Greg Davis is drawing up a zone read, so he can't be a candidate at least

The Question:

Seth: How does Michigan screw this one up?

Adam:

(via midwestsportsfans)

or

(via sbnation)

Either of those would be a swift kick to the searchbits; otherwise I'm optimistic about the search (both process and outcome). This may lead to me posting a bunch of Gob Bluth clips on Twitter, but I don't think Michigan screws this up.

[After the jump: more all too realistic scenarios in which Michigan decides we need more mediocrity and stupid.]

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BiSB: The path to another Process is pretty clear. Michigan thinks it has a really good shot at Harbaugh, so they wait until the NFL season wraps up. It's the beginning of January before the Jets or the Raiders manage to snatch Harbaugh away. By that time, any top tier head coaches who are currently employed have leveraged their "interest" in Michigan into a renewal and a pay raise, including a prohibitive buyout. Hot assistant names like Tom Herman have either done likewise, or have been snatched up by Oregon State-level jobs, or they just don't want to take the risk of having to assemble a rushed transition and a first recruiting class in three weeks. Michigan is left with the unemployed (Schiano), the mediocre but accessible (Addazio), or the uninspiring NFL types (Jay Gruden, Teryl Austin).

And that's why I don't buy this "Harbaugh has already told Michigan 'no' and Michigan has moved on" mumbo jumbo. I have no idea what the odds are that Harbaugh lands in Ann Arbor, but this search looks VERY different if Michigan's primary candidate is available right now as opposed to, say, December 29th.

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Seth: This is Michigan and a coaching search.

1. A bad hire. Once they're into the second tier of candidates whose voice gets heard? They've got Mike DeBord in the room, and names leaking out have had a DeBordian flavor. You're worried Tom Herman gets snatched up; I'm worried Michigan won't even look at him.

I doubt DeBord is looking for the same things I am. [Lon Horwedel, Ann Arbor News, 2006 spring practice]

I really don't care if Michigan hires a spread guy; I want success and the greatest offensive innovation since timing routes to a quarterback's footwork is having most of it in college football right now. The reason I keep banging this drum is I'm terrified that Michigan has a religious problem with it. The few folks on the search committee whose opinions are known seem to think Rodriguez failed at Michigan because his approach to scoring was evil, not because his staff feuded, or because he hired GERG to run a defense he doesn't know, or because he thought he could get Dorsey in, or because he was being hatcheted from inside.

2. An ugly transition. The football bust showed a lot of love for Brady Hoke and I'm reminded of what a great job he did walking in without Rodriguez's guys walking out.

3. They could screw up the assistants. This was the big failure of the last two hires; have they learned? Rodriguez needed a defensive coordinator like Casteel who got along with his staff, and whom he trusted. And he could have definitely used a Carr guy on the defensive staff to smooth out the transition. Hoke doomed himself by hiring Borges and committing to an unnecessary offensive transition. Do not repeat competencies again.

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Brian:

1. Michigan could hire a guy with zero resume because he's a pro-style coach. With guys like Marcus Ray on the "search committee" you have dyed-in-the-wool luddites giving their opinion—Ray recently said that the spread was for warm weather schools, apparently ignorant of Urban Meyer's existence. Names like Schiano and Addazio only get brought up by people who are insistent that football ended in 1997. Either would be a very poor idea.

2. Michigan could hire a guy with zero resume because he's been to Ann Arbor before. Teryl Austin, Harold Goodwin, Mike Trgovac: all names no one would ever bring up if they did not have a connection to Michigan. If Michigan had a shot at hypothetical versions of Jim Harbaugh or Les Miles with no M connections, you would still be interested. First-year coordinators and NFL position coaches would not merit a look. That would be the ultimate failure: repeating the same process that led to hiring Brady Hoke. 

Not a great idea.

3. Michigan could hire Les Miles. "He's a young 61!"

/shoots self

Look: we want to get away from factionalism. We want to have everyone pulling in the same direction. Les Miles is and will be divisive. There will be people looking to torpedo him at the first sign of weakness. That sucks, but it's true. Imagine if people had legitimate beefs with Rich Rodriguez. Yeah.

Miles's success at LSU is not likely to translate to Michigan; it's built off of insane local talent that makes his defenses crazy good every year without a whole lot of Narduzzi-style scheming. His offenses have mostly been poop, and he's won an inordinate number of games with crazy Mad Hatter stuff. His clock management is atrocious; his "roster management" is worse. The way he wins at LSU is by ignoring their copious bagmen—goodbye, Jai Eugene—and tapping a local talent base that almost any coach could.

And if Michigan hired him you're not getting that guy who won a lot of SEC games anyway. You're getting an aging version of him. The upside is a few 9-3 years and then retirement; the downside is another wasted transition featuring Michigan people sniping at each other in private, then public. There is only one Bill Snyder, and when the petals come off the Miles rose it's going to be ugly.

I know I'm in the minority here. I strongly prefer catching someone on the upside to trying to squeeze out a few decent years from a guy heading towards social security.