Harbaugh's Record against the Ranked (and Bowl Games): An Examination
After today's close...ish loss to the team of the decade, I wanted to take a look at how Harbaugh's teams were faring against the better teams on each year's schedule. I used teams that finished the season ranked as I think this is a far better metric than any system that gives 2016 Michigan State credit for beating a ranked 4-8 Notre Dame and 2016 Wisconsin credit for beating a ranked 3-9 Michigan State team. I also included the 2018 South Carolina game as I think bowls should count as important games. Call me old-fashioned.
By the numbers:
Overall: 9-17
Neutral Site: 1-4
Home: 7-5
Away: 1-8 (for those wondering, 2018 Northwestern is the 1)
One Score Games: 3-8
One Score Games in the 4th Quarter: 3-10
Multi-Score Games: 6-9
Post-Hoke talent in 2016: 4-12
What stood out is how close Harbaugh was to starting off his tenure with a gaudy record against ranked opponents. He was 5-5 after year two and had one score losses in 2015 to Utah and Michigan State and 2016 to OSU and FSU that easily could have went the other way. When you consider the nature of the losses to MSU and OSU (and to a lesser extent FSU, losing Peppers right before the kick-off), Michigan was agonizingly close to being anywhere from 7-3 to 9-1 in high level games.
My concern lies with what has happened since 2016. Not only have the losses started piling up, but they've went from close games to outright blowouts. Michigan lost one multi-score game in Harbaugh's first two years. They've suffered eight since then. Five of those were total beat downs: 2017 Penn State, 2018 OSU, 2018 Florida, 2019 Wisconsin, 2019 OSU.
They went from one hamblasting in 2017 (Penn State) to two in 2018 (OSU and Florida) to 2.5 in 2019 (Wisconsin, OSU and Alabama).
The overall trajectory of the program is moving in the wrong direction, but there is potential to reverse course. Over the second half of the season, Gattis proved to be a quality hire. His game plans looked sharp against quality opponents. The defensive tackle depth should not be anywhere near the problem it was this year if Smith and Hinton are healthy. Michigan should again be one of the most talented teams in its conference. Frustratingly, the questions remain the same as they have since Utah 2015: Can Michigan find elite QB play and can they clean up their soul-crushing big game mistakes? Here's to 2020 being the year that the answer is "Yes" to both of those questions.
January 1st, 2020 at 6:57 PM ^
Ugh....who cares.
January 1st, 2020 at 8:46 PM ^
Why are you reading this post then?
January 1st, 2020 at 7:03 PM ^
Same old shit.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:05 PM ^
We have to evolve in order to get better. That's what's not happening on a consistent basis. Gattis was long overdue. Let's see though, Harbaugh might hit us with some epic management moves.
January 1st, 2020 at 11:42 PM ^
Gattis was long overdue.
I don't get what people are seeing in Gattis.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:08 PM ^
Michigan is Northwestern with slightly better players.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:14 PM ^
Meh, I liked someone else's statement (forget who, so apologies):
"Michigan is uppity Iowa."
That strikes me as perfect...except, of course, Iowa occasionally beats OSU.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:36 PM ^
And waaaayy better uniforms!
January 1st, 2020 at 7:10 PM ^
At least recruiting looks awesome
January 1st, 2020 at 7:59 PM ^
You should probably cry about it.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:11 PM ^
I appreciate your effort to draw in data that is relevant in understanding the trend of the program.
I also hope that this year was primarily due to poor QB play and youth/inexperience.
the QB situation has been very discouraging considering this is year 5 and Rudock, who was benched by Iowa, has been the best QB in Harbaugh’s entire tenure.
seems like one top notch QB and possibly a new defensive coordinator could fix the issues.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:20 PM ^
Michigan has to hope that one of McCaffrey/Milton is actually a star OR that KJ Costello can come in a pull a Fields/Mayfield/Murray type transition.
Having a QB that tops out at a B+ probably would have worked in 2016, but that's about it.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:19 PM ^
meh... nothing too surprising.
most realists see Michigan as a program on the level of PSU (if we're lucky) or Wisconsin and not OSU anymore...
could an elite coach bring Michigan up to a playoff level team? Not sure if that could happen consistently... at this point Michigan is looking straight into the barrel of 0-6 versus OSU, unless someone honestly believed they could win at the shoe with a new QB.
January 1st, 2020 at 8:38 PM ^
I WISH we were Wisconsin not at all. Chryst is 5-0 in bowls and could be 6-0.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:28 PM ^
Great analysis. This is where JH has us after year 5.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:29 PM ^
Any statistics regarding "ranked" teams is overly simplistic
You think a game against LSU should be valued the same as a game against 24th ranked Virginia?
January 1st, 2020 at 7:34 PM ^
Well I guess it should be pointed out then that his record against top 10 teams is a hell of a lot worse than his record against ranked teams.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:41 PM ^
Against teams that finished in the top 10 through 2018:
2-10. Both wins in 2016 against Penn State and Wisconsin.
He will likely be 3-13/14 after the final polls come out this year.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:33 PM ^
Cool. Hook em.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:33 PM ^
According to your #'s there are 26 games in that span to look at.
Without going back and looking at all 26 I can think of only TWO where Michigan came out in the 2nd half and outplayed (outscored) the other team: this year @PSU & the Orange Bowl vs. FSU. We did outscore Wisky this year in 2nd half but I can't bring myself to count that.
This is the truly depressing and puzzling thing over Harbs tenure. Whenever it looks like M is in a battle but they're in the fight - the opponent comes out after the half, seemingly a different team, and M just folds.
January 1st, 2020 at 8:50 PM ^
Are you only counting the losses? Here are the games against ranked teams where Michigan scored more than the opponent in the second half:
2019: ND, Wisconsin, PSU
2018: ND, Wisconsin, MSU, PSU
2017: Florida
2016: FSU, Wisconsin was a tie in second-half points (7)
2015: Northwestern, Florida, BYU was a tie in second-half points (0)
January 1st, 2020 at 9:23 PM ^
Speaking of losses you listed 4 of them
January 1st, 2020 at 9:50 PM ^
I know. I'm considering all games against ranked opponents, just like I said in my post.
I found it odd that Harball above started off by mentioning all 26 games, then continued to only focus on losses (it seems?).
Not sure how you can just forget about the recent blowout wins against ND, PSU, and Wisconsin at home. Of course we scored more in the second half in those games.
January 1st, 2020 at 9:57 PM ^
I think he’s pointing out for 7.5 million Michigan is not getting its money’s worth out of this head coach, forget all the other stats Jim was brought in here to win the Big Ten Championship Big fat Zero, beat OSU 0-5, win bowl games 1-4. All the other stats don’t matter!
January 1st, 2020 at 10:03 PM ^
No, I think he was trying to point out a trend of Michigan playing poorly in second halves, when in reality he was failing to remember a lot of quality halves.
January 1st, 2020 at 10:13 PM ^
Ok but I’ll stand by my stats and why he was brought here.
January 1st, 2020 at 10:26 PM ^
Your stats are accurate and it's understandable that you're disappointed with Harbaugh. I am too. But I'm still not sure why you started responding to me in the first place.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:43 PM ^
Strange that Don Brown came on board starting in the 2016 season.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:45 PM ^
2016 was probably Michigan's best season against top opponents.
January 1st, 2020 at 7:48 PM ^
Well done
January 1st, 2020 at 8:07 PM ^
I just wonder if you think scoring 16 points today, is indicative of a good Gattis hire... I think Pepcat O would have scored more today. Where were the endzone slants to Collins ? Not a coincidence we sputter and don't score. Though this might be on Patterson who missed several long TDs.
January 1st, 2020 at 8:12 PM ^
I think Michigan was pretty much on par with Alabama on offense except that Alabama's QB could hit his WRs deep and Patterson could not.
I don't think that's on Gattis.
January 1st, 2020 at 9:07 PM ^
Yes Gattis was a good hire, in the sense that there are 25+ QBs in college football that I can see running his offense effectively. But Shea Patterson was not one of them.
The Gattis system is not waiting for a once-in-a-lifetime Andrew Luck behind a Senior OL to be efective, the way Harbaugh's system was.
A QB that can run the Gattis system should be reasonably attainable by a program like Michigan. And when that happens, you will have an offense that would have scored 30+ today.
January 1st, 2020 at 8:16 PM ^
Good post but I could have told you his record sucked against ranked teams before reading this. He is not who we were told we were hiring.
Not only is he not elite, he isn’t even the level of Paul Chryst, Gus Malzan, Mark Richt at Georgia or Brian Kelly
He is not even what Mark Dantonio was for the better part of a decade.
January 1st, 2020 at 9:33 PM ^
I posted this thought in another thread, Michigan is a mullet away from being Oklahoma St
January 1st, 2020 at 8:21 PM ^
WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH JUWAN HOWARD
January 1st, 2020 at 8:25 PM ^
We're at the point where only fans of other teams and Harbaugh apologists want him to stay. So there's that.
January 1st, 2020 at 11:52 PM ^
We've been there for a little while.
January 1st, 2020 at 9:09 PM ^
Well with those stats and the frustration of price increase and the weak home schedule I’ve heard from several people not renewing season tickets next year.
January 1st, 2020 at 9:25 PM ^
Minnesota beat a team that scored 48 on Bama. Consider me not very impressed with Gattis.
January 1st, 2020 at 9:39 PM ^
This is Harbaughs team. His offense. His defense. His special teams. The blame starts and ends there.
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:03 AM ^
Consider me not very impressed with Gattis
Thank you.
I only see Warinner and Partridge as keepers.
January 1st, 2020 at 11:15 PM ^
It’s not gonna happen under Harbaugh. A coach shows who they are in their first 3-4 years. After that it’s just variations of the same results. The more common thing is for successful coaches to start to tank late in their careers. It’s is extremely rare to find a coach to have a significant shift towards success this far into their careers.
January 1st, 2020 at 11:21 PM ^
Can you list examples?
January 1st, 2020 at 11:16 PM ^
Gattis proved to be a quality hire
Really?
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:05 AM ^
Yeah, for people who actually watched the game today, that was pretty obvious.
For trolls, I can see how you would just look at the point total and go "Really?".
January 2nd, 2020 at 10:30 AM ^
If we had an ‘elite’ QB on the roster he would have played this year.
January 2nd, 2020 at 10:41 AM ^
Gattis was not the problem. I saw a QB who could not hit the side of a barn. I saw WRs dropping passes. Play selection (for the most part) was decent. Why they abandoned the run in the beginning of the 2nd half is a mystery - but the plays were fresh. If we had a QB that could hit someone, score would have been different.