Harbaugh vs Bret Bielema

Submitted by Carter the Darter on October 5th, 2019 at 11:04 PM

Beat lesser teams.  Lose to good teams.  Discuss. 

freelion

October 5th, 2019 at 11:07 PM ^

Harbaugh is a great turnaround guy but not a long-term program builder. He undermines himself with unforced errors in coaching hires and strategy. So many bad OC decisions and poor choices for QB. He needs to think long-term instead of patching the QB position with transfers. He stunted the growth of Peters and now McCaffrey and Milton.

MGB

October 5th, 2019 at 11:38 PM ^

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking transfer QB’s. Look at Oklahoma. Look at OSU this year. Unfortunately our transfers haven’t panned out as well as those teams, but I don’t think the strategy of taking transfers is bad at all.

wolve1972

October 6th, 2019 at 8:35 AM ^

Agree and I get a chuckle when I hear about a kid transferring because he ran from better competition that he couldn't beat out. Sometimes it's just about the offensive system you're playing in that you want to get away from. Both Hurts and Fields have exploded in the monster Oklahoma and OSU offensive systems which are different than their previous Bama and Georgia systems. Both are in the top 5 for the Heisman. 

Many are constantly pointing fingers at Shea but maybe, just maybe, his problems are just a result of UM's inefficient offensive strategy. Here's a kid that excelled as an underclassman in the Ole Miss' system but yet has been a somewhat disappointment at Michigan when he should be getting better with time. Hint: the rest of our offense is anemic also. Maybe it isn't the players.

bronxblue

October 6th, 2019 at 9:46 AM ^

I wouldn't say Shea "excelled" as an underclassmen.  He blew out a bunch of bad defenses, had a good game against one decent defense (Vandy, though re-watching that game it was a lot of YAC), and got swamped by a bunch of elite defenses (and don't tell me about Auburn; that was 35-0 or something before he got going).  

This is a flawed team, with a good-but-not-great QB, rolling out their third offensive system in 4 years.  And they just played a top-20 team (both to AP and SP+), with a good offense and defense, and were able to erase them on one side of the field and do enough to win on the latter.  And I re-watched parts of the game and, I'll be honest, Patterson wasn't that bad throwing the ball, at least early on.  He had a number of passes in the first half that were fine and either got dropped (both Black and Bell dropped balls) or good defensive efforts.  He had some bad throws absolutely, but I feel like a lot of the complaints about him at this point are reflexive; if anything goes wrong on a play it immediately becomes his fault, and because we only see about 15 yards past the line of scrimmage everyone just assumes that when he's running around or looks confused it's because he's messing up and not, you know, trying to process a tricky defense and players who may not be running the routes he expected.  Gattis chewed out Black or Collins on one play because he failed to run past the sticks on 3rd down before making his cut; what I saw were a bunch of people commenting that was Patterson's fault for throwing it to him.  That's just confirmation bias in my opinion.

wolve1972

October 6th, 2019 at 12:08 PM ^

Agree, you said it well. Patterson has become the fall guy but it goes far, far deeper and all the way back to the HC - like it or not. I was really skeptical when he hired Gattis who had NO previous offensive coordinator experience - enough said. We have just too much skill and talent to be stuck with a crappy offense like we're seeing.

jnz

October 6th, 2019 at 12:52 AM ^

No he didn't but he has a pretty hot wife. I was living in Madison when he was there. They really didn't care much for him. Three bowl games come to mind and in each one they ran the first half and built up a lead only to come out the second half throwing and list all three. They weren't good at throwing the ball and only made the game play longer and lost all three. He was also a huge party animal.

ldevon1

October 6th, 2019 at 7:57 AM ^

Mods please leave up, so we can neg to Bolivia. Funny how teams we beat suck, but everyone got tons of credit for beating Brady Hoke and RR teams. I'll never understand that. We go 9 - 1 in the B1G it's a down year, anyone else, it's a great achievement. I said it before, I'll say it again, win every remaining game on the schedule by 1, and I'll pee my pants. 

mGrowOld

October 5th, 2019 at 11:28 PM ^

It seems the "who can created the shitiest post" contest is still taking submissions.

Good job OP on not letting all the anti-Gattis and anti-Harbaugh threads win without a fight!

Gucci Mane

October 6th, 2019 at 1:34 AM ^

I just did some research, and accounting for age, I give bielemas wife a 8.6/10 and I give Harbuaghs a 9.1/10. 

But WOW Brett has gotten HUGE! If you haven’t seen him lately google him. He’s at extreme risk for health problems with a body like that.