2016 was not a “phenomenal” season

Submitted by rs207200 on January 3rd, 2021 at 1:23 AM

The fascination on this board for the nostalgia that was the 2016 season needs to stop. I routinely see it brought up as the reason Harbaugh should be retained.

The “gold standard” season featured 3 losses. The losses were to a 5 loss Iowa (in which a win would have clinched the division). Another loss to our biggest rival. And then a bowl game loss to a 3 loss FSU (who had a 43 point loss earlier in the season to Louisville).

”Yeah, but if the refs didn’t cheat us, Michigan is in the playoffs!” Well, the team that did beat us, lost in the playoffs 31-0 to Clemson!

If the biggest selling point after 6 seasons is “one magical year in 2016” it’s time to move on. 

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Eph97

January 3rd, 2021 at 1:39 PM ^

OSU's defense was not the problem in that game. They held up as much as they could and actually picked off Deshaun Watson twice. The problem was JT Barrett sucked and couldn't hit a pass to save his life so the OSU defense was on the field nonstop and eventually wore down. PSU should have got the bid if we're being honest because it was the best team in the B1G by the end of the year.

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jdraman

January 3rd, 2021 at 1:41 AM ^

Since I already came down with an accidental case of 'double post-itis' I figured I would provide a serious response. 

The 2016 season was great for the following reasons:

1. Beating / competing with your rivals.

- UM beats MSU 32-23. They played us tough, but we essentially controlled the game throughout. And I think we can acknowledge that the 2016 Sparty squad was at least somewhat better than their 3-9 record indicates.

- UM loses to OSU 30-27 2OT. Yeah I know, a loss is a loss. But dammit, if this wasn't the best edition of The Game in the past two decades; eclipsing both the 2011 and 2006 games for me personally. Complaining about the officiating is always a bad excuse and we certainly should have won the game in regulation, but if OSU can complain about the officiating costing them a 'W' in the 2020 CFP semifinals, then I will continue to decry the officiating from the 2016 Game.

2. Beating / competing with quality opponents.

- UM beat the following teams in 2016 (based on final CFP ranking):

49-10 win over eventual #5 Penn State who were the eventual BIG Conference Champions.

14-7 win over eventual #8 Wisconsin who would finish 11-3 and become Cotton Bowl winners.

45-28 win over eventual #10 Colorado. The Buffs would go on to get smoked in the PAC-12 Conference Championship game and the Alamo Bowl, but still finished at #17 and #15 in the final AP and coaches polls respectively. 

- Lost by a combined 4 points to the #3 and #11 teams in the country (OSU and FSU respectively). In that Orange Bowl loss to FSU, we played without Jabrill Peppers (a Heisman finalist) and Jake Butt (an All-American) went down in the 2nd quarter. 

- Only other loss was a 3-point upset loss at Iowa. Upsets happen in CFB. When in you play in a P5 Conference upsets are even more likely to occur. Other notable upsets from 2016: PSU over OSU, Pitt over Clemson, USC over Washington, Houston over Louisville. Fun fact, the Clemson, UM, and UW upsets all happened on the same football Saturday. 

3. Exceptional play from the defense. Potentially a top-2 all-time defense in Michigan football history. Of course ranked #1 in total defense for the 2016 season!

- Allowed the fewest passing yards per game (142.5 yds/g)

- Second in scoring defense, allowing an average of only 14.1 points

- Best 3rd down defense, giving up a conversion percentage of only 0.210

- Third best red zone defense, giving up a conversion percentage of only 0.714

4. In the 2017 NFL draft, Michigan led the way with 11 picks! This is a school record by the way. 

1st RD picks: Jabrill Peppers (#25) and Taco Charlton (#28)

3rd RD picks: Chris Wormely (#74), Jourdan Lewis (#92), Lano Hill (#95), and Amara Darboh (#106)

4th RD picks: Ben Gedeon (#120), Ryan Glasgow (#138), and Jehu Chesson (#139)

5th RD pick: Jake Butt (#145)

6th RD pick: Jeremy Clark (#197)

5. Elevating QB play. Speight was an extremely limited player from a talent perspective; he was a 3-star player ranked No. 427th nationally. Speight actually ranked 41st nationally in passer efficiency rating. Comparatively, Rudock ranked 37th. This is called getting the most out of limited players at the position. Efficiency is a good metric to use here, since UM's offense was much less pass heavy and thus neither Speight nor Rudock would rank very high on a list of total yards or touchdowns. Shea Patterson ranked 22nd in efficiency in 2018 and then 53rd in efficiency in 2019. 

6. Consistently in the CFP conversation. 2016 was the only year in which we were in the CFP conversation for the duration of the season. The only other year where we had a shot at the CFP, 2018, we started the year with a loss to ND and only climbed back into the top 10 after week 8. In 2016 we ranked in the top 10 every. single. week. 

Even after losing to OSU and missing a berth in the Big Ten Championship game, we were still being considered for a spot in the CFP. That's how good of a team UM was perceived as being; losing 2 of its last 3 games of the season, and still being considered a top 6 team in the country. 

To close this out, I don't understand where some of your arguments are coming from. 

"I routinely see it [2016 season] brought up as the reason Harbaugh should be retained."

I think you will find that it is actually quite the opposite. Most people seem to believe that UM's production on the field has declined since the 2016 season. Most fans are more so dismayed that year 2 was the peak of Harbaugh's tenure. Most people view the decline since 2016 as a reason for Harbaugh's dismissal.

"The 'gold standard' season featured 3 losses..."

Who has ever said that the 2016 season was the "gold standard"? I am fairly certain the expectations for this program, year in and year out, are to beat OSU and win the Big Ten. That is historically what Michigan has done (up until the end of LC's tenure I know).

"Well, the team that did beat us [OSU], lost in the playoffs 31-0 to Clemson!"

And Clemson was the eventual National Championship game victor. Also, the principle of 'any given Saturday' does and should apply to the 2016 team. 

"If the biggest selling point after 6 seasons is 'one magical year in 2016'..."

Again, who is making this the selling point? I have not seen many fans, those who vehemently want Harbaugh to stay, making this the primary selling point. They mostly talk about program stability at the top, protecting recruiting over the next few cycles, and that they believe, wrongly in my opinion, that no one could do any better. 

I want to finish by mentioning that I am among the members of this board who believe it is time for a coaching change. However, I recognize that Harbaugh is in all likelihood going to be back on the sidelines of the Big House for the next few seasons. 

Fin. 

Joined: 10/23/2019

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rs207200

January 3rd, 2021 at 9:52 AM ^

Great analysis, but my point is simply that after six seasons, Harbaugh’s BEST season featured 3 losses. And while we almost beat OSU, it was an OSU team that couldn’t even score a point on the second best team. Which shows while Michigan was good, they were no where near being a national champion. 

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jdraman

January 3rd, 2021 at 10:59 AM ^

"Which shows while Michigan was good, they were no where near being a national champion"

When you argue that UM was not close to being a national champion, I assume this to mean not being close to competing in the CFP. This is just objectively wrong.

Your supporting evidence for why UM was not close to competing in the CFP is that they had three losses. Well, one of those losses was AFTER the CFP selections, so let's set that aside for now. 

The other two losses, as I stated above but will reiterate here, were a one-point upset loss at Iowa and a three-point loss to the eventual #3 team in the nation (OSU). The context of these games matter! Speight was injured during the fourth quarter of the Iowa game and played injured for the entirety of the OSU game. Iowa won on a last second field goal with a freshmen kicker who kicked 60% from beyond 30 yards. OSU won in double OT after numerous dubious calls and, yes, after UM blew multiple chances to secure a victory in regulation.

When you remove the context of the games and just shout "but they had these losses" you sound like an ESPN 'analyst'. These were very competitive games in which UM could, and probably should, have won.

None of this is to say that UM would have won a CFP semi-final game, thus playing for a national title. It certainly isn't saying that UM would have won the CFP title game had they made the game. However, it is arguing that UM could have competed in said games. 

"And while we almost beat OSU, it was an OSU team that couldn’t even score a point on the second best team"

And do you seriously believe we would have lost 31-0 to Clemson? I don't know if the 2016 UM team would beat that Clemson team, but I think we would have been more competitive than that. 

To evaluate that, we can just look at our bowl game against FSU. FSU, while they were walloped by Louisville early in the season, only lost to Clemson by three points. UM only lost to FSU by one point, without Jabrill Peppers, while losing Jake Butt, and only really showing up for the second half. And, UM had a chance to go and win the game before Speight threw a really bad INT. 

The principle of "any given Saturday" could, and I argue should, apply to the 2016 UM team given their track record of competitiveness with the best teams in CFB that season. 

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Teeba

January 3rd, 2021 at 12:01 PM ^

OSU averaged 54 penalty yards per game in 2016 in their 12 games against other opponents. Against Michigan, they were penalized for 6 yards. In a double OT game, I think you can find numerous examples where one additional penalty could have swung the outcome. 
They committed 80 penalties in those 12 games. That’s 6.7 per game. Against us, they were called for 2. 
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/ohio-state/2016/gamelog/

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njvictor

January 3rd, 2021 at 11:09 AM ^

The negative revisionist takes on Speight always pissed me off. Was he limited? Sure, but he was a decent QB who honestly I didn't have many complaints about. He definitely wasn't the same after the Iowa injury, but before that he was very serviceable for that team 

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FrankMurphy

January 3rd, 2021 at 1:41 AM ^

I mean, I agree in the abstract, but 2016 was a year in which the season essentially came down to a couple of coin flips. You get your team in that position enough times, a few of them are eventually going to go your way. Unfortunately for us, the coin flips didn't go our way that year, and we haven't had another year like that.

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Ron Burgundy

January 3rd, 2021 at 1:54 AM ^

I would love to know the story that went behind this post. It's 1:20 in the morning. You're lying in bed, pitch black. Suddenly, your eyes shoot wide open. It's 2016 again. You've tried so hard to forget, but the memories just won't go away. Phenomenal?? Why do people say it was a good year?? We lost 3 games!!!!! You play to win the game but these frickin' internet bozos still think it was a good year!!!!! 

 

This won't stand. Not if I can do anything about it. I rush to my computer, turn it on, enter my password "FIREHARBAUGH". It takes a few attempts, but i finally spell it correctly. I minimize the Youtube window of the 1995 OSU game where Biakabutaka ran wild that I always keep running in the background. Those were better days.

 

I open Bing and go to Yahoo.com. I Yahoo search for "Google". I click the top link and google search for "mgoblog". Click on mgoboard. Make my post. This is my shot, I will enlighten the masses -- 2016 was NOT a good season. Done. Easy.

 

I go back to bed. My job here is done. People will understand now. I sleep easy knowing I will wake up to ALL of the upvotes. They will probably make me a moderator. And people will finally stop saying 2016 was a phenomenal season.

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DHughes5218

January 3rd, 2021 at 2:26 AM ^

I just feel sorry for the million or so people who thought extending Harbaugh was the right move based on the 2016 season being phenomenal. They will be waking up tomorrow and finding out that it wasn’t. They will be left in complete turmoil. I know several people with UM 2016 Phenomenal tattoos. What are they supposed to do?

I guess it’s better to struggle with the emotions of the truth, than to celebrate with false information. Tomorrow is going to be a rough day for a lot of people once they read this and discover that 2016 was NOT phenomenal. /s.

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nappa18

January 3rd, 2021 at 12:23 PM ^

Would have been very close to a phenomenal year : we prevented Ohio from driving from their own 16 to a tying fg on their last drive and we didn’t commit a PF penalty on our final punt to Iowa and prevented them from driving into 33 yard fg range for the win. That would have made for a GREAT year. Phenomenal? Winning or at least getting to the CFP final. 2016 turned out to be painfully disappointing.

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Remember_the_G…

January 3rd, 2021 at 2:13 AM ^

Both things can be true. 
 

I enrolled at Michigan in 2008. For 9 years preceding 2016 all I had was the Sugar Bowl (see my username). So 2016 we were riding high off a complete turnaround year of 2015 where we finally beat an SEC team and we CRUSHED everyone in 2016 until that Iowa game. We were fucking road graters. Yes it was not completely successful but it was actually fun. Also stop with the quality loss bs. A loss is a loss regardless of who it was to. The more impressive parts were beating Colorado, Wisconsin and Penn State who all had really good years. 
 

And Harbaugh still deserves to go. Who are you arguing against?

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Snazzy_McDazzy

January 3rd, 2021 at 2:41 AM ^

I know the whiners on this blog don't want to hear this but there's nothing stopping Michigan from becoming Texas or Florida State or USC or Tennessee. Programs need stability. Harbaugh has won everywhere he has coached prior to coming to Michigan. In fact, the results have been spectacular. Take a deep breath. Michigan isn't hiring somewhere better than Harbaugh if we turn around and fire him now. The job won't be attractive enough.

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