Anonymous Coach "Scouting Report" on Michigan Football
This is an informed outsider's take on our team:
"“If you took the name Michigan off, most coaches in the country would be happy to have the success they’ve had, happy to have the players on that roster,” the coach said. “Most of us wish we could hit nine and 10 wins a year as a baseline. But they’re Michigan, so we all expect them to be better. ... They look undecided on offense, like there's too many cooks. No one thinks that's the exact offense Josh Gattis wants to be calling. The defense fell apart on them, and now they might go to a more NFL-style 3-4; that's gonna be really interesting to see. ... A smart way to look at this program is the quarterback position. When is the last time they've had game-changing QB play? They're overhauling the QB room because they know it's been a weak spot. They recruit really well, byt [sic] they still lack top-end speed Ohio State has. I don't think you could call anything they've done under Jim Harbaugh explosive. ...When you look at them from outside, you see a successful program pretty much everywhere but on the field against their true peers. That’s really what it boils down to. They don’t need a complete change, but they have to identify what separates their offensive scheme and their development from the programs they expect to beat. This is a good program. But they’re Michigan, so you can’t be unremarkable."
You can find this at https://www.google.com/amp/s/247sports.com/college/michigan/Article/michigan-wolverines-football-athlon-sports-preview-magazine-jim-harbaugh-167143133/Amp/
He said everything any reasonable Michigan fan is thinking.
The problem is the reasonable fans are the most quiet.
Hell, YES, we are!!
Shhhhhhhhh...
and the unreasonable ones make the most noise....are most active on social media and in turn are the ones that media references as the "pulse" of the fanbase
'reasonable' is the key word in that sentence.
Vert true, but I find the statement "informed outsider" somewhat contradictory.
If I thought any of the Michigan staff (JH on down) were this articulate, I would suspect it's an insider. Doesn't really sound like a coach in general.
Harbaugh certainly seems smarter than the average football coach. And that article wasn't exactly Shakespeare.
lol, you said "reasonable michigan fan." you must be new here.
"Anonymous Coach" reminds me a little of the "Unknown Comic".
Unknown Comic" reminds me a little of this guy....
Not sure I could say it better myself.
Don’t sell yourself short. I think you could have spelled “but” correctly.
That's a fair assessment
This is a really thoughtful review of the program. Very interesting to read. Any way to figure out if this was a Big Ten coach or not? Sounds like a coach from a P5 school but not one of the top programs in the P5 based on what he said.
It was Bort from Illinois
THE "E" IS FOR EFFORT !!!!!
Our success equals the knowledge *throws chaw in*
Pretty sure it was from anonymous big 10 coaches
Had to be Brady Hoke...
Not enough "well" and "um." Also does he know what a Gattis offense even is?
Couldn't be Hoke. The writer sounded like he was fully aware.
My WAG is Chris Creighton
I would have liked their thoughts on who should be cooking and if the potential to be competitive with OSU exists with this staff and roster.
I nominate The Rock, so we can finally smell what he's been cooking.
He's been cooking millions. A large boiling pot of hundreds, and he's been cooking them for a good long while.
“They don’t need a complete change, but they have to identify what separates their offensive scheme and their development from the programs they expect to beat.”
This statement makes it sound like the potential is there with this staff/roster. But is dependent on them figuring out their identity
I can help them with figuring out their identity. They are the UM Football Team. I don’t care if they are a run first team, or a pass first team. Or a 3-4 team, or a 4-3 team. I don’t care if they have a viper, or a cobra, or a bunny rabbit. Hopefully they will be a “nobody knows what they are going to next” team.
To me the "too many cooks" line is a kind way of saying Harbaugh interferes too much with the offensive philosophy as well as play calling and needs to let the OC he hired actually coordinate the offense.
He is right.
I'll venture to say, Harbaugh needed to go into Ohio as hard as Hoke did...who, by the way, Hoke was a champ at this... the talent he got that OSU wanted.... Wormley, Gedeon, McCray, Charlton, etc. Harbaugh I don't think has gotten a single player OSU wanted, and it got worse and worse, and here we are. We must get back to competing with their instate top recruits...because we need a roster full of them, because they'll want to beat OSU more than any other. Harbaugh needed Clinkscale from day one, and another Ohio coach, and go hard there... I can assure you that the outcome would have been much diffferent than we have seen.
No it wouldn't have...
Yes it would have...
nuh-uh
Revisionist history. I guess you don't know this, but OSU never offered any of those guys. OSU was Butt's childhood favorite and they never offered. Taco Charlton eagerly awaited an offer that never came. Mike McCray was pissed because OSU waited until the absolute last minute to offer, after slow playing McCray through the whole process. This from his teammate David Dawson "We used to talk a whole lot about Urban Meyer offering him after we all committed to Michigan. He probably has a chip on his shoulder about that.” Ben Gedeon was offered by OSU during his Jr yr.
If you listed all of those guys that you two mentioned and asked any knowledgeable OSU fan which one they would want in hindsight, I think 9/10 would say Jake Butt over Marcus Baugh. HUGE miss on our part. But some of your guys’ best players have been those Ohio kids. We OSU fans can’t really figure out why you aren’t coming down and getting those kids.
As our coaching staff thinks 3 stars from New England are so much better.
Hoke took over around the same time as the Tressel tattoo scandal. I think he was able to pluck several players from Ohio in the 2012 class as a result. It didn't last after Urban Meyer rode the Death Star to Columbus.
Correct.
"OldSchool" flogs this idea ("RECRUIT OHIO") frequently without looking into the details (the brief OSU "outage" between Tressel and Meyer, the fact that only the leftovers in that state are currently available to us at the moment, etc.).
some of your guys’ best players have been those Ohio kids.
This is only true if you're talking about Michigan's best players from 20 to 30 years ago. Michigan's players from Ohio over the last 10 to 20 years is not very impressive. OSU gets all the best players from Ohio and it has been that way for decades.
And before. The 1964-65 team, which was so successful, had players from Ohio at most of the skill positions, I believe, but recruiting may have been more regional back then?
Tresses started building the mote and when Meyer took over he filled it with lava.
meyer also steered kids that normally would have gone to M to other programs like MSC and Cincinnati just to fuck Michigan.
it bit him in the ass in 2015.
Tresses? Mote? MSC? Wut?
Alexa, what is the Geek trying to say?
"OSU never offered any of those guys"
(Then proceeds to say that OSU did, in fact, offer at least half of the ones mentioned.)
I Ass-ure you one thing. That you don’t have a clue.
Why do people care so much where a recruit is from? I don't care if they ever recruit ohio if they still are getting 5 stars.
It's very important for Michigan to recruit Ohio. Ohio has really good HS talent; MSU, ND & PSU also need Ohio kids. And as stated above, no player on Michigan's team is going to want to beat OSU more than an Ohio kid who hears about it from his Buckeye friends every time he goes back home.
Who's the most-recent Michigan Heisman winner NOT from Ohio? (Hint: Harmon.)
How many Michigan coaches (starting with Bo) were NOT from (at minimum, born in) Ohio? (only 2 of the past 6; and one of those two...didn't work out so well)
Michigan needs Ohio. Once you get out of Detroit, the state of Michigan pales in comparison for HS talent. Traditionally, Detroit & Cleveland could pretty much be a wash, but Michigan has no #2 like Cincinnati & Columbus. And even 2nd tier Ohio cities like Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Canton, Youngstown etc., can compete with whatever Michigan's candidates for #2 has to offer. State vs. state, it's not even close.
I don't care if they ever recruit ohio if they still are getting 5 stars.
Really? Are they getting enough 5 stars now?
This might be true once Michigan starts regularly pulling in 5 stars...but until then Michigan needs Ohio kids and they probably need Ohio kids in order to get the program into a position when it can start to regularly pull in 5 stars.
The point is: Michigan needs to recruit Ohio.
I’d be interested in seeing numbers around this alleged buffet of great players coming out of Ohio. I guess they have good HS football for the Midwest? Of course I’ve spent most of my adult life in Houston and Austin, so I’m familiar with actual top tier HS football.
Ohio is very overrated in my opinion - and recruiting isn’t nearly as regional as it once was - would much rather focus on pulling kids from Texas, Georgia, Florida, California, etc.
You know, just like OSU does.
Cheers.