Great Harbaugh Article on The Athletic
I know many do not have subscriptions to The Athletic but this is a great article highlighting Harbaugh's time in Chicago. Some tidbits for those who are unable to read it:
Harbaugh asked to play on special teams while backing up McMahon in Chicago. Said he wanted to play at any cost and was allowed to cover kicks a couple of times before getting rocked and Ditka pulling the plug.
Seems like those with insight into the situation believe Harbaugh was too fanatical as a competitor while in Chicago and that he mellowed in Indianapolis allowing him to reach greater heights as a player.
Respect. If the report is true that he adjusted to improve in Indianapolis, that's an achievement. Not simply the improvement itself, but finding the motivation, strength, and mental flexibility to adjust. It's not easy for any of us to change what feels like our fundamental self.
Despite Harbaugh's struggles at Michigan, there is reason for some hope/optimism.
He has shown the willingness and ability to adapt or try new things. Good leaders know what they don't know and make changes. They try to hire the right people and empower them to do their job well.
Perhaps this is Grade A Hopium/Copium but I believe that Harbaugh can right the ship and eventually win a National Championship or two. But he MUST modernize *and* unshackle our passing attack. We won't win a MNC with a QB throwing 2500 yards and 23 TDs. This isn't the 90s or early 2000s anymore. The game has changed.
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Because college football has become so pressure-filled, coaches no longer get the long leashes they did in the 70s and 80s.
Nowadays, coaches who win a National Championship do it by year 3 or year 4. (Even Cajun freaking Hoke Ed Orgeron won a National Championship in year 3 as a full-time HC.) It's as if the universe conspires to make it happen by year 3.
But there are exceptions like Dabo Swinney who kept experimenting until he got the combination just right. I'm hoping Harbaugh will too. But I think Harbaugh's situation is closer to Tom Osborne's in the 70s. Osborne won a MNC as OC for Bob Devaney's Nebraska and was then promoted. But around the time he was promoted, Oklahoma promoted Barry Switzer. And Switzer was like the Urban Meyer of his time - just an utterly dominant winning HC. Most fans have forgotten this but Osborne started 0-5 against Oklahoma and ultimately finished 13-13. I'm hoping Harbaugh the Coach finds and recaptures the magic Harbaugh the Player had against Ohio State.
I will piggyback off of that by saying my biggest takeaway from the article was seeing how Harbaugh eventually got some perspective. In a way he was too successful at Michigan right away. He wasn't forced to adapt because things were going really well almost immediately. As that has waned it seems like he has realized he needs to change his approach. I think it has become clear to him that some talent and good coaching does not beat great talent so he went all in on recruiters, which is without a doubt the correct move at the college level.
Is Harbaugh going to implement the 2020’s version of steak and steroids into the strength and conditioning program?
Osborne Vs OU went from total OU domination under Switzer to flipping it after switzer was replaced; thus, a 13-13 record.
Switzer said he bent the rules till the point you could hear them under strain. Then he got caught going way too far.
I agree that this might be a good proxy for Harbaugh, especially due to the Switzer / Meyer nemesis. I just hope that we don't have to wait 20 years to win 2-1/2 NCs like Tom.
my claim to fame was visiting the Chicago bar when Jimmy was arrested. It was pretty awesome to see the police raid the joint and everyone included me trying to catch a look
Whats notable about Jim is that he normally would have been an average sized guy playing with exceptional athletes, but he drank an insane amount of milk when a kid to get the growth hormone, and grow tall... he used to deliberately hand out the milk in the cafeteria and admitted he'd drink the kids leftover milk out of all the cartons when being tossed, hoping to grow from the allantonin hormone in the milk... and he did, hes much bigger than his older brother.
I've often wondered if this works as a way to overcome genetics.
I know a pair of brothers who drank absurd amounts of milk. Younger one is 6'3" and the older one is 6'2". (They're in their early 30s now. Younger one got a scholarship to play baseball at Mizzou but opted to become a physician.) Their Dad is 5'7" (was maybe 5'8" in his prime) and their Mom is 5'1". (I've met some of their distant relatives and they all looked to be around 5'6" - 5'9" range.)
So I guess based on anecdotal evidence, drinking crazy amounts of milk might be effective in growing taller/longer/bigger.
Grabs keys. Heads to milking parlor.
Milking parlor doesn't mean what you think it means.
It still may be a good place to visit, depending on the cliental getting milked.
Nope. Apparently not. Given your response definitely not googling at work.
I'm 6 feet tall (at least I use to be).
My dad was 5'4.
I took an intro statistics course at UM, and on the first day of class the professor had every male write down his height and his father's height. He also had every female write down her height and her mother's height.
There was an average difference of about 3 inches taller for males and females students compared to their parents. I stretched that bell curve way off to the right by being 8 inches taller than my dad.
And yes, I drank a ton of milk growing up.
I was 6 feet tall at 13 and never grew any taller after that. I think that was about the time I started drinking more things like Coke, etc.
I had one older brother who was 5'8 and I have a grown up son who is 5'8. My brother was 9 years older than me so I don't know how much milk he drank as a kid. My son drank milk but nowhere as much as I did.
I never put much stock in the milk theory but who's to say.
I grew to 6'2" by my freshman year in High School.. My Father was only 5"11. I drank a lot of milk from age 5 through 13, then switched to pop, Mountain Dew most of the time. So, if I would have kept drinking more milk, I may have grown to 6'4" or 6' 5". Sad, that I had to start drinking pop!
Milking parlor, bro.
You can drink coke?
Yes, he drank a lot of milk. But he also didn't eat any chicken. That bird is a coward...
Harbaugh should remain firmly in the dog house. We love him, much as we love our children, but sometimes the kids needs to go to time out or to their room as punishment, and the dog house is where Jim needs to be right now. He's shown nothing to lead anyone to believe he is a top 10 or even 20 college coach with the talent and resources he's had at his disposal, and Covid saved him from an ass beating of epic proportions to our measuring stick rival this year, after two straight years of epic ass beatings to that same rival, and losing to a terrible State team with a first year, last second hire coach. Awful.
Joe Milton was a great guy, but awful. How on Earth our coach settled on him last year is 1000% on him for his recruiting at that position, and judgment of what he had.
Harbaugh was brought in to close the gap with Ohio State and the reverse has happened.
Good to see he continues to shake things up, but from his QB judgment over the last 5 years on down, dude has not proven worth anyone writing a fanboi fluff nonsense on the Athletic or anywhere else.
Hope springs eternal but reality is reality. Hoping 2021 is the year he starts turning it around. In the meantime, I'm gonna guess the millions he gets paid plenty soften the blow of the harsh spotlight he is under.
Why Harbaugh is a near-complete failure at QB development while at UM is a total mystery to me
Thought this would be appropriate for the thread and apparently how much Colts fans loved Jim!
managing a QB room with both Jims in it....... that should have been a pretty high paid position!!
That is definitely an awesome article............