David Harris fluff piece
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2013/08/ex-michigan_lb_david_harris_br.html#incart_river
Very fluffy, and nothing that hasn't been said and debated around these parts, but coming from a very esteemed former player it seems boardworthy. Highlights include:
- Harris knew that Hoke would succeed because he fit the brand.
- Under RR Michigan's brand became confusing and nobody accepted the style of play.
- The Michigan brand recruits itself. Michigan's return to its more traditional style of play and the program's tradition make it easy for kids to want to attend UM.
- Predicts 10-2 this season, contending for a natty next year.
August 15th, 2013 at 4:43 PM ^
In before the RR rants.
August 15th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^
August 15th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^
One of the most under-rated players to don the Michigan uniform in the last decade.
August 15th, 2013 at 4:49 PM ^
Tradition!
August 16th, 2013 at 1:36 AM ^
August 15th, 2013 at 4:52 PM ^
August 15th, 2013 at 4:53 PM ^
I love David Harris, but the line about how Michigan suffered because we went away from our "brand" of football is crap. Teams like Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Penn State, and Ohio State have greatly varied their "brand" of football in the past decade and had success doing so. The problem here was that we had very little talent when we made the switch, compounded by a few bad (coughcoughGERG) hiring decisions.
August 15th, 2013 at 5:14 PM ^
Right from the start.
August 15th, 2013 at 6:37 PM ^
August 15th, 2013 at 7:02 PM ^
August 15th, 2013 at 5:11 PM ^
I think the whole "cupboard was bare" for RR argument is overblown. It wasn't overwhelming talent but there were enough good players to field competitive teams if they'd been augmented by better recruiting, better retention of the talented players they did sign and better coaching.
Morgan Trent, Terrance Taylor, Stevie Brown, Zoltan Mesko, Brandon Graham, Steve Schilling, Jonas Mouton, Junior Hemmingway, David Molk, Mike Martin and an incoming BWC were all NFL draft picks that he inherited. It's not 1998 - 2008 vintage talent but a different (either better or better suited for the situation) coach likely would have gotten better results.
August 15th, 2013 at 5:34 PM ^
If threet had stayed healthy for the whole season we could have been decent in 2008 but him and sheridan were not quaterbacks that many coaches could win a lot with and the oline was rotating in everybody. Nfl draft doesnt always translate to overall team talent or to wins, look at illinois they have been getting solid draft picks for the last few years and have been a mediocre team the whole time. We had the talent under richrod to win games but we didnt have the depth to last the full season (molk getting injured in 2009 defined that season). it was a perfect storm basically that cause those seasons to be as bad as they ended up being.
August 15th, 2013 at 9:36 PM ^
On defense the 2008 team had talent, although some players didn't buy in, like Morgan Trent and Donovan Warren, not really sure if it was their fault or RR's fault, perhaps shared, but the offense was really weak.
I don't know if, had RR been more flexible about his offensive style (like coach Hoke who persuaded Robinson to stay and tweaked his offense to something kind of compatible with Robinson's skillset) maybe and just maybe Mallet would've stayed.
Our Qbs were a redshirt freshman who couldn't move, Nick Sheridan, Freshman Justin Feagin and David Cone.
We lost Mitchell, Long, Kraus and Boren from the 2007 OL leaving only 1 returning starter and Schilling(RS Soph) was playing Tackle even though he was more suited to play Guard.
Other Starters? Ortmann (3*), Molk (RS freshman), Ferrara (Soph converted DT), Perry Dorrestein (Soph, 3*) and Moosman (3* Junior).
We lost Mike Hart and had good backs in Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor, but RR gave a lot of playing time to true freshmen Sam McGuffie and Michael Shaw.
At TE we returned Carson Butler who promptly went to the doghouse ( I pin this on him, he was kind of a douche) so we had true freshman Kevin Koger as our starter.
At WR both Adrian Arrington and Mario Manningham bolted, leaving the team with Tony Clemons and Greg Matthews as or top returning options and also sprinkled Stonum and Odoms as true freshmen seeing a lot of time.
I think part of the problem for Rodriguez was that he never fully understood that at Michigan you're expected to win and win every season, he totally threw the season away by not creating an offense similar to what the existent players had been playing, creating a mass exodus and throwing in his freshmen who were too young and underweight to compete in the Big Ten. That is also one of the things that I believe has given Hoke so much success so far, he held on his upperclassmen even if they weren't recruited by him and adopted a somewhat similar system so he earned their respect (unlike RR with Butler, Trent, Warren, etc) and got the best of his players.
August 15th, 2013 at 5:23 PM ^
... I can't help but think of this:
August 15th, 2013 at 5:58 PM ^
Blah blah blah Rich Rod. Good Ridance. Dude set Michigan football back a decade. How anyone can say he was about to turn the corner must have been watching a different football team than I was. Awful scheme, awful play calling. Just unwatchable.
August 15th, 2013 at 11:16 PM ^
You just set off the Section 1 Signal. Here we go again.
August 16th, 2013 at 9:19 AM ^
That is why we won a damn BCS game with his players the first year under Hoke?!
By next year, Michigan will be greater than (or at least equal to) Lloyd's teams. In 2005, we weren't even talking about Carr's retirement...
August 15th, 2013 at 5:50 PM ^
That a team could win when the coach doesn't have the type of quarterback they need for their system and how could a coach possible be expected to adjust their system for the players they have? No coach has ever suffered an injury of their starting QB and adjusted mid season. Of course a Head coach should always blame everyone but themselves after all a critical newspaper report is worth 14+ points for the other team. The team with the most points wins and points are normally scored on the offense so why would you spend any time making sure your team is good on d when you are an Offensive genius. The kids in Florida chase rabbits and no one from the midwest chases rabbits so they are too slow. David Harris is way off base.
August 15th, 2013 at 6:55 PM ^
I don't fully understand this post...but I just like it.
August 15th, 2013 at 11:42 PM ^
It all makes sense now.
August 15th, 2013 at 7:09 PM ^
RR was never going to make it here for several reasons, one of which is that he tried to jam a round peg into a square hole when it came to personnel. He had some good players here for sure but had a horrible attitude about defense - just ask any of the players who were here - and he always seemed to blame the players for not executing as the reason for each and every painful loss. he was horrible at PR and GROB was an Ohio dream come true. We became laughing stocks and that has been unheard of at Michigan. That = epic fail.
Let us not forget that the failure to grasp defense as urgently important is one of the main reasons why I agree with Harris that RR failed when it came to our "brand". Our brand has typically been toughness against power running teams which you had to have against teams like Wisky (seemed like 45 straight "dive" plays in a game against us one year), Ohio, Sparty, Iowa, PSU, and even Minnesota. It was painful to see a hollowed out defense completely impotent against the run and that was a brand failure of colossal proportions.
Winning games against second and third tier opponents by scores of 42 to 38 was not impressive nor fun, no matter how much RR likes offense. Against quality teams? Fail.
August 16th, 2013 at 8:31 AM ^
August 16th, 2013 at 10:42 AM ^
David Harris has been one of my favorite Wolverines for a while. I was livid when the Lions selected Drew Stanton in the 2nd round and Harris went just a few picks later.
August 16th, 2013 at 11:09 AM ^
Where's jhackney with the atom bomb embed? Just let it die, assholes. It's been three years. Nothing has been said in this thread that hasn't already been said a hundred times over. Get the fuck over it.