CC - Where do you stand?
The AD change has happened, and most everyone expects a coaching change to follow. I don't know about you, but my views have evolved quite a bit since the whole CC bit started in earnest after Minnesota. Most of that change has been the result of research into the candidates, but some has also been feelingsball.
I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks. Here's my current opinion, broken into tiers:
Tier 1 - Harbaugh
Jim or John, I'd be equally ecstatic with either. Jim is the proven college HC, John is the nicer guy with the SB ring.
Tier 2 - Yes, please
These are the guys that I believe are the best candidates not named Harbaugh.
- Dan Mullen - Offensive guru who has built a defensive juggernaut. Appears to be the total package and has the added bonus of echoing the Woody/Bo relationship vis-a-vis Meyer. My top choice in tier two.
- Todd Graham - All he is does is win, wherever he's coaching. Not sure he'd move to the midwest.
- Gary Patterson - Defensive coach that decided to evolve offensively this year and is knocking on the playoff door. Would overhaul the roster as much as anyone.
- Jim McElwain - Former 'Bama OC has turned Colorado State (3-9 for three straight seasons before McElwain) into a double-digit win team that has progressed steadily on both sides of the ball and will probably win the Mountain West.
Tier 3 - Ummm...okay
Guys that make sense, I guess, but I would not be pumped about.
- Mark Stoops - Has rapidly advanced a once-pathetic Kentucky team. Will the improvement continue?
- Greg Schiano - Demeanor aside, his HC record is good, but certainly not great. Is he a good coach?
- Tom Herman - My favorite coordinator candidate. He seems capable of adapting to his personnel and changing the plan mid-game. Also, I like the idea of taking Urban's top assistant. But can he run an entire program?
- Mike Gundy - Seems like a good coach and a great quote, but hasn't been amazing since 2011 and the Les Miles ties cocern me. Would he run a clean program?
- Kyle Whittingham - Having a pretty impressive season at Utah, and wasn't too stubborn to change his offense. Is he ready for a big-time job?
Tier 4 - DO NOT WANT
- Les Miles - Call me arrogant, naive, or whatever you want--I still don't want a douchebag running our program.
- Dave Doeren, Butch Jones, Craig Bohl, Matt Wells, Mark Hudspeth - Not proven yet.
- Scott Frost, Kirby Smart, Bud Foster - Would they stay?
If I didn't put a name on the list, I'm not currently interested. What does the board think?
November 5th, 2014 at 1:27 PM ^
My only must have is that Michigan starts at the top and tries everything it can to hire the best coach. If Harbuaghs say no, throw every effort into the next best coach, and so on. I don't want to hear that our new AD had some dude in mind and didn't even call the best options.
November 5th, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^
I agree. And to take it the next step, I don't want to see any great would-be coaches ruled out as implausible until someone actually checks with the guy to make sure he isn't interested. Who cares if Bob Stoops tells you "Sorry, I'm an Oklahoma lifer" and Art Briles says the same about Baylor and Gus Malzahn about Auburn? It's worth the time to make those calls just in case one of those guys surprises you. The worst that happens is that you're told no.
Whether it's because of issues with a current school (a la Rodriguez), a desire for a new challenge, a particular interest in Michigan or whatever, it's completely possible that one guy out there would surprise us. And if we miss on our absolute top targets, it'd be really stupid to settle for a so-so coach when a very good coach could have been persuaded to come.
November 10th, 2014 at 6:49 PM ^
We HAVE to check in with guys like Stoops, Malzahn, Briles... even if they're just going to say no. And ESPECIALLY if we strike out with Jimmy. We did a lot of things wrong in the first coaching search, but one of the things (perhaps the only thing) we did right was to drop a feeler to a top coach who didn't appear to have interest and a few dominos fell and next thing you know we have RRod. Obviously it didn't work out here, but he was significantly better than the dregs we appeared to be down to post-Schiano.
![8759617036_91b21de69d_z[1]](https://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/images/Al-Borges-Fired_FC58/8759617036_91b21de69d_z1.jpg "8759617036_91b21de69d_z[1]")
November 5th, 2014 at 8:30 PM ^
Uncle Fester got breast implants?
November 5th, 2014 at 4:31 PM ^
what actually happened rarely match up in these job searches. 99% of the time the AD is going to announce he got his first choice. You're not doing the guy you bring in any favors if you say he was your fifth choice.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:32 PM ^
November 5th, 2014 at 1:45 PM ^
I'd put him in Tier 3, but I agree he should be on the list. I'm just not sure he knows enought about running a college program, and I'm not sure if he wants to be in the NFL as a HC.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:47 PM ^
I think Teryl Austin would be great if he would agree to do what Bob Stoops did at Oklahoma - stick to being the CEO and defensive coach, and hire an innovative offensive mind to manage that side of the ball (Stoops started with Mike Leach and Mark Mangino). I don't want to hire a defensive coach who thinks that the way to play defense is to run a low-risk, vanilla offense, and it seems like a lot of NFL coaches think that way.
November 5th, 2014 at 2:05 PM ^
Brady Hoke 2. Why in God's name would we want the guy as Head Coach when he has zero experience in that position and only a couple years as a coordinator? Please lets stop with the coaching search process of just shouting out the names of any guy who ever coached here.
November 5th, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^
November 5th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
I would also put Schiano at 2. Good pro coaches fail all the time...nature of the beast...But he turned Rutgers around, so he has seen and fixed worse situations than here
November 5th, 2014 at 1:28 PM ^
Jim Harbaugh or bust.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:31 PM ^
i'm in the same boat-- Harbaugh or bust. Too much is against schools like Michigan in todays NCAA. If Michigan doesn't get Harbaugh they will not be competitive nationally. It's that simple.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:42 PM ^
While I agree either Harbaugh is very likely to make us nationally competitive. Every coach on the list had to make his chops somewhere.... If we don't get a Harbaugh-level coach, the key is to identify the Hoke-level coach who can actually take advantage of being at Michigan and become a Harbaugh-level coach. This is what happened in 1968.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:58 PM ^
Isn't that the problem? There's no way to tell whether a Hoke-level coach will become the next Hoke or the next Art Briles or Brian Kelly.
Looking at the top 25, the vast majority of the teams are coached by someone who either had good success as a coordinator at a BCS-level program (Mississippi State, Florida State, Auburn, Oregon, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Georgia, Clemson, Duke, West Virginia), or had overwhelming success as the head coach of another FBS program (Alabama, Notre Dame, Baylor, Arizona State, Mississippi, Ohio State, Louisiana State, Arizona, Wisconsin). It's pretty rare to find a top team that is coached by a guy who was moderately successful at a lower level, then moved up a level and turned his team into a contender.
We're Michigan, fergodsakes. We have the cachet and resources to go out and get almost any college coach we want to. Seriously, there are no more than 10 or 15 coaches in the country who are unpoachable given their current position and salary.
We don't have to waste time screwing around speculating which unproven coach might be able to make it at a higher level. Given our current athletic department revenues, and how they would be threatened by another half-decade of continued malaise on the field, we can't afford to. Let's get somebody proven. I'd rather throw $6 million per year at the best possible candidate than throw $3 million per year at someone who could be the next Bo, but could be the next Hoke.
November 5th, 2014 at 2:37 PM ^
take the maize and blue glasses off. While UM is a blue blood, I think are a good amount of coaches that might not be interested in the job. Heck, RR wasn't UM's first coach in 2007. Other coaches turned it down.
It's extremely rare for head coaches to move from a top 25 program to another, and right now UM isn't even a Top 25 program. With coordinators that happens more so then with head coaches.
November 6th, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^
History is rife with coaches experiencing a lot of success at a school where their ceiling is limited due to resources and tradition, and leaving to try to resuscitate a moribund program at a traditional power where their ceiling would be higher. Rich Rodriguez is one example, but just off the top of my head there's also Dan Hawkins (Boise State to Colorado, which was coming off a 7-6 season), Mack Brown (North Carolina to Texas, which was coming off a 4-7 season), Nick Saban (Michigan State to LSU, which was coming off a 3-8 season), Tyrone Willingham (Stanford to Notre Dame, which was coming off a 5-6 season), George O'Leary (Georgia Tech to Notre Dame, which was coming off a 5-6 season), Brian Kelly (Cincinnati to Notre Dame, which was coming off a 6-6 season), Charlie Strong (Louisville to Texas, which was coming off a 8-5 season), Todd Graham (Pitt to Arizona State, coming off a 6-7 season), and Hugh Freeze (Arkansas State to Mississippi, coming off a 2-10 season).
All of those guys experienced a lot of success at a top-25 school that wasn't a traditional power, including a number of power-5 schools, and left to take over a worse team but one that had great potential due to its name and resources. We offer the same thing, no matter how bad we've been lately.
November 10th, 2014 at 6:51 PM ^
THANK YOU!!!
November 5th, 2014 at 1:56 PM ^
November 5th, 2014 at 2:08 PM ^
help us land Harbaugh?
November 5th, 2014 at 8:35 PM ^
... the potential threat of a fatwa can make a man consider his future options very carefully.
November 6th, 2014 at 2:11 PM ^
Well, if you put him on a pony, at least we'd get a good laugh.
November 5th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^
What does the "Harbaugh or Bust" crowd offer as a backup plan should Jim or John not take this job? Keep in mind, the chances of those guys coaching UM next year is <5% Jim and <1% John.
November 5th, 2014 at 8:36 PM ^
Self-Immolation of the entire fanbase.
November 5th, 2014 at 4:13 PM ^
Man, I'm gonna have to stretch my willypower
to choose for the good of MGoBlog.
November 5th, 2014 at 6:02 PM ^
If those are my choices, I no longer want Jim Harbaugh.
/hopes that Mrs. FannMan doesn't read the blog
November 5th, 2014 at 8:03 PM ^
Definitely I will choose the "bust" option here
November 5th, 2014 at 8:38 PM ^
That's part of the culture problem here.
No way Bust holds up for longer than another 5 years. We need to think about the future.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:28 PM ^
Anyone named Harbaugh or Dan Mullen. Anyone else and I'm not 100% happy, although an 11-2 record at the end of next year with another name will tend to change my mind.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:30 PM ^
November 5th, 2014 at 1:49 PM ^
but I had this sort of discussion the other day with another poster....we can only make decisions based on what we know now. We can't go back and change things based on what we wish we'd known. After year one, having an 11-2 record with another coaches players, I would have thought that was a great piece of coaching. But shit changes, unfortunately. Hard to predict what will happen 3 or 4 yrs from now.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
Jim Harbaugh pls
November 5th, 2014 at 4:16 PM ^
...wut???
November 5th, 2014 at 8:39 PM ^
That's pretty damn funny for a few reasons...
November 5th, 2014 at 1:30 PM ^
like i said only guys the fans will take are the harbaughs jim, jhon, miles . and jhon gruden. . miles is going to be the next coach. anybody elce not worth talking about becuse he would be gone in 3 years and have one foot out the door on day one.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:32 PM ^
with anyone in Tier 1 or Tier 2 except for McElwain. Yes, CSU has improved and is having a nice year. However, they have beat no one. The only decent team they played, Boise State, whipped them. It was 37-10 at the end of the third and Boise called off the dogs.
McElwain just makes me too nervous because of the level of competition he is facing. I know his team isn't loaded with talent either, but it just doesn't look like a great hire to me.
I'd take Justin Frye or JB Grimes before him. At least then we wouldn't have to watch shitty offensive line play anymore.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:48 PM ^
McElwain is between tier 2 and tier 3 for me...but the steady improvement at CSU is extremely impressive, and he has a strong resume besides, including some midwest ties. I think he's ready, but he's no slam dunk.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:50 PM ^
Nobody is going to pay his $7.5M buyout.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:50 PM ^
we seriously going to fire our coach, and overhaul the program yet again, for McElwain-the Colorado State head coach. That makes me nervous for more than one reason. That makes me nervous because I think I would rather just try to build from here with what we got than hire McElwain-the Colorado State head coach.
Get what you love or learn to love what you have. But don't hire McElwain, or anybody else of the meh variety. We hired meh 4 years ago. I don't want to do it again.
November 5th, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
beating BC in Boston was a good win. The Mountain West isn't what it used to be so cavaets apply, but he's done a darn good job turning that program around in 3yrs.
November 5th, 2014 at 1:31 PM ^
and you thank God (or in whatever belief system you choose to believe) when it's so clear. . .
November 5th, 2014 at 8:06 PM ^
was that quote from the movie "11 days in October"?
November 6th, 2014 at 6:53 AM ^
13 days. Kevin Costner, Cuban missile crisis. JFK's CIA director John McCone said it. . . ;)
Nice observation!
November 5th, 2014 at 1:33 PM ^
1 - John Harbaugh
2 - Jim Harbaugh
3 - Tom Hermann
4 - Mark Stoops
5 - Dan Mullen
Totally agreed we don't want Miles
November 5th, 2014 at 1:42 PM ^
I agree with your first two, than I go...
1. John Harbaugh
2. Jim Harbaugh
3. John Harbaugh
4. Jim Harbaugh
than follow the pattern over until it works.
November 5th, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^
question, and the answer may very well be, "Uh, yeah, a bunch of times." But, is there actually any reason to think, other than the last name Harbaugh, that John Harbaugh is even remotely interested in this job? Has he ever expressed an interest? Has anybody connected to the University ever expressed an interest in him?