017 were entirely on the fact that there was no offensive line and everyone under center that year was in fear of their life every snap. Patterson played well in 2018 behind a still improving offensive line. 2019-20 Harbaugh backed off and handed things over to Gattis and it didn't work. So I think we can assume that Harbaugh taking the QB room under his wing will make a huge difference.
January 12th, 2021 at 1:53 PM ^
A poster noted a bit ago that the two years McDaniels was the QB coach (Patterson's final season and this past year) showed a noticeable degradation in QB performance. Obviously lots of factors but I do wonder if the spot wasn't being prepared optimally.
January 12th, 2021 at 12:37 PM ^
I'm kind of worried that the idyll of Michigan football we all pine for (through the Bo/Mo/Carr years) is never coming back simply because the game has changed completely. In those years we aspired to be better than Ohio State and Notre Dame and if we did that we could take a run at No. 1. That ain't happening anytime soon, if ever (witness last night). I think we can all assume that virtually every program that has made the playoff (excepting ND) takes an entirely different approach to recruiting ethics and academic standards. Plus more than ever the very top high school players view college football as a stepping stone to the league. They will continue in bunches to go to these football factory programs even when the Alabama/Clemson type juggernaut ends.
January 12th, 2021 at 3:00 PM ^
We beat the snot out of Norte Dame in 2019, and were at least competitive with Ohio State in 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2017. What does it all mean.
January 13th, 2021 at 12:12 AM ^
Second time I've heard you guys use Snail Mail for one of these and i fucking love it (edit: the music not that they did the podcast like correspondence chess lmao)
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